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

(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