E 0237          DARK The word " dark " is of Germanic origin . H 0751            ר ד ק Concept of root : darkness Hebrew word pronunciation English meanings ר ד ק qadar to be(come) dark; turbid Related English words dark Comparison between European words and Hebrew Languages Words Pronunciation English meanings Similarity in roots Hebrew ר ד ק qadar to be(come) dark; turbid q . d . r English dark dark d . r k Old English deorc dark d . r c     Proto-Semitic *QADAR --- *DŪKER Proto-Germanic < DĂR-, *DÈR- Indo-European     This darkness would leave us really in the dark if we would not seek help in the research into ancient Indo-European, the language from which most modern European tongues as well as the Indic, Iranian and some Anatolian languages are the daughters. Everything is inevitably hypothetical, but much of it has a high degree of certainty.   In Indo-European we find a root "*DHER-" that stood for "to make muddy" and "darkness". Our Hebrew root in this entry does exactly the same, with the messages "to be(come) dark" and as well "to be(come) turbid". Both darkness and turbidity or muddyness are typically obstacles to visibility. We prefer a form "*D Ă R-" with a straight consonant " D ". A vowel "È " may as well have been in use.   Our problem is a two-sided one. English in "dark" has added a K-sound at the end, and Hebrew in "qadar" has a K-sound or better Q-sound at the beginning.   No solution but the presumption of a metathesis seems available. Notwithstanding this weakness in comparison, we have left this entry stand. There may be a common origin one way or the other, QDR or DRK, but we see no easy way to define which came first.   Note: English "dregs", a plural of Middle English "dreg", and seen as coming from Old Norse "dregg", stands for the sediment of a liquid and is considered a sisterword of "dark".   Note: Proto-Germanic We find for "dark" Old Norse "døkkr" and further two nasalized versions. One in Old Saxon "dunkar" and another in Old Frankish "duncal". Both find their daughters in modern German (dunkel) and Dutch (donker). To add to the problem, some sustain that German "dunkel" is related to a word "dampf = vapour". Luckily we dare not to agree. The concept of darkness does not come from "mist" , that creates a quite different way of limiting visibility. Fog simply is not dark. &nbsep Old English "deorc", followed by Middle English "derc" and English "dark" may be the result of a metathesis between "R" and "C". The final consonant "L" is seen present together with the final "-R" in Middle Dutch "donker, donkel"and Old High German "tunchar, tunchal", but Old Saxon had only "dunkar". Proto-Germanic must have had the non nasalized and non-metathesized version "*D Ū K e R". The nasalized form "*D Ū NK e R" is so widely present that it must have originated in Proto-Germanic itself, without having continued by all Germanic speaking tribes.   Note: Hebrew. We see only one other root that has some link to "qadar" and to the concepts of darkness and turbidity. This is "ק ט ר, Q TH R, qathar", that deals with smoke and mist. In a form "Q T R" this is found in Akkadian, Ethiopian and Arabic. One must note that the letter Qoph is not commonly used as a prefix. "Qadar" remains rather isolated.   Note: Proto-Semitic is considered to have used the same root, but we have no information from other Semitic languages that would sustain that hypothesis. Perhaps this root also expressed the concept of " to be dirty ", that is present in Arabic "qadhira = was dirty", but that is not certain.