E 0329          FEN

The word " fen " is of Germanic origin .

H 1074          ן ו י  

Concept of root : humid earth                    

Hebrew word

pronunciation

English meanings

ן ו י

yawèn

mud, moor

Related English words

 fen, Old English fen(ne)

Comparison between European words and Hebrew

Languages

Words

Pronunciation

English meanings

Similarity in roots

Hebrew

ן ו י

yawèn

 mud, moor

 y . w . n <

*w . n

Old English

fen(ne)

mud, moor

f . n

English

fen

fen

f . n

Dutch

veen ;

ven

vén ;

vèn

moor ;

moorlake

v . n

Old Prussian

pannean

pannean

swamp

p . n .

  Czech

bahno

bāno

 mud

b . hn

Polish

bagno

bagno

swamp, moor

b . g n

 

 

Proto-Semitic *YAWEN < *WAN, *WEN --- *VĀN-, *VĒN- Indo-European

 

 

The obvious similarity and nearly obvious common origin still leaves us some uncertainty about the road of development of the Hebrew root of this entry.

 

Note:
  • Hebrew. The problem is to understand something more about the original root. If today, or better in Biblical times, the root was " Y W N " how was it earlier ? Perhaps "*W W N " with the W having been doubled ? Or directly "*W N " ?. Anyhow " * W . N" was in it .

     

    Possibly related words we find in " ע י ן , ‛ain = spring " and " א ן ך , anakh = pond ". They make it more probable that the combination " Y+W" was more recent , so that the Y has been added to " * W N" and that the original root was just like that, very near the Germanic one .

 

Note:
  • Proto-Semitic .The normally hypothesized root of Proto-Semitic is , "* י ו ן , Y . W . N " that then has continued into Hebrew. That should mean also that the process of changing into a neutral prefix "Y" , after an earlier " W " had been added to the older root "*W . N", had taken place already in Proto-Semitic. Anyhow there probably was this older original root "* ו ן, W N" as well as the intermediate "* ו ו ן , W W N".

 

Note:
  • Germanic. This root was present in Gothic "fani", Old Saxon "feni" and Old Norse "fen", but in modern times only Dutch seems to have maintained it in normal everyday language. The German word "Fehn" exists, but is not even found in standard dictionaries .

     

    Besides this, in Dutch we see two versions of the use of this root. One is " veen , vēn ", with a long vowel Ē , that says " moor " . The other is " ven, vèn ", with the short vowel È, that carries the meaning of "moorlake ".

 

Note:
  • English "fen" is still a name for swampy land, but it seems to be not much used anymore.

 

Note:
  • Proto-Germanic . As in other cases, nearly all Germanic languages feature this root with an initial "F", with the exception of Middle Dutch, Dutch and oddly Middle High German, that all three have an initial "V". Follow a long or short "E" and a second consonant "N". Again Dutch has an extra when it diversifies, as shown above, between "ven = fen" and "veen = moor". Proto-Germanic in all probability has had "*F Ē N".

 

Note:
  • Balto- Slavic. Old Prussian was not a Germanic language, and was spoken by people of the Balto-Slavic group. When their land was conquered by the German knights, these kept the name of Prussia that became nearly a synonym of Germany and was used to define main characteristics of that nation. Eighthundred years later ancient Prussia became Balto-Slavic again. It is now mostly part of Poland, Lithuania and even Russia .

     

    In the table we see also modern Slavic words that are related to the root of this entry, each concentrating on one of its basic meanings around humid earth .

 

Note:
  • Neo Latin. Spanish and Italian have "fango" for "mud" . This is an old loanword from Germanic, possibly Gothic "fani", though it has not been explained why the G was introduced. This G, or earlier H, is also seen in Polish and Czech, be it at the other side of "the N", before and not after it.

 

Note:
  • Indo-European. The initial consonant may have been a "B/V", the second consonant " N " and the inbetween vowel "A" or "E": "*V Ē N-".

     

    Some more words have been proposed as cognates, but semantically they do not seem to qualify: Old Indian "panka = mud, mire", and Middle Irish "an < *pan = water".

 

 

 

 
"...the town, to which was given the name Babel, because it was there that the Lord confused the language of all the world on the face of which He dispersed them. GENESIS 11,9"
 
Created: Tuesday 6 November 2007 at 22.30.54 Updated: 18/12/2012 at 17.59.33