I always assumed that “over” and “hyper-” were etymologically related. They are similar in both pronunciation and meaning, and in other Indo-European languages, a word that looks a lot like “hyper” means the same thing as what “over” means in English.
But I just read Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue by John McWhorter, in which he argues that Celtic languages had something to do with some quirks of English grammar. At the end of the book, he also suggests that there is a Phoenecian influence on Proto-Germanic. It seems like an amazing suggestion, but he manages to point out enough facts to make the hypothesis interesting, at least to me. One of the words he cites, though, in service of hte Phoenecian hypothesis, is the word “over.” In Old German, the word “uber” (I think it was) means both “over” and “shore.” Apparently, in Phoenecian, a very similar sounding word means both “over” and “shore.” McWhorter cites this as a tidbit in favor of his hypothesis.
But I had always assumed “over” traces back to the same PIE root as, for example, greek uper. Of course, this was just an assumption on my part. Was it an incorrect assumption? Do we not, in fact, know the etymology of the word “over?” If we do have a PIE etymology for it, why would McWhorter have cited the word in his otherwise well argued book? (Just to be clear, McWhorter is an established, respected linguist.)
It appears, from the reference books I’ve checked, that “over,” “summit,” “hyper-,” “uber-,” and “super-” all come from the Indo-European root “uper.” You can find it on page 1105 in Pokorny (the standard reference to Indo-European). No, I don’t own Pokorny. I just found that mentioned at the end of the entry in the book I checked. I’ve done a little searching, and it appears that the notion that Phoenician is a substrate language for proto-Germanic is just McWhorter’s own notion, although he’s generally known as a reliable scholar. In other words, file that theory away. it’s possible, but it’s not remotely generally accepted.
Nobody seems to have an online etymology tracing the Greek uper further back, but the relationship is plentifully evident.
Without more evidence than is given in this thread, I’d be very skeptical of a connection to the Phoenecian (Semitic) language given the clear Indo-European origins for the two cognates.
From Sihler’s New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin:
“460.7 Proto-Indo-European *uperi ‘above, over’ > Greek ὑπέρ [hyper], Latin super. The Greek reflex could continue *su- like the Latin, but Vedic upári, Old Irish for (*wori < *uori < *upori), Gothic ufar, New English over, all point unambiguously to an *s-*less form. The source of the Italic s- is obscure, as it also is in sub and sine” [Abbreviations expanded for clarity.] That seems pretty unambiguous to me.
Black (the standard reference for Scottish surnames) gives McWhorter as a form of Mac [an] Chruitear, “Son of the Harper,” but note that Gaelic cruitear* means either harper, from cruit “harp, lyre,” or crofter, where it is an alteration of croit “croft.”
*The initial CH- in the surname is because it’s in the genitive case in the surname, “son of [the] harper”
You will never get anywhere citing standard sources that all agree that “over”, “hyper”, “super”, “ueber” in German, “sur” in French and, for that matter, “over” in Danish, all come from the same IE source since the OP is saying that McWhorter is disputing those standard sources. All I can say on the subject is that his claim is extraordinary and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Does he have that. Just a coincidence in meaning doesn’t really prove anything.
A colleague of mine has tried to suggest a connection between Semitic and IE languages on the basis of facts such as that the names for 6 and 7 start with the same letter (mostly s in IE, but h in Greek) in most IE languages and most Semitic languages and that words like “two” and “tooth” are also similar across IE languages and also Semitic languages. Who knows, maybe he’s right but it would require extraordinary evidence to prove it.
