Reconstruction:Proto-West Germanic/halh

This Proto-West Germanic entry contains reconstructed terms and roots. As such, the term(s) in this entry are not directly attested, but are hypothesized to have existed based on comparative evidence.

Proto-West Germanic

Etymology

Probably inherited from Proto-Germanic *halhaz, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱólkos, from *ḱel-.

Noun

*halh m

1. (Anglo-Frisian Germanic) a depression or elevation, an area of land that differs in elevation from what it surrounds.

Inflection

Masculine a-stem
	Singular
Nominative	*halh
Genitive	*halhas
	Singular	Plural
Nominative	*halh	*halhō, *halhōs
Accusative	*halh	*halhā
Genitive	*halhas	*halhō
Dative	*halhē	*halhum
Instrumental	*halhu	*halhum

Derived terms

• *halhuk

Descendants

• Old English: healh, halh
  • ⇒ Middle English: hale, hal (from dative hēale, but with short vowel of the nominative levelled in)
    • English: hale (dialectal)
  • Northern Middle English: *halgh, *halch (attested in placenames)
    • English: haugh
    • Scots: hauch, haugh
• Old Frisian: *halch
  • North Frisian:

    Hallig: *håolig (in Håolige-weerw, Håolige-leeg)

    • → Middle Low German: hallig, hallich, halg, halch
      • German Low German: Hallig
      • → German: Hallig
        • → English: Hallig
        • → West Frisian: hallich
      • → North Frisian: hallig, hallich (all dialects)

References

• Stiles, Patrick V. (1997) “OE halh "slightly raised ground isolated by marsh"”, in Alexander Rumble, A. D. Mills, editors, Names, places and people : an onomastic miscellany in memory of John McNeal Dodgson, Stamford: Paul Watkins, →ISBN, →OCLC, pages 330–344