Logical meaning of the word "understand"

Question

To understand something means to be aquainted with it, to know it very well, know how it "ticks". This is one of the basic words that has a direct "meaning" in mind.

However, if we "dissect" it, is seems like it means to stand under something. Isn't knowing something would logically be called abovestand and not understand, since when you are under something, you are less informed about it then when you are above it.

This may seem senseless to you, but I am sure a native English speaker will get the idea of what I am trying to say. Why under, not above?

Answer 1

It's not "logical". It's metaphorical. Here's the etymology from the OED:

[OE. understondan, -standan (under-1 8 a), = OFris. understonda, MDa. understande, MSw. undi(r)standa, OIcel. (as a foreign word) undirstanda. Cf. MLG. understân to understand, to step under, MDutch onderstaen (Dutch -staan), MHG. understân, -stên (G. unterstehen), to take upon oneself, to venture, presume, etc.

With a different prefix, the same use of stand appears in OE. forstandan, OS. farstandan, OHG. far-, firstantan (firstân), and MHG. verstân, -stên (G. verstehen), MDutch verstaen (Dutch -staan). In the 15th and 16th cents. three forms of the past participle were current, viz. (a) the original understanden (also -stonden), in use till about 1550; (b) the reduced form of this, understande (-stonde), -stand (-stond), common till about 1575, and surviving into the 17th cent.; (c) the new form understanded (-stonded), very common from about 1530 to 1585. The occurrence of understanded in the Thirty-Nine Articles, xxxv, in the phrase `understanded of the people', has given rise to recent echoes of it, especially in journalistic use. The modern form understood came into use in the latter part of the 16th cent., and was usual by 1600. ]

So understand means to stand under (we would now say "stand behind" as a more common idiom), to know well, to have trust in, to have personal confidence in, etc. To say one understands a task, a trade, a fact, an idea, a job, the meaning of a word, or a person means all that. The personal aspect of the word is pre-eminent.

Answer 2

You can't assume a current word superficially constructed from multiple elements which are also current words can necessarily be easily "deconstructed" from current meanings of the components.

From OED, it appears English imported understand wholesale from Middle Dutch onderstaen (to take upon oneself, to venture, presume). But Old English also had the same use of "stand" in forstandan.

From pp 210-214, An Analytic Dictionary of English Etymology, An Introduction (2008):

OE. forstandan, OHG firstantan, firstan 'verstehen' may have meant primarily 'stand before,' and hence 'watch, observe, perceive'. And just as the "stand" component semantically relates to perception, standpoint rather than physical posture, the "under" component is actually more among, within rather than beneath, supporting.

Be warned that if you follow the above link, you're looking at six pages of densely-packed analysis of the etymology of understand; attempts to summarise it here are somewhat futile.

I'm not sure any of this will really help OP. It just serves as a reminder that language evolves - things which look similar today may be unrelated, and things which look dissimilar may have a common origin.

Answer 3

The prefix under in understand does not mean "beneath", but rather appears to be from an unrelated root mean "among". Allow me to quote etymonline.com:

O.E. understandan "comprehend, grasp the idea of," probably lit. "stand in the midst of," from under + standan "to stand" (see stand). If this is the meaning, the under is not the usual word meaning "beneath," but from O.E. under, from PIE *nter- "between, among" (cf. Skt. antar "among, between," L. inter "between, among," Gk. entera "intestines;" see inter-).

That is the suggestion in Barnhart, but other sources regard the "among, between, before, in the presence of" sense of O.E. prefix and preposition under as other meanings of the same word. "Among" seems to be the sense in many O.E. compounds that resemble understand, e.g. underniman "to receive," undersecan "to investigate," underginnan "to begin." It also seems to be the sense still in expressions such as under such circumstances.

Perhaps the ultimate sense is "be close to," cf. Gk. epistamai "I know how, I know," lit. "I stand upon." Similar formations are found in O.Fris. (understonda), M.Dan. (understande), while other Germanic languages use compounds meaning "stand before" (cf. Ger. verstehen, represented in O.E. by forstanden). For this concept, most I.E. languages use figurative extensions of compounds that lit. mean "put together," or "separate," or "take, grasp" (see comprehend). O.E. oferstandan, M.E. overstonden, lit. "over-stand" seem to have been used only in literal senses.

Answer 4

Etymonline presents a plausible explanation:

understand
O.E. understandan "comprehend, grasp the idea of," probably lit. "stand in the midst of," from under + standan "to stand" (see stand). If this is the meaning, the under is not the usual word meaning "beneath," but from O.E. under, from PIE nter- "between, among" (cf. Skt. antar "among, between," L. inter "between, among," Gk. entera "intestines;" see inter-).

It goes on to give a second explanation which ties understand to the current word under:

That is the suggestion in Barnhart, but other sources regard the "among, between, before, in the presence of" sense of O.E. prefix and preposition under as other meanings of the same word. "Among" seems to be the sense in many O.E. compounds that resemble understand, e.g. underniman "to receive," undersecan "to investigate," underginnan "to begin." It also seems to be the sense still in expressions such as under such circumstances.

Perhaps the ultimate sense is "be close to," cf. Gk. epistamai "I know how, I know," lit. "I stand upon." Similar formations are found in O.Fris. (understonda), M.Dan. (understande), while other Germanic languages use compounds meaning "stand before" (cf. Ger. verstehen, represented in O.E. by forstanden). For this concept, most I.E. languages use figurative extensions of compounds that lit. mean "put together," or "separate," or "take, grasp" (see comprehend). O.E. oferstandan, M.E. overstonden, lit. "over-stand" seem to have been used only in literal senses.

Answer 5

According to the extremely useful and interesting Online Etymology Dictionary (www.etymonline.com), understand comes from old English. In those days, under did not mean "beneath", but "among, between", a semantic thread that goes all the way back to the Sanskrit word antar.

But the dictionary also states another hypothesis, which is directly linked to your opinion, but rather inversely (cf. Gk. epistamai): "I stand upon."

It's good to keep in mind that words have old and forgotten ancestors. The link between the new and the old might remain, but most often in an exquisitely convoluted fashion.

Answer 6

You might be getting tripped up by thinking that under means below or beneath. Sure, under *can* mean the opposite of over or above, but there are several other meanings of under as well.

Several words begin with under- (such as undertones, understudy, understate, undertake) - not always implying physical proximity beneath something else.

(See link provided above).

Answer 7

The direct answer to your question is that the meaning of 'understand' is not a composition of its parts, as you have well noticed, and this is a general feature of natural languages that it is not logical or literal. It might start off literally (as in a constructed language) but once a generation has gone by, everything is metaphorical. For example there are similar words 'undertake', 'forget', 'withhold' whose meanings are only tangentially related to their parts.

As to the particular phenomenon of 'understand', etymonline has a speculative derivation where 'under' really comes from the PIE root for 'inter' or between, thus an attempt at preserving some literal connection in the ancient word.

For comparison as to how other languages do it for 'understand', there is quite a bit of illogical non-literal metaphor: 'com-prendre' in French and Spanish (literally 'take with'), 'по-нимать' (Russian - 'takes on'), 'κατα-λαμβάνω' (Greek 'hold down'). Of course all these examples are European so there may be an area influence (Sprachbund). I was unable to confirm examples in Indian or Chinese (most terms in Chinese really are pairs of syllables each with their own stand alone meaning) so often a metaphorical extension occurs anyway.

Answer 8

This Reddit post refers to an explanation in Story of Human Language. Please edit this, if you know at which moment in time or which lecture.

If you like John McWhorter (I do, but I can admit some shortcomings in his conclusions as a result of his enthusiasm), he discusses this in one of his Great Courses lectures, though I forget which one. The conclusion he comes to is that understanding means that you are “standing under/amid the information”, meaning you know it well.