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The word ''witch'' derives from the Old English nouns ''wicca'' "sorcerer, male witch" and ''wicce'' "sorceress, female witch". The word's further origins in Proto-Germanic and Proto-Indo-European are unclear. ==Germanic etymology== The Old English verb ''wiccian'' has a cognate in Middle Low German ''wicken'' (attested from the 13th century, besides ''wichelen'' "to bewitch"). The further etymology of this word is problematic. It has no clear cognates in Germanic outside of English and Low German, and there are numerous possibilities for the Indo-European root from which it may have been derived. *The OED states that the noun is "apparently" deverbal (derived from ''wiccian''), but for the verb merely states that it is "of obscure origin". *Grimm, ''Deutsches Wörterbuch'' connects the "Ingvaeonic word" '' *wikkōn'' with Gothic ''weihs'' "sacred" (Proto-Indo European (PIE) '' *weik-'' "to separate, to divide", probably via early Germanic practices of cleromancy such as those reported by Tacitus,〔Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde IV, p. 506.〕 〔Grimm's view is repeated by the Online Etymology Dictionary: "possible connection to Gothic ''weihs'' "holy" and Germanic ''weihan'' "consecrate," s, "the priests of a suppressed religion naturally become magicians to its successors or opponents."〕 *Grimm also considers '' *weik-'' "to curve, bend" (which became ''wicken'' "hop, dance") and '' *weg'h-'' "to move" (in a sense of "to make mysterious gestures"). *R. Lühr〔R. Lühr, ''Expressivität und Lautgesetz im Germanischen'', Heidelberg (1988), p. 354〕 connects ''wigol'' "prophetic, mantic", ''wīglian'' "to practice divination" (Middle Low German ''wichelen'' "bewitch", ''wicker'' "soothsayer") and suggests Proto-Germanic '' *wigōn'', geminated (c.f. Kluge's law) to '' *wikkōn''. The basic form would then be the feminine, ''wicce'' < '' *wikkæ'' < '' *wikkōn'' with palatalization due to the preceding ''i'' and the following '' *æ'' < '' *ōn'' in early Ingvaeonic. The palatal ''-cc-'' in ''wicca'' would then be analogous to the feminine. * *An alternative possibility is to derive the palatal directly from the verb ''wiccian'' < '' *wikkija''.〔OED, s.v. ''witch''〕 Lühr conversely favours derivation of this verb from the noun. *The American Heritage Dictionary connects PIE '' *weg'-'' "rouse" (English ''wake''), and offers the Proto-Germanic reconstruction *''wikkjaz'' "one who wakes the dead".〔''The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language'' 4th Edition, online (2000): (witch ) and ( *weg- ). Accessed 3 May 2006.〕 Other suggestions for the underlying root are untenable or widely rejected: * Grimm reject a connection with '' *wek-'' "speak", suggested by P. Lessiak (ZfDA 53, 1912). *Walter William Skeat〔''Principles of English Etymology'' (2 series, 1887 and 1891)〕 derived the word from PIE '' *weid-'', Old English ''wita'' "wise man, wizard" and ''witan'' "to know", considering it a corruption of an earlier '' *witga''. No Old English spelling with ''-t-'' is known, and this etymology is not accepted today. *Robert Graves in his 1948 ''The White Goddess'', in discussing the willow which was sacred to the Greek goddess Hecate, connects the word to a root '' *wei-'' which connotes bending or pliance,〔whence English ''weak''; Grimm s.v. ''Weide''〕 by saying: "Its connection with witches is so strong in Northern Europe, that the words 'witch' and 'wicked' are derived from the same ancient word for willow, which also yields 'wicker'." This confounds English and Scandinavian evidence, since the ''weak'' root in English has no connection with willows, and Old Norse has no word for "witch" cognate to the English.〔''wicker'' an East Scandinavian loan, entering the English language in the 14th century. The English cognate of the root yields ''withy'', and the "willow" word in all old Germanic languages has the dental (Old Norse ''víðir''). The ''wicker'' word is in fact from the '' *weik-'' root employed for "hop, dance" etymology considered by Grimm, irrespective of willows. See Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. witch n2, witch, wych n3. (Online edition, accessed 5/9/07)〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Witch (word)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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