sengʷʰ-mn̥-
“sung thing, incantation”song, sing, singer
Nominal of *sengʷʰ- giving English song, sing, singer.
Discussion
The PIE form *sengʷʰ-mn̥- (sung thing, incantation) derives from the verbal root *sengʷʰ- (to sing, to chant, to recite) with the result noun suffix *-mn̥-. The literal meaning is "that which has been sung" — a song conceived not as music in the modern abstract sense but as a performed vocal act, an incantation, a thing made by the voice.
The Germanic reflex is English song, from Old English sang/song, from Proto-Germanic *sangwaz, with regular loss of the labiovelar quality and the nasal suffix yielding the familiar monosyllable. The verb sing (OE singan, PGmc *singwaną) continues the root directly. German Sang (song, singing — poetic and archaic), Gesang (song, chant), and singen (to sing) preserve the cognate set in modern German.
The original connection between singing and magic/incantation is preserved in several derivatives. Latin canere (to sing) — from the same root with the expected Italic treatment — produced not only chant, canticle, and cantor but also incantation (in-cantāre, literally "to sing upon/into" someone), enchant (the same formation through French), and cant (a whining, singsong manner of speech, originally the chanting of beggars). To enchant someone was, literally, to sing a spell over them.
The Greek cognate is less certain: some scholars connect Greek omphe (divine voice, oracle) to this root, but the phonological details are debated. More securely, the Tocharian forms (A śaṃ, B śem, "to sing") provide eastern IE attestation.
Old Irish senm (playing of a musical instrument) and Welsh dehongli (to interpret, originally to chant/recite) offer Celtic reflexes, both preserving the connection between vocal performance and meaningful speech-act.
The PIE suffix *-mn̥- in *sengʷʰ-mn̥- is the same formation seen in *srew-mn̥- (stream, "that which flows") and *bʰewd-mn̥- (bottom, "that which has sunk"). The suffix consistently creates result nouns: the product of the verbal action. A *sengʷʰ-mn̥- is the product of singing — not the act itself but the thing produced by the act, the song as artefact.
The semantic range of the root — from sacred incantation to secular music to the pejorative cant — traces a characteristic trajectory in the history of vocal arts. What began as ritual performance (the incantation, the charm) was secularised into artistic expression (the song, the chant) and eventually trivialised (cant as empty, repetitive speech). The word's journey mirrors the cultural transformation of vocal ritual across three millennia of European civilisation.