Friday, 19 September 2014

Ursprache

Word of the Day for Friday 19th September 2014


Ursprache \OOR-shprah-khuh; German OOR-shprah-khuh\
Noun
1. A hypothetically reconstructed parent language, as Proto-Germanic, the ancestor of the Germanic languages.
Quotes
He might have been speaking Ursprache, for all that I understood. I was firmly in the present, watching the starlings cavort over and under the telegraph wires and the wind shimmer the young leaves into a muzzy Monet.
-- Will Self, My Idea of Fun, 1993
Origin
Ursprache came to Enlgish in the 20th century from the German prefix ur- meaning "earliest, original" and Sprache meaning "speech."

Thanks to: www.dictionary.com

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