Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site spar.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!ucbvax!decvax!decwrl!spar!ellis
From: ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: True Cognates, False Friends
Message-ID: <402@spar.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 18-Jul-85 03:33:39 EDT
Article-I.D.: spar.402
Posted: Thu Jul 18 03:33:39 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 20-Jul-85 04:48:10 EDT
References: <627@panda.UUCP>
Reply-To: ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis)
Distribution: net
Organization: Schlumberger Palo Alto Research, CA
Lines: 50

>>How about the word gift, which in German means poison.
>
>Even better, in Swedish, "gift" as a noun means "poison," as
>an adjective, "married."

  According to the OED, these words really ARE all cognate:

    AS     gift /yift/ F payment for wife, N pl=giftu wedding
    OFris  jeft F gift
    Dutch  gift F gift, gif(t) N poison
    OHG	   gift F/N gift/poison  => German Gift N poison
    ONorse gi[pf]t F gift, pl=gi[pf]tar wedding
    Goth  -gifts (suffix)

  These derive from Proto-Teutonic *ghiftiz(F), *ghifti(N). 

  There was also another Teutonic word for `gift', deriving from *ghebhO(F):
    
    AS     giefu /yevu/ F (not in Modern English)
    OSaxon geba F => Dutch gev(e)
    OHG    geba F => German Gabe F
    ONorse gjof F
    Goth   giba /giva/ F

  Both are almost certainly related to the verb `give'. English {give,gift}
  display clear Viking influence, otherwise they would begin y- instead of
  g- today.

  `Gift' seems to correspond to `give' as `draft/draught' to `draw', by the
  addition of a dental suffix to a stem at an early stage in proto-
  teutonic. This suffix is probably related to our participial -ed and
  perhaps also to a similar Latin -t-. Note that in this case, we are not
  really dealing with past participles, since {give, draw} have `strong'
  participles {given, drawn}.

  Since there were two words for gift, the stem *ghifti- apparently
  developed wildly specialized meanings {note that draft/draught also has
  many meanings}, distinguished from each other by gender and number:
    
    Feminine: `what one gives upon marriage' => `payment for wife'
    Neuter:   `what one gives to cause sickness/death' => `poison'
    Plural:   `many things given when somebody marries' => `wedding'

  As to the Swedish adjectival meaning `married', it seems likely that this
  is simply a modern past (passive) participle that has come to have the
  meaning `given in marriage'; the Scandinavian languages have generalized
  the old dental suffix -{d,t} to both strong and weak verbs, unlike English
  and German.

-michael