Referring to a knight.

[stevesarak]

I’ve been doing some reading on Rome and a lot of times they talk about the knight on horseback. At first I thought it was just a modern translation, but I’ve been hearing “Knightsâ€

[Dan Diffendale]

"Knight" is a common translation of the Latin term eques (plural equites) which at its most basic means simply "horseman," but also refers to a member of the Equestrian order.

Jona has a good article here.

By the way, you're right, the word "knight" itself is a Germanic word, not Romance.

[Uwe Bahr]

Hi Danno and Steve,

to make it yet more complicated: the English word 'knight' is surely derived from the German word 'Knecht' what in German means some kind of retainer or servant, in this case the knight as retainer of his feoffer.

But the German translation of English 'knight' / Latin 'eques' exactly is 'Ritter' what is a derivation of the German word 'Reiter, Berittener' what itself is to translate into English with 'rider'.

I hope I haven't confused You too much, but there are more examples where English terms have their origin in old Germanic expressions while the actual German expression is derived from a Latin word, like this:

English: window
derived from Germanic word: wind ouge (actually Wind Auge = wind eye)
German: Fenster
derived from Latin word: fenestra

Greets - Uwe

[Arthes]

Greetings Uwe,
a lot of the English language, as you probably know, is derived from the Germanic language of the Anglo Saxons...or Old English as they call it over here...with a smattering of Latin, Brythonic, and later Old Norse and Norman French... :wink:
Later on, in the 15th or 16th centuries quite a few peoples such as the Huegonots came to England, bringing thier influences on the language and, of course, you had the Hanoverian kings of England and their retainers....!
(correction: it was the 17th century for the Huegonots)
regards
Arthes

[A_Volpe]

The term Knight as had been mentioned, seems to have originated from Germanic "Knecht", which seems to have appeared in the 1100-1200's era, and originally meant a "Servant", later evoloving to refer to the Mounted, Armored soldier on horse, esspecially with Lance (of course there are variations here...gets complicated)

Later on, in the 1500's we have the Landsknecht or "Land/Foot Soldier/Knight", referring to German [Mercenary] soldiers of that period.

The reference of "knight" to Roman cavalry I think is just poor subsitiution for what a Roman cavarlyman was...If he's on horseback, with armor, and a pointy stick, he's a Knight...Sort of like if it's black, has wings and a beak, it's a Crow.

It's all about the technical details! :twisted:

[Felix]

The significance of "knight" depends on context, but in most books about Rome that I have read, "knight" means a member of the Equestrian order. That group could be considered the "upper middle class" of Roman society, with less wealth than the Senatorial class (which was just discussed elsewhere) or without the familial lineage/political connections. Others can tell you more about the social issues.

I would guess that, in the early days of the Republic, members of this class might have actually served as mounted cavalry in the army (since the early legions were stratified by wealth and equipment which the soldier could afford); but in later times I don't think there was any direct connection between the Equestrian order and Roman cavalry units.

[Thiudareiks Flavius]

to make it yet more complicated: the English word 'knight' is surely derived from the German word 'Knecht' what in German means some kind of retainer or servant, in this case the knight as retainer of his feoffer.

Umm, no. The modern English word 'knight' comes from the Old English 'cniht' which means 'young man, servant' The Old English 'cniht' and the German 'knecht' are related because both languages have a common West Germanic ancestor. But the English word is not derived from or even connected to the German one.

[caiusbeerquitius]

Uwe Bahr wrote:

to make it yet more complicated: the English word 'knight' is surely derived from the German word 'Knecht' what in German means some kind of retainer or servant, in this case the knight as retainer of his feoffer.



Umm, no. The modern English word 'knight' comes from the Old English 'cniht' which means 'young man, servant' The Old English 'cniht' and the German 'knecht' are related because both languages have a common West Germanic ancestor. But the English word is not derived from or even connected to the German one.

I just looked it up in my "Althochdeutsch" Lexikon.
Uwe is right. What you are referring to with "cniht" is simply a different form of writing, not of pronunciation. The words have the same old-high-German root. As modern low-German (e.G. Plattdeutsch) is basically a form of middle-high-German, you still have dialects in northern Germany, which are very close to old english.

If you want to know more, consult:
dtv-Atlas Deutsche Sprache

Seen from a linguistic-scientific standpoint, English is a Germanic dialect, with loads of latinisms.

[Robert Vermaat]

to make it yet more complicated: the English word 'knight' is surely derived from the German word 'Knecht' what in German means some kind of retainer or servant, in this case the knight as retainer of his feoffer.

Umm, no. The modern English word 'knight' comes from the Old English 'cniht' which means 'young man, servant' The Old English 'cniht' and the German 'knecht' are related because both languages have a common West Germanic ancestor. But the English word is not derived from or even connected to the German one.

Uwe and Christian are indeed right. the function is essentially also the same - a retainer. Only one (English) evolution turned the retainer into the armoured warrior, while the other (German) made him into the farmhand.
In fact functions can indeed evolve into higher as well as lower functions after time. IIRC that the person in charge of the stables became the commander of the armies.. or was it the other way around?

[Thiudareiks Flavius]

Uwe Bahr wrote:

to make it yet more complicated: the English word 'knight' is surely derived from the German word 'Knecht' what in German means some kind of retainer or servant, in this case the knight as retainer of his feoffer.



Umm, no. The modern English word 'knight' comes from the Old English 'cniht' which means 'young man, servant' The Old English 'cniht' and the German 'knecht' are related because both languages have a common West Germanic ancestor. But the English word is not derived from or even connected to the German one.

I just looked it up in my "Althochdeutsch" Lexikon.
Uwe is right. What you are referring to with "cniht" is simply a different form of writing, not of pronunciation. The words have the same old-high-German root.

Umm, sorry to be the pedantic linguist about this, but if your dictionary is telling you an English word is derived from an 'Old High German root', then you might want to get a new dictionary. Both Old English and Old High German are West Germanic languages and shared a distant Proto Germanic ancestor, but Old English comes from a different branch of the West Germanic family to Old High German and no Old English word, least of all 'cniht', is derived from an 'Old High German root'. Proto Old English comes from the continental North West Germanic branch of West Germanic and is related to Old High German, but is not derived from it. Proto Old English separated from the rest of the West Germanic branch long before Old High German even came into existence.

The Old High German word and its Modern German words are related to the English one, but only by merit of a common West Germanic and Proto Germanic ancestor word.

I suspect what your dictionary is saying is that the Old English word is a cognate with the Old High German one. That's entirely correct, but a cognate is not a derivation.

Seen from a linguistic-scientific standpoint, English is a Germanic dialect, with loads of latinisms.

Yes, but that doesn't mean Old English was derived from Old High German, just that they shared a common linguistic ancestry.

[caiusbeerquitius]

But the English word is not derived from or even connected to the German one.

So what now?

As far as I can see we talk about dialects of the same language, but any linguist hearing this would climb up the wall probably...
At least this information is enough for me, anything that goes more into depth about exactly when which dialect derived from which other dialect is IMHO "for linguists only".

I just looked it up in my "Althochdeutsch" Lexikon.
Uwe is right. What you are referring to with "cniht" is simply a different form of writing, not of pronunciation. The words have the same old-high-German root.

See this statement in the context of what I just wrote above. You are right about my mistaking of the word 'root' here. Anyway, at the time they had pretty much the same meaning.

Yes, connected, yes, similar meaning. Finish.

As far as I can remember from university the oldest form of german known to us through texts is gothic. Then next there are several texts in old high german. My prof always stated repeatedly, that the forms of reconstructed early dialects (by re-doing the Lautverschiebung etc.) are artificial languages, as we do not REALLY know, whether the reconstructed form is right in every case. So we move in a sea of speculations here, I would assume.