Hello everyone,
and welcome to our German Word of the Day.
And today we’ll answer the question of what is true.
Because today, we’ll look at the family of
wahr
Some of you probably already know it – wahr is the German word for true.
And even with Cirque-du-Soleil-levels of mind contortion, it’s hard to imagine that those two are related.
And yet, they are!!
The origins of “wahr” and “true”
Nah… I’m just kidding.
They’re NOT related.
But there are quite some surprises in the two families, so if you like to bor…. I mean entertain other people at parties with etymological trivia, this is a gold mine.
True is related to the family of trust and the German trauen and they all go back to the low-key ancient Indo-European root deru– which was about the idea of hard, firm. That’s also where the word tree comes from, by the way. And also Druid, who is someone who gets wisdom and truth from trees… like… a “tree-wit”, if you will ;).
Anyway, the German wahr of course also comes from good old Indo-European but the origin is the root *u̯ēr-, which was about the idea of trust, believe. This root is also the origin of the Slavic words for trusting and believing, like for example the Bulgarian words вярвам (“vjarvam” – to believe) and доверявам (“doverjavam” – to trust).
I find it interesting that the sense of truth grew out from the idea of believing. Kind of fits well in our current times and will even more so in the coming years with all the AI generated pictures and videos. The trend will be that wahr is based on what people BELIEVE to be wahr.
Language is a great example for how these dynamics can change society. Like… you can have the believe that Tisch is in reality das Tisch and calling it der Tisch is because of communism, or the deep state, or patriarchy or whatever you like. And everyone will tell you that it’s not true that it’s das Tisch, BUT if enough people join, then at some point das Tisch will be normalized and maybe even become the norm.
But I digress.
The Latin branch of the family of *uer- with the word verus (true) at the core brought us words like verify or verdict, which is literally “true-speak”.
But the most surprising English relative of all of them is probably very.
Yup… very literally means “truly“.
And if you think about it… it actually kind of looks similar to wahr.
But anyway, enough with the origins – let’s look at wahr in practice.
“wahr” and its Family
If you want to stop hitting the wall in German – Join as a member!
As a member, you can study as much as you want and find lots of information you won’t find anywhere else. Not in class, not in a textbook and not Duolingo or Youtube.
You’ll also get pdf-download, progress tracking, note taking, comment notifications and all practice tools.
Already a member?
Log in here:
German Scrabble doesn’t look any different. (not differently). Differently would modify the verb, “different” modifies the appearance (noun).
Fixed, thanks!
Du bist wahrlich der beste Lehrer auf der Welt. Das ist die reine Wahrheit…Ich hab doch keine Absicht, dir mit schönen Worten zu schmeicheln, Lieber Emanuel:) klingt das authentisches Deutsch?
Der zweite Teil mit schmeicheln und so klingt ein bisschen abgehoben. Und das “doch” lieber raus.
A truly interesting read!
For this example:
“Maria said that I have gained weight. The brazenness!”
First quick thing: “I have” should be “I’ve”. I can’t imagine a native speaker not contracting this.
But the main juicy nugget is:
Brazenness doesn’t feel natural to me. I would translate Frechheit as “cheek”, and in this case would say, “The cheek!”
IRL I would also use these variations:
– The cheek of it!
– The absolute/utter cheek (of it)! (for extra emphasis!)
– What a(n) (absolute/utter) cheek!
And I imagine it’s a regional thing but “brass neck” gets used for this kind of thing as well. Example:
“Not only did Maria tell me I’d gained weight, but she had the brass neck to do it whilst stuffing her face with chocolate cake like Bruce Bogtrotter.”
I have absolutely no clue where brass neck comes from. But a person could also be described as “brassy” and I would interpret that as being a bit ballsy/cocky/abrasively overconfident. Others might interpret it differently I don’t know.
Interesting, I have never heard cheek in this sense. I’ll add it but I’ll leave “brazenness” too, because for non-native speakers of English who read this, “cheek” might be confusing.
You probably mentioned that in a comment already at some point, but what part of the English speaking world are you from? Like… is cheek maybe Bri’ish? Doesn’t sound like it to me, but I find it weird that I have never heard it in a decade of Youtube.
yay it’s actually fascinating how deeply modern languages connected via previously existed Indo-European; wahrscheinlich can be transalted to Russian super accurately as вероятно, which shares a root with верный whar and so on; love this etymology stuff; danke :)
Thank you for this post and Thank you for the free subscription. I really appreciate it and I promise when i start working I will pay this back to help other people use the website.
Hello to Emanuel and anyone reading this comment.
I gotta thank the anonymous ones who sponsored me and I want you to know that this means a world to me. best wishes to you X
Thank you Senior Members for sponsoring my learning, great appreciation :-)
Great lesson. I always learn so much from them.
Hi guys, thank you to the kind strangers who sponsored my membership :)
This made me laugh so much: “Falls Sie sich fragen… Deutsches Scrabble hat ein sechs Fuß langes Brett und Sie verwenden 42 Buchstaben gleichzeitig.”
It’s funny cause it’s true!
Have I ever mentioned that my mom actually has German Scrabble? It’s a real thing, and at least our version has the same sized board as the English original. :)
I thought “stimmt” was the german word for truth. (in reading about the german language I always saw that). But after I looked it up I found that stimmt means “is correct”. So I learned something new today.
Thanks.
But keep using it for “That’s true.” – it’s the more idiomatic choice :)
Too warm to ski and to rainy to hang out… the whole weekend…
but Wahrscheinlichkeitsdichtefunktion made my day
Thank you
My two cents: in Italian you can translate wahrscheinlich as verosimilmente which literally means something like true-seemingly
Never heard that one, but it seems to be the counterpart of “vraisamblable” which a commenter from France mentioned.
Somehow, “verosimilmente” looks and feels kind of clunky for Italian.
…and verisimilitude in English, which has a pretty strong whiff of Latin about it. (And no, you wouldn’t be likely to drop that into many casual conversations.)
Spelling bee material.
Ah yes, I read that comment
Hahaha, why clunky?
That’s a thing you can do in German but not in Italian. Verosimilmente is an adverb and verosimile is the adjective
I don’t know… it feels like bending into a prezel, but as a word.
And Verosimilmente truthfully seems like English via Latin verisimilitude.
Yay, I aced the quiz today! But my head almost exploded with the second question… :D
Hah, mine did too when I tried to come up with it :). Glückwunsch für 100%!!
Hallo lieber Emmanuel ,
Vielen Dank für diesen schönen Artikel .
Ich möchte etwas dazu hinzufügen . Das Wort ” Wahrscheinlichkeit ” kommt aus Latein . Ausserdem sagt man auf Französich ” vraisemblable”, also wahrscheinlich. Letztere ist aus Latein übersetz.
Ich habe eine grammtikale Frage . Ist es sehr umgänglich die subtanzivierte adjecktive im Deutsch, wie in diese Redewendung
” Nur Bares ist Wahres .” benutzen ?
Im Voraus, herzlichen Dank.
Oh, du meinst “wahrscheinlich” ist eine der vielen “wörtlichen” Übersetzungen. Ja, das kann sein.
Und ja, wir benutzen diese Adjektivnomen ziemlich oft :)
Hello,
The truth this time is that straightforward is a single word :)
Thanks for yet another very useful article!
Bis bald
Ugh… for like the 50th time I make this mistake!!
Maybe next time just write that I made THE mistake… maybe I’ll remember then and that’ll then carry over to when I actually type it :).
“unicorns are viscous carnivores and a bane for any forest.”
Dear Emanuel, if they were really that viscous, they would be herbivores, since plants don’t move, and animals could run to escape the “viscous” unicorns.
viscous = zähflüssig.
Sie sind bösartig = vicious.
Vielen Dank wie immer für deine wunderbaren Artikel…. Entschuldige, dass ich dich von Zeit zu Zeit aufziehe, aber ich weiß, dass du einen großartigen Sinn für Humor hast!
ok and now a well-intentioned comment: “bane” is so 19th-century. It survives in English (in Canada at least) mostly in the phrase “X is the bane OF Y”. The cliche version is “he is the bane of my existence”, usually said by a Maria of a Thomas.
However, a modern Maria is more likely to say that Thomas is a pain in the ass, than the bane of her existence. Although when Maria gets together with some society ladies for tea and biscuits at the University Women’s Club Senior Common Room, she might say that Thomas is the bane of her existence, to avoid having one of the society ladies embarrass herself by spitting out her tea if she said “pain in the ass”.
“bane FOR” is unusual, it would be more idiomatic to say bane of any forest, as in “mosquitoes are the bane of northern Canadian camping trips”. (or black flies, or horse flies–we have lots of “banes” in Canada but we rarely call them that.)
Perhaps Emanuel is already aware that “bane” is not exactly everyday english ??It’s quiet common for writers to use words like this for comic effect and so “bane” makes stylistic sense. I found it funny and was impressed by its use rather than thinking it was a misunderstanding of the tone of the word. It works perfectly in this sentence in my opinion. I think the likelihood is someone using the word seriously these days is less likely than using it comically…
I agree with you on “of” being preferable to “for” however.
And well spotted with viscous, i didn’t spot that. Viscous unicorns – quiet an idea – not sure if i could even imagine that…
“Viscous unicorns”… basically the T-1000 but as a unicorn. Truly scary. I hope they never unlock that branch of their skill tree. They’d be OP then.
But for now they’re busy skilling on stuff like extortion and gambling.
Quite vs quiet! They are not synonyms. Tsk, tsk, tsk.
Ooouhhhh, shots fired :D!
Haha, I’m aware of the archaic tone, epic of “bane”, but I thought it fits the context well.
Like… you wouldn’t really describe the unicorns as “pain in the ass” for the forest.
I think what makes the sentence sound weird is mainly the “any”. If I had said “the bane of the magical forest” it would have stood out less.
Nice catch on “viscous”. I think I have made this mistake several times already and I just can’t get it to … stick :).
Vicious/viscous is a pretty common mistake for native speakers too. I think a lot of people are going for “viscious” (like “luscious”) and it turns into thick liquid.
Einmal hat Jack Nicholson durch riesige ultraweiße Zähne gebrüllt, “You can’t handle the truth!”
Stimmt noch – aber was hat er wirklich gemeint und wie soll man das dann übersetzen?
Du/Sie/Ihr könnt die Wahrheit nicht verkraften/(v)ertragen/bewältigen?
Eher unwahrscheinlich hat Mark Twain vor 100 Jahren geschrieben: “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
Wahrhaft dat, Bru
Das wurde mit “vertragen” übersetzt:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_LfaoMZm1E
Cool…danke
Was meinst du eigentlich mit “Wahrhaft dat”?
“Dat (would) be ‘Wahrhaft’, bruh…”
(“Dat” == “that”, and you’ll also bump into “dem” == “them/those”, and doubtless you already have “deez” == “these” on board.)
But what’s “wahrhaft” supposed to mean here?
Aah, hmm, das habe ich nicht bemerkt. Ich schätze, dass “wahr” oder “stimmt” anstelle von “wahrhaft” hätte verwendet werden müssen, nicht wahr? ;-)
((‘hätte verwendet werden müssen’: I kinda like that big ol’ lump’o’verbs, in a perverse kind of way. Expanding out why it is what it is (passive, K2, Nebensatz, …), and why everything appears in that order would be quite a fun thing to write, methinks.))
“So, do you have a kink.”
“Yeah… big lumps of verbs at the rear.”
(from my upcoming book “date ideas”)
Yes, “wahrhaft” means “truly” and ONLY “truly”.
File under Minaj à trois.
Alternatively…
(Ich mag…) große Verbenklumpen
und ich kann nicht lügen
true dat (true that)
That’s what I thought, but “wahrhaft” absolutely does not work there.
“Wahrscheinlichkeitsdichtefunktion” ist ein echt schönes Wort. :)
Peak poetry!
Stepping on Elsa’s role again, but the translation on the Warum ist Thomas so sauer? example is off.
In older English, you have the word verily that’s a pretty exact equivalent to wahrlich. I’m not sure you’d use that even ironically nowadays, but you might say something is “a veritable xyz” with the same kind of meaning and tone.
It’s interesting to compare some of the etymological stuff around “truth” vocabulary. In (at least Biblical) Hebrew, the root אמן ‘-m-n covers a lot of that – it’s where the word amen comes from. Etymologically it’s about firmness, certainty, reliability, and the verb for “believe” or “trust” is a causative form of that root, “to make/consider certain/firm.” Even the word that means “thus” (it’s the normal way to say “yes” in modern Hebrew) looks to be related to another word family that has to do with being founded, set in place.
In New Testament (Koine or Hellenistic Common) Greek, “true” is ἀληθός alethos (I think that word family is still the basic vocab for “truth” in modern Greek), apparently meaning etymologically “not concealed,” so that speaking “truthfully” meant speaking with what English historically called candor, openness and sincerity.
I just find sort of the imagination behind concepts like truth a really interesting part of language study.
Me too!!
At some point, people started developing the “concept” if “true” and it’s interesting what “field” they based it on.
I’d love if someone from China or Japan or a country in Africa could chime in and share a bit about how it is in their languages.
Ok I’m not actually from China (i.e. it is not true that I’m from China!) but let me get the fun started. True in the sense of real, genuine (the opposite of false) is 真 (zhen1) – Chinese-German dictionaries indeed translate it as wahr, wirklich, echt. In ancient Chinese the term harks back to something that is true to its nature (i,e, like pure gold) or something that is not an illusion (i.e. an absolute reality or in fact the original nature of humans). The written character itself has within it a component that means “seashell” (貝）which recalls the original meaning of the symbol: precious, valuable. So the etymological journey is that the most precious thing you have is the essential nature of a thing, i.e. the truth about it.
Wow, that’s awesome!! Thank you for chiming in!
Did you use much etymology back when you were learning Chinese?
(For all others: daschles is the author of the first episode of “Your Stories” from a week ago)
Alas no. Unlike German, which can be fun from day one, Chinese is all about delayed gratification- there’s such an incredible mountain of stuff to try to get your mind around at the beginning that fun stuff like etymology gets pushed aside. At least when I was beginning.
Navajo is an interesting one. The word for “truth” has two parts:
t’áá: a particle that can mean “just, only, sort of, quite” or is left untranslated. ‘ is a glottal stop and the accents are a high tone.
‘aaníí: a form of a verb root that means “to be true.” The etymology is unclear. It could come from roots meaning (1) to want, love, have in mind; (2) to say; (3) to be new, fresh; (4) to be joyful; (5) to be the solution for. Navajo doesn’t have tenses, except for the future, but this would be equivalent to the third person present tense in English (it is true).
It’s also part of the word for “law” (beehaz’áanii), which means something fundamental and absolute that has existed since the beginning of time. It’s considered the source of a healthy and meaningful life.
Wow, I was just thinking this morning that I need to look up this word (so I can play 2 truths and a lie), and here is the article I need! Are you reading my mind now? Can you please do your next article on … well, you already know. …
A quick question on ‘probably’ – in English we can use probably on its own (as an adverb i guess), but also as with an adjective, and some in particular are: ‘That is probably true’, and ‘That is probably false’. I’m guessing that wahrscheinlich doesn’t really work in that context. That is, we can say:
Das ist wahrscheinlich/unwahrscheinlich.
Oder: Das ist (un)wahrscheinlich teuer.
But we cannot say: Das ist wahrscheinlich unwahr. ??
Also, one of your examples is: Das wahr unwahrscheinlich teuer.
Should that be ‘war’? Or have I missed something. (To my ears war and wahr sound the same anyway!).
And as a maths geek, I love talking about probability density functions! Can’t wait for your full series on calculus.
Great questions!
You said in your comment that probably is used like an adjective but then you gave two examples for it used as an adverb.
The adjective use looks like this:
This means:
And here, we have “probable” as an adjective.
The closest translation to “This is probably true” is
And of course you can also say
But the more common option people would say is this:
And yes, “war” and “wahr” sound the same to me too :)