Sitte
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
"The English language has no derivative noun from "mores," and no equivalent for it. The French mœurs is trivial compared with "mores." The German Sitte renders "mores" but very imperfectly. The modern peoples have made morals and morality a separate domain, by the side of religion, philosophy, and politics. In that sense, morals is an impossible and unreal category. It has no existence, and can have none."--Folkways: A Study of the Sociological Importance of Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals (1907) by William Graham Sumner |
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Sitte (plural Sitten) is German for morality.
Etymology
The Common Germanic equivalent of the term is *sidu-: Gothic sidus, Old Norse siðr (whence the Icelandic siður), Old English sidu, seodu, siodu, Old High German situ, sito. The Germanic word is cognate with Greek ethos etymologically, continuing a PIE *sedhos.
Proto-Germanic *siduz (“custom”), from Proto-Indo-European *swedʰ- (“custom, habit”). Akin to Old Frisian side (“custom”), Old Saxon sidu (“custom”), Old High German situ (“custom”), Old English ġesidian (“to arrange, order, set right”).
See also
- Andere Länder, andere Sitten
- Die Sitte (1908) by Ferdinand Tönnies
- Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten by Kant
- Ethos
- Mores
- Sittengeschichte
- Sittenfilm
- Sittenpolizei