No speculations to add to my report of the content of Sweet's anglo-saxon
Primer, Marco. Suggest you get a copy it it interests you. And best not to
go droping your dipthongs - or looking for matches to latin ways of dividing
the world.
- just one thing: that there *shouldn't* be a double presence of the past is
my reason for *exluding* the past-tense connotation of 'ge' in this context
in favour of the action connotations. Hope that's clearer.
Anyway - we both await the intervention of one who knows, in conjoined
appreciation of our ignorance.
Yours,
Beowulf.
> From: "Marco" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Date: Mon, 9 Apr 2001 22:59:07 +0200
> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: MD Gewaereness
>
> Marco To Elephant
>
>> Is it me or is this speculation about the etymological relation of the
> anglo
>> saxon "geware" to the modern word "aware" somewhat besides the point?
>>
>
> Of course. Hope you forgive me, I was clearly playing with words. I like
> etymology, but I've no formal training on it, and especially Anglo-Saxon
> terms are not such "mine" as Latin and Greek. And further, the only
> book supporting me is that "defective dictionary" you already know....
> :-)
>
> Anyway, many thanks for the short lesson. While waiting for a Saxon
> etymology professor, hope you will like this diveRTissement ...
>
> The point is: you hold that "ge-waer" is "ge" + "were" (preterit of "to
> be"). I agree and thank you for the "ge-", but I need more about "to
> be". Actually you also have found problems with a double presence of the
> past, both in ge- and in were....
>
> You did not consider the term "wary". Be-ware is IMO the present form,
> and Ge-ware is the past for of the action of making someone "wary", that
> is "careful".
>
> You have offered 4 different possibilities for the ge- prefix:
>
> 1.performance of an action,
> 2.attainment of a result by an action,
> 3.completion of an action (familiar in German past participles)
> 4. together [with].
>
> Actually, it seems to me exactly the German version of the Latin prefix
> con-.... anyway, if gewaer is ge-wary, ge- can be quietly considered in
> any of the 4 points, just like the Latin "con-scious" is "WithScience",
> as science has been attained after the completion of the action of
> knowing....
>
>
> Anyway, I don't want to rule "to be" out. Let me know if your book says
> something about the current term "wary"... we should discover if "wary"
> and "war" and "were" are related or not.....
>
> thanks,
> Marco
>
>> p.s. If you want to see someone take the pith out of
>> etymology-as-a-route-to-philosophical-understanding with *style*, I'd
>> recommend Plato's Cratylus.
>
> It is on my list. I've just read the Phaedrus and it was funny.
>
> ooopsss
>
> I've just received a private post from an old German lurking friend:
> JoVo. He seems to support my first post.... Danke JoVo, you made my day!
>
>
> =====================
>
>> From JoVo
> To Marco
>
>
> Hi Marco,
>
> I've been following this thread with great interest lateley. Allow me to
> give a comment on your considerations about the ethymological origin of
> some of the named words.
>
> I did not know about 'gewaer' to be an old 'almost'-synonym of 'aware'.
> That is quite interesting, because there exists an old verb in German,
> which is almost out of use - I myself use it also seldom - that seems to
> match almost perfectly (supposingly) the meaning of 'gewaer'; it is
> 'vergewaertigen' or also 'gewaertigen'. Note the resemblance concerning
> it's spelling. Just to make it more obvious I cut the second half of it,
> making by this some sort of adjective out of it.
> It is 'gewaer' in english and
> 'gewaer' in german
>
> (besides we use instead of 'ae' always the german 'Umlaute', that are
> 'a','o','u' with a double spot above them, but that is secondary,
> because it makes no difference for it's pronouncation)
>
> 'vergewaertigen' means to make oneself conscious of a certain fact or a
> certain situation or simply to make something clear to oneself;
> gewaertigen is synonymous only it is a short form. As mentioned above
> these words are almost out of use in nowadays everyday-german and one
> can use instead of it without great loss of meaning 'sich bewusst
> machen', 'sich bewußt werden', which in turn means 'to make yourself
> getting concious of', 'to get concious of'; and also is the noun
> 'Bewusstsein' equivalent to 'consciousness'.
> We have no equivalent term for 'awareness', but I guess 'aware' is best
> translated into 'gewahr', which is nowadays word for what is meant by
> 'gewaer' (see above).
>
> sidenote:'Gewahr' and 'gewaer' resembles very much the german word for
> rifle:= Gewehr. Also 'wahr' is in english 'true'
>
> 'gewaertigen' or even older 'gegenwaertigen' is composed of 'gegen'
> (against) and 'warte' (which means 'lofty viewpoint') and has to be
> considered as a special, exposed viewpoint, e.g. a tower or house, or
> even a tree on a mountain or a hill. Not difficult to see it's origin: a
> special post to observe the sorrounding landscape in effort to discover
> any enemy or army approaching. So it is all very close to what you has
> discovered.
>
> and with a slight change you can make 'Gegenwart' out of 'gegen' and
> 'wart(e)', which is an almost exact translation of 'presence' .....
> ;-)(enough now)
>
> guard is related to 'guerre' french for 'war' which correlates also with
> 'ger', which is a very old german word for 'spear' or 'lancet'; both
> have a 'ger'man origin also.
>
>
> Greetings,
>
> JoVo
>
> ===============
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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