Reviewed by Marc Pierce, University of Texas at Austin

The author of this etymological dictionary of German originally aimed to create a database of approximately 3800 monosyllabic morphemes extracted from previous German etymological dictionaries. However, as his project progressed, Hermann Bluhme discovered that approximately twenty-five percent of the data required new analysis, and the end result is this volume. B begins with a discussion of his rationale for compiling the dictionary, a brief outline of the phonology of Standard German, a list of loan words in German by donor language, a list of native words according to semantic field, and short essays on loan relationships between Germanic and Semitic.

B’s etymological descriptions are concise: included under each headword are the semantic field, related words in the modern language, a list of Germanic and Indo-European cognates, and some Bemerkungen ‘remarks’. For instance, the entry Buch ‘book’ provides the semantic field Kultur ‘culture’; the related word Buchstabe ‘letter of the alphabet’; cognates from Old and Middle High German, Dutch, Greek, and Russian; and a note that, contrary to the traditional etymology, Buch is not necessarily related to Buche ‘beech tree’.

Because of its lists of loan words by language and native words by semantic field, in some respects, this volume is more convenient than standard etymological dictionaries of Modern German, such as Friedrich Kluge’s Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2002). Therefore, those interested in, for instance, Yiddish loan words in German, or native agricultural words, need only consult the relevant section of the list, rather than search through the entire book. However, B’s text should not supplant more standard etymological dictionaries, like Kluge’s, for three major reasons. First, Kluge’s volume offers more detailed etymological discussion than is found here (e.g. Kluge’s discussion of Buch ‘book’ is significantly more thorough than B’s). Second, the loan relationships between Germanic and Semitic should be examined more cautiously than B considers them. Finally, Kluge’s text is significantly less expensive than this book. This volume will therefore be of most use to those interested in convenient lexical lists or loan connections between Germanic and Semitic languages, whereas scholars whose etymological interests are more general will be better served by other texts.