E 0911          THING, ĐING, GEDINGE

English " thing ", as Old English " đing " and " gedinge " are of Germanic origin.

H 0342            ן י ד

Concept of root : application of law

Hebrew word

pronunciation

English meanings

ן י ד

din;

dayan

lawsuit, law, sentence;

judge

Related English words

thing  Old English : gedinge

Comparison between European words and Hebrew

Languages

Words

Pronunciation

English meanings

Similarity in roots

Hebrew

ן י ד

din;  

-  

dayan 

lawsuit, law, sentence;

judge

d y n

English

thing

thing

th i ng

Old English

đing ; gedinge

thing ;meeting, agreement

d i ng

Dutch and Middle Dutch

geding

gheding

lawsuit

d i ng

Old High German

gidingi

gidingi

lawsuit, agreement, advocacy

d i ng

German

Ding

ding

thing

d i ng

 

 

Proto-Semitic *DĬN --- *DĬNG- Proto-Germanic

 

 

The similarity between Hebrew and Germanic seems rather clear. The difference in sound is that Germanic has gutturized the N into NG.

 

Yet there are many problems about the duality of words for " things " and " lawsuit" that seem to be based on one root in various Germanic languages.

 

Note:
  • Hebrew. This root gives us a clear example of that particular kind of development one may see around the Hebrew letter Waw. "DIN" has a predecessor "DON", spelled " ד ו ן". The middle letter is the Waw, very simple in shape, but expressing a group of sounds, vowels and consonants, that live complicated adventures. The letter could be pronounced either as the consonant W or as a vowel O. Changing from "Waw" into "Yod", as has happened here, there are again two, now new, possibilities.The Yod is pronounced as the consonant Y ( as in English you) or as the vowel I.

     

    An internationally well-known Hebrew surname is Dayan. Here the Yod of our same root is pronounced as Y, and two vowels A help the formation of the word.

 

Note:
  • Hebrew, notwithstanding the obvious similarity in this entry, does not offer us any clear link between "thing" and "lawsuit". If the general reasoning about these two, "thing" and "lawsuit", is right, this does not at all cast doubt on our supposed similarity. The difference remains that Hebrew has reserved the root "din" for the realms of "lawsuit". But it has done other strange things, like using one and the same root, " D B R" for "thing" and "word". There we are still in a connection between discussions and objects, like in Germanic. Really, also the word "dingen" in Dutch stands for some "discussions, negotiations" outside any court of law. And a Dutch "mededinger" is a "competitor". "Dingen" for the hand of his beloved is what a man does when he wants to marry her.

 

Note:
  • Proto-Semitic. The root of this entry is present in Aramaic "ד י ן, din = to judge, judgment", Syriac "ד ו ן, dun = to judge" . Also later Aramaic and Syriac "ד י ן א , din'à = judgment". Ugaritic uses this root for "to judge". Ethiopian "dain", Akkadian "dēnū" and Arabic "dayn, dī" all mean "judgment". In all probability this root existed in Proto-Semitic, as "*ד ו ן, D W N" but also already as "*ד י ן , D Y N".

 

Note:
  • Germanic. There is a perhaps complete "communis opinio" among scholars that the word "thing" in English, together with its sisters in German and Dutch (ding) and in Scandinavian (ting) comes from the world of lawsuits. And that meaning of lawsuit then goes back to the word for "court of justice" and earlier "council" of the tribe or people. That counsel in many instances functioned also as court of justice.

     

    In fact we see in Scandinavian still the word "folketing" for "national assembly". What remains unclear is how a "lawsuit" came to mean a "thing". And even less we see the development from "council of the people" to "thing". Here a fortuity can not be excluded . One asks what was the word for "thing" before there were any lawsuits ? And having a common word for "thing" was certainly a very early linguistic necessity among people.

 

Note:
  • Modern Germanic and English have "geding" in Dutch for "lawsuit". Scandinavian "ting" is : in Norwegian and Danish "council" or " court"; in Swedish "council" or "courtsession". But a "thing" is also a " ting " , as pointed out before. A clear link to the thesis of the previous note. But in modern English nothing is present about lawsuits and the thing is concentrated on "thing", as it says. Old English had more diversified meanings than modern language .

 

Note:
  • Dutch. A lawsuit in Dutch is called a "geding", a "rechtsgeding" (ding of law), but also a "rechtszaak". And a "zaak" is of the same origin as English "sake". It sisters are found also in German (Sache) and Scandinavian (sag, sak). Its meaning, not in English but in all the others is about identical to that of English "thing". But in Scandinavia, Gemany and Holland it also stands for "lawsuit". Thus we find in the Germanic territory two words meaning "thing" that are both also used for "lawsuit".

 

Note:
  • Proto-Germanic. The problem concerning the two meanings that are "council court, lawsuit" and "thing, object, sake" remains unsolved. Also in Proto-Germanic the two concepts may have been expressed by identical words. In nearly all languages, with the exception of modern Scandinavian languages that have "ting", the first consonant is "D" or a variation of "D", like "TH", also spelled "þ (like TH in thin)". The vowel is " Ĭ " . The following consonant is a nasalized "N", spelled as common in English "NG". Proto-Germanic probably had "*D Ĭ NG.

 

Note:
  • Sake. The root that is present in English "sake", in several languages adds a third meaning to those of "thing" and "lawsuit" : in English "cause". This last meaning in modern language is expressed with a prefix, like in German "Ursache" Dutch "oorzaak" and Scandinavian "orsak". These prefixes indicate an origin, and in all probability are akin to that English word. English "origin" may be related to Hebrew "or" for "light" and to "orient" for "east". But anyhow now we can see a link in reasoning versus neo-Latin, where in Italian "causa" is "lawsuit" as well as "cause", in more senses. We fear we have not resolved the problem, but we have seen several interesting facts.

 

Note:
  • Indo-European. Outside Germanic we have no convincing information about possible cognates in other languages of the Indo-European group.

 

 

 

 

 
Created: Tuesday 6 November 2007 at 22.30.54 Updated: 17/10/2012 at 17.22.12