I love the prefixes 'ver-' and 'zer-', how they can be used to add an implication of finality or destruction.
I have noticed that some English words follow the 'ver-' model but it is replaced with 'for-'. Examples are 'forlorn', 'forbidden', 'forboding' and 'forgotten' but I can't find any crossover with 'zer-'.
Examples of either are welcome.
2007-09-12 08:27:48 · 3 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Languages
There is indeed a direct relationship between "ver-" and "for-" . Forbidden and forboding, for example, are both related to verbieten/verboten. And forlorn comes from German verloren. Forget from vergessen. Forsake is a similar example, though it is not directly related to a still existing German work as far as I know. You could compare it with verlassen, though.
In English, the closest thing to "zer-" that we have is probably "de-" (destroy, devestate).
Most of our recognizable German roots were replaced with Latin and Greek, unfortunately.
2007-09-12 09:02:11 · answer #1 · answered by find_mobius 2 · 6⤊ 0⤋
There's an Indo-European root *der- "to split" that might be the origin of zer. An English descendent is "tear".
Good luck.
2007-09-12 09:10:13 · answer #2 · answered by ganesh 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I don´t think so, because that prefix is even missing in Low German, which is closer related to English than High German.
2007-09-12 08:51:06 · answer #3 · answered by otto saxo 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋