stil / still / stille
| EN | Still, quiet, silent; motionless; (as adverb) without sound or movement. Shared across English, Dutch, German, Afrikaans, and West Frisian with remarkably stable form and meaning. |
| NL | Stil: zonder geluid, rustig, geruisloos; ook: bewegingloos. Als bijwoord: stilletjes, heimelijk. |
| AF | Stil: sonder geluid, rustig; ook statiese betekenis (bewegingloos). Dieselfde as Nederlands. |
| DE | Still: ruhig, leise, schweigsam; auch: reglos, unbeweglich. Als Adverb auch 'weiterhin' (still ongoing — false friend with English 'still'). |
| FY | Stil: rêstich, stom, sûnder lûd. Itselde Frisian form as Dutch and German. |
Proto-form *stillaz
First attested Old English 'stille' attested 9th c. (Alfredian texts); OHG…
From Proto-West Germanic *stillī (adjective), from Proto-Germanic *stillaz, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)telH- (to be silent, to be still). The word is one of the most stable in the West Germanic family: English 'still', Dutch 'stil', German 'still', Afrikaans 'stil', West Frisian 'stil' — all directly continuous from the same proto-form.
Proto-Germanic *stillaz (adjective: still, silent, motionless) descends from Proto-Indo-European *(s)telH- (to place, to be still, to be silent), the same root that gives Latin 'locus' via a zero-grade form. The adjective is attested across the full spectrum of early Germanic: Old English 'stille', Old Saxon 'stilli', Old High German 'stilli', Old Frisian 'stille', Gothic does not attest it directly but related forms appear. The formal stability across five contemporary languages — English, Dutch, German, Afrikaans, West Frisian — is exceptional: form and core meaning have barely changed in 1500 years. The semantic range does diverge modestly: German 'still' acquired the temporal adverbial sense 'still ongoing' (ich bin noch/still hier) that English 'still' also has ('I still live here'), while Dutch and Afrikaans 'stil' do not carry this temporal sense (Dutch uses 'nog' for that). The word's phonological profile — an easily-spotted fingerprint across the five languages — makes it an anchor for The Archive's cross-cultural matching: a Dutch elder describing 'een stille zondagochtend', a German elder writing 'ein stiller Sonntagmorgen', and an Afrikaans elder's 'die stil Sondagoggend' are all using cognate forms to describe the same sensory memory.
| Form | Language | Region | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| still | en | nationwide | English; also carries temporal adverbial sense |
| stil | nl | nationwide | Standard Dutch adjective and adverb for quiet/motionless |
| still | de | nationwide | Standard German; also temporal adverb (still = noch) |
| stil | af | nationwide | Standard Afrikaans; same as Dutch form and meaning |
| stil | fy | Fryslân | West Frisian; same form as Dutch |
| stille | nl,de,fy | various | Inflected form in adjectival position before nouns (de stille nacht, die stille Nacht) |
| Language | Form | Gloss | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| en | still | quiet, motionless; (adverb) even now | Direct cognate; OE stille |
| de | still | quiet, silent; motionless | Direct cognate; OHG stilli |
| af | stil | quiet, silent | Direct cognate via Dutch |
| fy | stil | quiet, silent | Direct cognate; OFris stille |
| is | stillur | quiet, still | North Germanic cognate via Proto-Germanic *stillaz |
Universally active across all five language communities
◆ Standard replacementsThis word has been displaced in modern usage by: None — the primary term in all five languages .
- WNT, s.v. *stil*. https://gtb.ivdnt.org
- WAT, s.v. *stil*. https://www.wat.ac.za
- DWDS, s.v. *still*. https://www.dwds.de
- WFT, s.v. *stil*. https://wft.fryske-akademy.nl
- OED Online, s.v. *still* (adjective, adverb, noun). Oxford University Press.
- Wiktionary, s.v. *still* (English). Accessed 2026-04.
Every demo transcript answering week-6 (Sunday morning) reaches for this word or its direct referent: Anna van der Berg's 'De zondagochtend was stil', Greta Schmidt's 'Sonntagmorgen war ruhig' (ruhig = synonym), Pier Jansen's 'De sneinmoarn wie hiel stil', Jan Botha's family 'stil gesit'. The cross-linguistic stability of 'stil/still/stille' makes it the single clearest demonstration of the platform's founding insight: that West Germanic memory-language shares not just concepts but forms, and that recognising these shared forms is the first step toward cross-cultural connection.