Connection between "tomorrow" and "morning" in many languages

T

Testing1234567

Senior Member
Hong Kong
Cantonese
I have observed that the word for "tomorrow" and the word for "morning" have the same roots in many languages, including English.

Definitions:
  • Tomorrow = the day after today
  • Morning = usually 0600-1200, from sunrise to noon (depends on culture)

English: tomorrow < Old English to morgenne < morġen, morning < Old English morġen. (morġen "morning")
German: morgen, Morgen.
Japanese: 明日（あす、あした）(asu or ashita), 朝（あさ）(asa)
Spanish: mañana, mañana. (< Latin māne "morning")

So, my questions are:
  1. Do you guys have any more examples, better if from other language families?
  2. How can the meanings be linked together?
 
    • Testing1234567 said:
    So, my questions are:
    1. Do you guys have any more examples, better if from other language families?
    2. How can the meanings be linked together?
    Click to expand...
    To connection is quite simple. The next day is expressed by saying the next morning, i.e the time when you wake up after the next night's sleep. This connection is intuitively felt by modern speakers as well (at least in my language and I would be surprised, if it were differently in other languages that express tomorrow this way).
     
    Also in Italian we have:
    stamane = this morning
    dimane (old for 'domani') = tomorrow.
    ''Mane'' is the part meaning 'morning' (compare Spanish 'amanecer' = dayrising, etc.).
     
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    In Sardinian there is no confusion between tomorrow and morning. I think that Sardinian is the only Romance language which still uses the Latin "Cras" for "Tomorrow"

    Tomorrow = Cras (Lat. Cras)
    The Next Day = S'incràs, Sa Die Poi, Sa Die Pùstis
    Morning = Manzanu (Lat. "Maneanus" = early)
    Early, Soon = Chito (pronounce "Kito", Lat. "Cito")
    Early Morning = Manzanile, Manzanu Chito
    Tomorrow Morning = Cras Manzanu
    In the Morning = A Manzanu
    During the Morning = A Parte (d)e Manzanu
     
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    In Spanish the difference is made easily. Mañana meaning tomorrow is an adverb and is used without an article: Te veo mañana. Hasta mañana. Mañana meaning morning is a feminine noun and is always used with some kind of article or adjective: Te veo esta mañana. Me gusta trabajar por la mañana. Una mañana hermosa. So there is no confusion. I'll see you tomorrow morning would be: Te veo mañana por la mañana. When tomorrow is used figuratively with the meaning of future, mañana is used with the masculine article: el mañana es incierto, un mañana mejor.
     
    In Greek the word for "tomorrow" is «αύριο» [ˈav.ri.o] (adv.) < Classical adv. «αὔριον» aú̯riŏn < old locative «*αὖρι» *aû̯rĭ (PIE *h₂eu̯s-r- dawn cf Skt. उस्र (usrā́), morning light, daybreak) an r-stem of Proto-Greek «**αὐhώς» **au̯hṓs --> dawn, daybreak (PIE *h₂eu̯s-ṓs- dawn, break of day cf Proto-Italic *auzōs > Lat. aurora).

    "Morning" is «πρωί» [proˈi] (neut.) < Classical adverb «πρωΐ» prōí (please note that the iota is long) --> early < old locative «*πρῴ» *prṓ̩ > Attic adv. «πρῴ/πρῷ» prǭ́ and prô̩ --> early, in the morning, Koine fem. «πρωΐα» proī́ā --> morning (PIE *proH- early, in the morning cf Skt. प्रातर् (prātar), at dawn, Av. frā, forward, in front, Lat. prō, for, before, OHG fruo; both the Latin prō and Avestan frā point toward a presupposed Greek old locative «*πρῴ»)
     
    berndf said:
    To connection is quite simple. The next day is expressed by saying the next morning, i.e the time when you wake up after the next night's sleep.
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    And similarly yesterday vs. (last) night, as in Arabic 'ams vs. Hebrew 'emesh (cognates, standard shift of qatl <-> qetel, "s" <-> "sh").
     
    The Catalan, French and Italian word for "tomorrow" (demà, demain, domani), comes from Latin de mane "in the morning". Apparently it's the same root of again Catalan, French and Italian "morning" (matí, matin, mattina; from Latin matutinus "of the morning"), though the divergence occurred before Classical Latin.

    I once opened the same thread in the All Languages forum.

    In other languages (e.g. Russian вечер/večer and вчера/včera) there's also a connection between "evening" and "yesterday", which follows the same logic.
     
    Testing1234567 said:
    The Italian verb procrastinare is certainly a learned borrowing, if I am not mistaken. Also, I would be quite shocked if Sardinian cras is not a borrowing...
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    Why would you be shocked? The Sardinian dialects conserve many Latin words and grammatical features that have been lost in Italian. Borrowing such a word from Latin books and implementing it in the daily speech of uneducated paesants would be a great (shocking) achievement.
     
    Ben Jamin said:
    Why would you be shocked? The Sardinian dialects conserve many Latin words and grammatical features that have been lost in Italian. Borrowing such a word from Latin books and implementing it in the daily speech of uneducated paesants would be a great (shocking) achievement.
    Click to expand...

    Just a little clarification, Sardinian and Italian are two different languages, Sardinian is not a dialect of Italian, they are Romance languages, but they don't belong to the same Italic sub-group, Sardinian evolved isolated and it's someway in the middle between Eastern and Western Romance languages, sharing features of both groups.
     
    Arabic:
    modern standard Arabic uses different words for each:
    الغد(al-ghad) noun غدا(ghadan) adverb for tomorrow
    الصباح (aS-SabaaH) noun, صباحا (SabaaHan) adverb for morning

    but in Classical Arabic:
    بكرة (bukrah)and باكر (baakir) for early morning and tomorrow
    غدوة (ghudwah) and غداة (ghadaa-h) for the time between daybreak to sunrise, those belongs to the same root of غد tomrrow above.

    but they are not used in MSA, but used in many dialects, like Iraqi: baachir (from baakir), and Syrian (bukra from bukrah) for tomorrow but not morning.
     
    Neapolitan language and I think Sicilian language (not sure about Sicilian) too had a word for tomorrow that come from cras (Craje (the e is a shwa(almost mute vowel) while "j" is a simple graphical variation of "i", so you could even write craie). Recently I've read somewhere in a modern neapolitan poem "craje" but it is surely an archaism and so can be found only on old text or if the writer wants to sound "ancient"(Nowadays most would not even know what it means). Little Trivia: There is a XVI's century Neapolitan villanella (ascribed to Velardiniello )named "Tu saje che la cornacchia" (Do you know that the crow...") where Velardiniello compare his loved woman to a crow because both say "craje" (that could mean both "Tomorrow" and be the onomatopoeia of the crow's sound)
     
    Ectab said:
    used in many dialects, like Iraqi: baachir (from baakir), and Syrian (bukra from bukrah) for tomorrow but not morning.
    Click to expand...

    Indeed. The word for tomorrow in my dialect is baatsir which, as you've pointed out, comes from the masdar bukr (earliness) so while it may not be a direct synonym for morning it's intimately related seeing as the earliest time in the day is morning.
     
    Ectab said:
    Arabic:
    modern standard Arabic uses different words for each:
    الغد(al-ghad) noun غدا(ghadan) adverb for tomorrow
    الصباح (aS-SabaaH) noun, صباحا (SabaaHan) adverb for morning
    Click to expand...


    In Tigrigna:
    ጽባሕ SïbaH = tomorrow (adverb), (although the meaning is morning in Ge'ez.)
    ነግሐ nägHä = to become dawn
     
    Bulgarian
    Both words have the same root - утр (utr)
    Tomorrow > утре (utre)
    Morning > утро (utro) or (с)утрин (sutrin)
     
    Hungarian

    There is no connection, as tomorrow is holnap and morning is reggel.

    However from the etymological point of view, holnap is a composed word, where nap means day and hol (not documented in Hungarian as separate word, but the corresponding forms are present in some Uralic languages) had the meaning of morning. Thus the historical/etymological meaning of holnap is "morning-day".
     
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    Sardokan1.0 said:
    I think that Sardinian is the only Romance language which still uses the Latin "Cras" for "Tomorrow" ...
    Click to expand...
    Interestingly, according to DRAE, the word cras existed also in Spanish:

    cras
    Del lat. cras.
    1. adv. dem. desus. mañana.

    Was this world really used in Spanish (e.g. in the every-day/colloquial language) ?
    A propos, what is the etymology of the word cras?
     
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    I don't think there's any connection between them in Chinese (Mandarin or written Chinese in general).
    明天 = tomorrow
    早上/早晨 = morning

    As for Cantonese,
    聽日 = tomorrow
    朝頭早/朝早/上晝 = morning

    Note that 早晨 is "good morning" in Cantonese.
     
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