Talk:Pfingsten

Comparison to Whitsun

How did a word like this come from Pentecoste? Also, this seems much more likely to be related in some way to the English word Whitsun, which i believe at sometime became a folk etymology for white sunday, possibly even in Old English, and was interpreted and spelled like this, in a similar way to the development of wormwood. Some arguments that support this are the fact that sun is not a usual form of sunday occuring in a word, and that there is not a very good argument in favor of white being associated with Pentecost, but rather red or green. The word pfingsten is also much closer in pronunciation to whitsun (when said with the original hw- sound) than to pentecost itself. The word whitsunday was often used when comparing these words, but i believe this has confused matters, and the comparison i feel should be to whitsun, which is probably the more original form. Discussion/debate is welcome. 207.118.186.165 04:17, 20 November 2015 (UTC) Also, compare German Pfingsttag (Whitsday). Now that i thought of the German combining word Pfingst, this can be compared to a whit/whits, as this is a combining form in English also, as in Whit(s)monday (Pfingstmontag), etc. 207.118.186.165 04:41, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

One further thing to suggest, is that the word could have come from the forerunner of wight, which could refer to a spirit. 207.118.186.165 04:50, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

See w:High German consonant shift for where the "pf" came from. I'm not sure about the "i", but the rest of it is the result of a strong accent on the first syllable, which caused all the vowels after the accent to be lost and all the consonants to get smushed together until they fused: "ntecost" ->"ntcst" -> ncst -> ngst. This is mostly very predictable if you know how German developed, but there's really nothing to connect Whitsun to Pfingsten except the meaning. Chuck Entz (talk) 05:48, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

As per Duden, the standard German etymological dictionary: Gothic paíntēkustē derives from Greek pentēkostḗ (hēméra); for the initial consonant, cf. English pepper - German pfeffer (initial position of Germanic p-, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_German_consonant_shift).FrankieItalo (talk) 01:17, 2 April 2018 (UTC)