An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/Hanf
Hanf, masculine, ‘hemp,’ from Middle High German hanf, hanef, masculine, Old High German hanaf, hanof, masculine; a common Teutonic word for ‘hemp’ (Gothic *hanaps is by chance not recorded); compare Anglo-Saxon hœnep, English hemp, Old Icelandic hampr. The usual assumption that the word was borrowed from the South European Greek κάνναβις (Latin cannabis) is untenable. The Teutons were not influenced by Southern civilisation until the last century or so before our era; no word borrowed from Greek-Latin has been fully subject to the Old Teutonic substitution of consonants (see Finne (1), Pfad, and the earliest loan-words under Kaiser). But the substitution of consonants in Gothic *hanaps compared with Greek κἀνναβις proves that the word was naturalised among the Teutons even before 100 B.C. “The Greeks first became acquainted with hemp in the time of Herodotus; it was cultivated by the Scythians, and was probably obtained from Bactria and Sogdiana, the regions of the Caspian and the Aral, where it is said to grow luxuriantly even at the present time.” Thus we can all the more readily reject the assumption of South European influence; compare Leinen. Why should not the Teutons in their migration from Asia to Europe have become acquainted with the culture of hemp when passing through the south of Russia, where the plant grows wild, and indeed among the very people who directly or indirectly supplied the Greeks with the word κἀνναβις? (compare also Erbse). κἀνναβις itself is a borrowed term, and Gothic *hanaps corresponds in sound quite as well with Old Slovenian konoplja, Lithuanian kanápes, ‘hemp.’ The word is found even among the Persians (kanab). It does not seem to be genuinely Aryan.