From: Mark Odegard
Message: 1829
Date: 2000-03-10
My dictionary (Webster's New World Dictionary:Third College Edition) states that "king" is derived from a Germanic *kuningaz, analyzed as *kunja (= Eng. kin) + -ing-. *Kunja is said to be ultimately derived from the PIE *gen- (to beget,produce). What is the reason for doubting this? (A recent posting said that there is no explanation for the word "king".)
Both *gen and *wen (using the Pokorny renditions) are suggested as an IE source for the Germanic king-word.*wen is 'god, spirit; vital force'. It's also is something striven for (underlying English 'win'), 'lust'. It's the root for the goddess Venus and the Germanic family of gods, the Vanir. Associating this with our word 'king' may be a mis-reading of the literature on my part.
*gen (g^enh1) underlies all the gen- words (genes, generate, genealogy) and represents the PIE word 'to give birth', 'to beget'. g^enh1es is said to be PIE 'family' (the circumflex should be read as going over the g, in the transcription system of EIEC). If this is indeed the source for 'king', the original sense would have paralleled Latin 'genitor' , approximately 'father'.
A third source is suggested, *ansu, 'god, spirit; vital force'. This is said to show up in Old Norse via nom Ã"ss ('god'), genitive asir, nom. pl. aesir : the gods, the Aesir. D.Q. Adams notes what follows here is quite controversial. C. Watkins is said to see an unattested verb *h2ens 'hold, control; to hold the reins', and apparently (this article, "King", is obscure) this too could also be the source of the Germanic king-word, paralleling semantic developments in Hittite and Tocharian.
From my reading of the literature, most commentators seem to leave the Germanic king-word outside of IE.The wanax-word, attested in Greek and Tocharian, apparently does not show up in Germanic. It may represent a late borrowing.
As I posted earlier, the *reg word does show up genetically in Germanic, but does not give an attested word for 'king'.
Mark.