illiteratus.com

The word understand means position. In Old English, understandan is composed of under and standan. Yet under did not simply mean beneath. It could also mean among, between, in the presence of, or in proximity to something. To understand was therefore not to grasp an idea, but to stand within it.

The image is spatial before it is conceptual. One stands among things, takes a position in relation to them. This movement belongs to the Germanic languages. Knowledge is imagined as dwelling. One does not seize an idea; one enters its field.

Only later does the word comes to mean comprehension, interpretation, intellectual mastery. This differs from the Latin tradition. Comprehend, from comprehendere, means to seize together, to take hold. One tradition imagines thought as grasping; the other imagines thought as standing. The distinction is small, but consequential. To understand is perhaps not to dominate an idea, but to remain within it long enough for its contours to appear.