From: tgpedersen
Message: 28131
Date: 2003-12-08
> At 1:10:18 PM on Saturday, December 6, 2003, S & L wrote:such as Low German, which has supplied many words in the Scandinavian
>
> > Can somebody help me with the standard etymology for
> > PFENNIG [from Middle High German PFENNIC, from Old High
> > German PFENNING] and eventually for the Latin PENA ?
>
> > P.S.
>
> > ". the idea of paying as a penalty, Latin PENA, also gives
> > origin to the Polish word PIENIADZE, Czech PENÍZE, Slovak
> > PENIAZE, and probably to the words PENNY and the German
> > PFENNIG. The general Scandinavian word for "money" evolved
> > from PFENNIG via PENNING, which was the currency in the
> > Scandinavian countries from the X to the XVI Century, to
> > PENGER. The Swedes spell it PENGAR, the Norwegians PENGER
> > and the Danish PENGE. The Latin penalty fee PENA also made
> > it to the Russian language, where it stands for "penalty
> > fe" ". [from
> > http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A873795%5d
>
> This doesn't look right to me. Latin <pena>, from Classical
> <poena>, would have had [e], not the [E] suggested by the
> Germanic words. I don't have access to the 2nd edition of
> the OED at the moment, but the first considers the Germanic
> words to be of unknown origin. The Latin word is from Greek
> <poine:> 'quit-money, fine', from PIE *kWoi-na:-, according
> to Watkins.
>
> In any case the Scandinavian terms certainly aren't from
> German <pfennig>, or even OHG <pfenning>; if they're
> borrowed rather than inherited, the source would appear to
> be OE <pen(n)ing> or the like
>, and definitely not HighDanish 'penge', Norwegian 'penger' and Swedish 'pengar' are plurals,
> German. But the word's fairly old in Scandinavia: Cleasby
> says that ON <penningr> occurs already in the earliest
> extant skaldic verse.
>