I was tempted to look at the best discussions from 2003 (don't be afraid, I also have a life, I was drunk with several friends yesterday, if that is an ok definition of having a life) and saw there had been a discussion about the word "kid". Some guy had thought it strange and funny that the normal slang word for child also was used about a young goat.
But hey, don't these people understand that it is the other way around!? That at some point in history people started calling children "kids" because they were acting just like small goats, jumping and fooling around. When I started learning English and heard of the word "kid" it instantly struck me as very cute to call children "young goats". In the same way a grandmother on Swedish tv called her small grandchild "granny's small pig"!
Huh...I speak English, and I've never made the connection between kid meaning child and kid meaning young goat...I always though they were totally separate words.
Strange! I thought it was obvious! But I will look it up. I did though just think of, that "kid" meaning child may come from the verb "kid", or the other way around. But there has to be some connection when two words describing small, cute, playful creatures are identical (although I know kid can also mean adolescent).
By the way, guess what kid (small goat) is called in Danish?
Kid! So it's probably a word that English got from the Vikings.
I found the etymology, in the Online Etymology Dictionary:
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?l=k&p=1
kid (n.)
c.1200, "the young of a goat," from O.N. kið "young goat," from P.Gmc. *kiðjom (cf. Ger. kitz). Extended meaning of "child" first recorded as slang 1599, established in informal usage by 1840s. Kiddo first recorded 1896. Applied to skillful young thieves and pugilists since at least 1812. Kid stuff "something easy" is from 1923. Kid glove "a glove made of kidskin leather" is from 1687; sense of "characterized by wearing kid gloves," therefore "dainty, delicate" is from 1856.
kid (v.)
"tease playfully" (1839), earlier, in thieves' cant, "to coax, wheedle, hoax" (1811), from kid (n.), via notion of "treat as a child, make a kid of."
So it has only meant child since the 16th century and it did come with the Vikings!
Re: English 'kid' - A relation to German Kind "child" seems more likely even if it is a loan from Old Danish. Ultimately it's all Germanic.
I think it is not very rare to have such shifts of meaning. For example, to my best knowledge, "fee" meant something like "cattle" earlier (cf. German "Vieh", pronounced identically, which still means the same), and because they used to pay with cattle for certain services, it gradually came to mean "payment in exchange of a service". So I'm not surprised at all that a word for "young goat" came to be used for a child.
Hehe, how about calling those hot ladies as "chicks"! =)
Brennus:
I would have thought your theory very likely if the new meaning had originated in America, where a lot of the settlers were German. But as the new meaning is recorded already in 1599 I suppose it's British and German influence in Britain is less likely. (Dutch influence, where "kind" also means child is more likely, but Dutch influence was stronger in the late 17th century than in the 16th.
Dear Fredrik from Norway,
Welcome to the site. I'm new here myself. I like the material you've posted so far and generally have no argument with it.
Re: 'kid' - Here is my take on it: It may have come into England with the Vikings and have derived from a meaning of "young goat" as most dictionaries say but I think that it's hard to tell for sure. The word is first mentioned in 1380. This is well after the Viking period but it was during a time when Hanseatic ships were travelling around the the Baltic and North Seas. Numerous Low German words entered the English language at this time like booty, clump, gang, girl, rover, scurvy and perhaps bum < baum "tree" and yacht < jahtschiff etc. There is a small possibility but still a possibility that "kid" was one of them. Many more Low German words entered the Scandinavian languages (except Icelandic) during this period making modern day Danish, Swedish and Norwegian in effect half-german languages.
In fact, I read about a Norwgian account from 1475 which tells of two Norwegians talking to each other in an inn. One of them toasted the other in Low German. Then the other one said "Stop speaking that gibberish and let's speak in the language of our fathers." A fight ensued and the Norwegian who wanted to speak Norwegian was stabbed to death.
I thought kid was related to the German kinder which means child.
Brennus:
Yes, I agree with you that it is totally possible that the word came with the Hanseatics, although it is a bit strange that the -n disappeared. It might also have been a combination. The English may have learned the word "Kind" from the Germans and equated it with their own "kid" (young goat) and thought; wow, what a fitting name for children!
But the use of the word for young thieves might indicate a origin from young goat, as goats are known for their smartness and boldness.
In purely nationalistic termes I have to protest when you describe Norwegian as "half-German", but in reality it is rather true, just like English is half-French. But do you know that besides heavily Danish and German-influenced Bokmål (Book Tongue) we also have an official form of Norwegian called Nynorsk (New Norwegian), based on the countryside dialects. In Nynorsk borrowed Danish/German words are avoided/forbidden and replaced with more Norwegian words, like they do in Icelandic, just on a smaller scale here.
E.g. kjærlighet (love) contains the Low German suffix -het (-keit in modern High German) and is therefore called kjærleik (-leik being a Norwegian suffix) in Nynorsk. Betale ((to) pay) (German bezahlen) should likewise be avoided in Nynorsk.
The language fight from 1475 that you refer to is sometimes seen as the first (and most bloody) instance of the Norwegian language battle which is still going on (the Minister of Education recently decided that some schools in Oslo were allowed to only teach Bokmål (otherwise pupils must learn both forms) to improve the pupils' Bokmål skills. Naturally Nynorsk people do not like this.