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E 0589 MINNIA
The Old Saxon word " minnia " is of Germanic origin .
H 0622 ן י
מ
Concept of root : love; kind
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Hebrew word
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pronunciation
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English meanings
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ן י מ
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min
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kind, species, gender, sex
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Related English words
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none
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Comparison between European words and Hebrew
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Languages
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Words
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Pronunciation
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English meanings
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Similarity in roots
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Hebrew
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ן י מ
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min
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kind,
species, gender, sex
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m (i) n
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Old Saxon
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minnia
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love
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m (i) n
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Old English
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myne
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love, affection
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m (y) n
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German
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minne
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minne
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love
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m (i) n
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Dutch
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min
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min
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love
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m (i) n
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Middle Dutch
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minne;
mine
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minne;
mine
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love;
kind, character
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m (i) n
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Proto-Semitic *MIN --- *MĬN Proto-Germanic
Not often one finds such a nice similarity. And yet there are some question-marks about a common origin of these Germanic and Hebrew words. The cause lies in the fact that each has also a different meaning and that those two other meanings are also quite different between them.
Note:
- Hebrew "min" basically says "species, kind, gender". The adjective "מ
י
נ
י, "minì" expressly means, today at least, "sexual , venereal" . It must be pointed out that the message of "love", "sex" is found in Modern Hebrew only. They must have been coined on the basis of the classic messages of the root "M.Y.N" that earlier was "M.W.N" or as some would say "M.O.N" .
These were in Biblical times "species, kind" and probably also "gender" as found in medieval texts . The scholars who coined "min" for the modern meanings may have been inspired as well by some practice in European languages.
Note:
- Proto-Semitic. References outside Hebrew are found in Aramaic and Syriac מ י נ
א, min'à = kind, species". There is no reason to suppose that one of these two would have been loaned from Hebrew. Anyway, Proto-Semitic may well have used this root "* מ י ן, M Y N".
Note:
- Greek uses "M . N" to express "memory". According to Greek scholars the verbal forms of "to remember" are structured on two roots : "*μενηι , menèy" in the present tense "μιμνησκω , mimnèsko" and "μνα , mna" in the verb "μναομαι , mnaomai" that is used also for the other tenses of "mimnèsko". This root is certainly of the same origin as our Nordic words "minne" and "minde" of the previous note.
But Greek also uses "M . N" to say "desire, craving, erotic passion". The basic word is "μενος , menos", but that does not serve only the passion of love, but also others passions, courage, vital strength, life, power, violence and…sperma. Too much variety to insert it as such in this entry, but relationship there probably is.
There is even the well-known word "μανια , mania" that covers "madness", "erotic passion" and "enthousiasm". English "maniac" of course comes from there.
Note:
- Dutch. As often we find help, the solution, in Middle Dutch, that seems to be the only Germanic language that uses both meanings . And it does so with two well distinguished words, "mine" for "kind" and "minne" for "love". This is then love of all kinds, practically the way modern English uses this word.
Middle Dutch does not use the word "minne" to say "memory", but only "remembrance". It forces upon us the hypothesis that there has been a development independent from that of "minne" leading to the message in Germanic of "memory" mentioned in the following note.
Note:
- Germanic also has Swedish "minne" that says "memory" and nothing else. The same goes for Norwegian "minne" and Danish "minde". Scholars of German justify this by saying that the meaning "love" has developed out ot that of "memory". But the problem is that "minne" in Middle High German was the specific word for all kinds of "love", also if not especially in the most physical forms. That is a very long step from "memory". Already in Old High German "minna" was not used to express "memory" but only various shades of love and affection. Also Old Saxon "minnia" stood for "love".
Some consider instead the meaning of "love" as the original one for "min". From there one would come to "remember" the loved one who is no more there.
Sometimes two words that are so alike in sound but not in meaning, simply are of different origin. In the end we have here a word with the consonants "M N" and in between an I that may or not be considered as part of the original root. The combination "M N" has had to serve also other messages. We had another look at the message of "memory" in our above Note on Greek.
An important indication for the thesis of two different origins between the words for "memory" and "love" can be found in Old English, that has "myne" for "memory" as well as "love", but "munan" for " to remember, think of", but not for "to love".
Note:
- Proto-Germanic. The Germanic words of this entry are found in only a few, but important languages. There is no indication that is has a different source, so a hypothesis for Proto-Germanic has to be made. This is "*M I N-".
Note:
- Indo-European. The information is mostly limited to Germanic and the indications from Greek are not too specific. Therefore a precise different hypothesis for Indo-European is not feasible.
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| Created: Tuesday 6 November 2007 at 22.30.54 Updated: 11/11/2012 at 11.24.12 |
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