An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/schweigen

by Friedrich Kluge

schweigen, verb, ‘to keep silence, be silent,’ from the equivalent Middle High German swîgen, Old High German swigên; compare Old Saxon swîgôn, Dutch swijgen, Old Frisian swîgia, Anglo-Saxon swī̆gian, ‘to be silent.’ The connection with Greek σϊγάω, σῖγή, ‘silence,’ is undoubted, in spite of the abnormal correspondence of Greek γ to Teutonic g (for k); we must assume a double Aryan root swī̆g, swī̆q (the latter for the West Teutonic words). Modern High German schweigen, verb, ‘to silence,’ from Middle High German and Old High German sweigen, ‘to reduce to silence,’ is a factitive of the foregoing schweigen.