Heaven

== Etymology ==
[[File:Beowulf - heofones.jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|"heofones", an ancient Anglo-Saxon word for heavens in ''Beowulf'']]

The modern English word ''heaven'' is derived from the earlier ([[Middle English]]) ''heven'' (attested 1159); this in turn was developed from the previous [[Old English]] form ''heofon''. By about 1000, ''heofon'' was being used in reference to the [[Christianization|Christianized]] "place where God dwells", but originally, it had signified "sky, firmament"<ref>The Anglo-Saxons knew the concept of Paradise, which they expressed with words such as ''[[neorxnawang]]''.</ref> (e.g. in ''[[Beowulf]]'', c. 725). The English term has cognates in the other [[Germanic languages]]: [[Old Saxon]] ''heƀan'' "sky, heaven" (hence also [[Middle Low German]] ''heven'' "sky"), [[Old Norse|Old Icelandic]] ''himinn'', [[Gothic language|Gothic]] ''himins''; and those with a variant final ''-l'': [[Old Frisian]] ''himel, himul'' "sky, heaven", Old Saxon and [[Old High German]] ''himil'', [[Old Saxon]] and [[Middle Low German]] ''hemmel'', [[Old Dutch]] and [[Dutch language|Dutch]] ''hemel'', and modern [[German language|German]] ''Himmel''. All of these have been derived from a [[Linguistic reconstruction|reconstructed]] [[Proto-Germanic]] form *''hemina-''.<ref name="BARNHART346">Barnhart (1995), p. 357.</ref> or ''*hemō''.<ref name=Kroonen>Guus Kroonen: ''Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic'' (= ''Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series'', vol. 11). Brill, Leiden and Boston 2009, s. v. "Hemina- ~ *Hemna-". First published online: October 2010.</ref>

The further derivation of this form is uncertain. A connection to [[Proto-Indo-European]] ''*ḱem-'' "cover, shroud", via a reconstructed ''*k̑emen-'' or ''*k̑ōmen-'' "stone, heaven", has been proposed.<ref>Gerhard Köbler, ''Altenglisches Wörterbuch.'' [http://www.koeblergerhard.de/aewbhinw.html Fourth edition, online 2014] (in German), s. v. "heofon".</ref> Others endorse the derivation from a Proto-Indo-European root ''*h₂éḱmō'' "stone" and, possibly, "heavenly vault" at the origin of this word, which then would have as [[cognate]]s [[ancient Greek]] ἄκμων (ákmōn "anvil, pestle; [[meteorite]]"), [[Persian language|Persian]] آسمان (''âsemân, âsmân'' "stone, sling-stone; sky, heaven") and [[Sanskrit]] अश्मन् (''aśman'' "stone, rock, sling-stone; [[thunderbolt]]; the [[firmament]]").<ref name=Kroonen /> In the latter case English ''[[hammer]]'' would be another cognate to the word.