Above taker
Talking to my wife Stephanie last night, we realized that “entrepreneur” literally means “between-taker” in French.
And Stephanie pointed out something interesting: the German word for entrepreneur is Unternehmer – literally “below-taker” (or “undertaker”).
So the French take between and the Germans take below.
I wonder if there’s a language which uses “above-taker” to mean entrepreneur?
jeff on 4 December 2009 at 4:02 pm
In French, entreprendre is a verb, just like “to undertake” in English… Actually, if English did not borrow the word entrepreneur, I guess they should simply have said “undertaker”. It would have made sense to me. But that word probably already exists or doesn’t sound sophisticated enough
I’m not aware of a language that uses “overtaker” though… well maybe conquistador in Spanish
Nat Friedman on 4 December 2009 at 4:06 pm
Good point, English uses “under-take” as well.
mkie on 4 December 2009 at 4:17 pm
The German “Unternehmer” is from the verb “unternehmen” (German for under-take, venture etc.).
Pádraig Brady on 4 December 2009 at 4:19 pm
Receivers can be considered as undertakers as well
Kragil on 4 December 2009 at 4:25 pm
Well, “unter” in German can mean “among” or “in between” too.
That’s my nitpick of today
Nat Friedman on 4 December 2009 at 4:29 pm
Oh, I didn’t realize that. That makes my post make no sense anymore.
Kragil on 4 December 2009 at 4:51 pm
No no, it’s still thought provoking and interesting.
Big-Gs new dict has more: http://www.google.com/dictionary?aq=f&langpair=de|en&q=unter&hl=en
I guess German is frustratingly complex in certain cases ..
I just hope you still enjoy your time in Munich.
Martijn Faassen on 4 December 2009 at 11:35 pm
Not surprisingly given the relatedness of the languages, “ondernemer” in Dutch is like “Unternehmer” in German.
English of course has “undertaking”.
“onder” (like “unter”) can indeed mean “among” in Dutch as well though that definitely not be the first meaning one would think of. It pops up in phrases like “life among the natives” and such.
Which original meaning the “onder” in “ondernemen” (“to undertake”) refers to I don’t know.
Dan on 4 December 2009 at 5:31 pm
Well, if you entreprendre well, you’ll hopefully surprendre people too, right?
Andrew Pendleton on 4 December 2009 at 8:09 pm
For what it’s worth, English has “overtake,” as well, which is roughly “above-take” (paralleling the “undertake” == “below-take” comparison).
Priit Laes on 4 December 2009 at 8:14 pm
Not much success with finding a language with “overtakers”, but in Estonian the literal translation of entrepreneur means “advance-” or “forth-taker”.
Eitan on 4 December 2009 at 10:34 pm
So is a between-taker a middle-man?
Alpha on 4 December 2009 at 11:02 pm
In Bulgarian, the word is “???????????”, which literary means “before taker”.
balint on 4 December 2009 at 11:20 pm
According to the Hungarian Etimology Dictionary (ISBN 963 7094 01 6), in Hungarian, “vállalkozó” (1883) is the only right word for entrepreneur.
It comes from the root váll (1372), meaning shoulder, so vállal (1603) literally stands for “take something on your shoulder” (vállal[koz(ik)] = he/she undertakes), …like Atlas with the Globe
vespas on 5 December 2009 at 2:04 am
doesn’t undertaker mean funeral director?
btw in greek we use ?????????????? (epihirimatias) from ??? (on/above) and ???? (hand) so we are almost there
buzz on 5 December 2009 at 5:34 am
In Chinese?entrepreneur is ????”?”have two part?and the “?(human,people)” is on the above? Maybe this is an answer.
Bart on 5 December 2009 at 10:35 am
English also has ‘abovetaker’ but it is called overtaker. And it doesn’t mean entrepreneur of course.
kragil on 5 December 2009 at 12:13 pm
Me again,
in German “übernehmen” can mean “to acquire/ absorb”, like Oracle did Sun.