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On the suffix -scape:
‘Landscape’ is distinguished from ‘land’ by the suffix -scape, which is equivalent to the more common English suffix -ship.[3] The roots of –ship are etymologically akin to Old English sceppan or scyppan, meaning to shape (Merriam-Webster dict.2000. This suffix designates “something showing, exhibiting or embodying a quality or state”; as such, it generates an abstraction upon the term landscape. The suffix -ship thus designates the abstract ”nature”, ”state” or ”constitution” of something; these words are interlinked both as abstract essences (e.g. the nature or constitution of something) and as concretized and institutionalized entities (e.g. nature, the state, a constitution). The suffix -shaft and the English -ship are cognate, meaning essentially “creation, creature, constitution, condition).
Moreover, the suffix –schaft is related to the verb schaffen, so that -ship and shape are also etymologically linked (O.E.D.,1971:Shape; O.E.D.,1971: -ship). In times past, the English language included other words like countryship and folcship, meaning nation; in them the suffix –ship functioned much the same as –schaft (O.E.D.1971:-ship as quoted in.[1]
As said, the English language suffixes –scape and –ship (as in landscape and landship) stem ultimately from an ancient Germanic root, spelt ‘shape’ in modern English. The power of this sense of shape lies in the dynamic relation between the meaning of ‘shape’, on the one hand, an expression of -ship as an underlying nature, state or constitution which manifests itself through an active, creative, shaping process and, on the other, the material form which that process generates,that is, its shape.[4] By representing the abstract nature, state or constitution of the land in a more concrete objective form, one concretizes it and makes it easier to both grasp and facilitate the process by which the land is shaped as a social and material phenomenon. In addition to nature, state or constitution some dictionaries, like Merriam Webster’s, list as meanings of –ship, also art and skill; a meaning which is relevant to visual arts and also to landscape appreciation.
According to Makzhoumi: “the Old High German lantscaf became in Modern German landschaft; the Middle Dutch lantscap became in Modern Dutch landschap and the Old English landscipe became landskip in the sixteenth century , then lantskip in the 17th century and now landscape.” Moreover, “In the 16th and 17th century the word in English meant ‘a picture representing inland natural scenery’ in the 18th its meaning was extended to ‘a piece of country scenery’, specifically ‘a view or prospect of natural inland scenery, such as can be taken in at a glance from one point of view”.[5]
The word Landschaft is common, in various spellings, to the Germanic languages of Northern Europe. “When approached in historical and geographical context, it becomes clear that Landschaft was much more than “a restricted piece of land.” It contained meanings of great importance to the construction of personal, political and place identity at the time”.[1]
To consider landscape with the meanings of {land-ship/schaft} mentioned above has a number of implications. One is that the English term gets in line with the denotation of the term in Romance languages like the French paysage, the Italian paesaggio or the Spanish paisaje, all etymologically derived from pagus. Another consequence is that it suits better (than scenic landscape) to the usage of the term in contemporary Human Geography where the notions of power, conflict, alienation, etc. are associated with that of landscape. When -scape, is taken as resulting from –ship and hence to shape, it makes possible the connection with processes by which a land may be shaped as a result of socio-economic and material processes, a shaping that underlies many contemporary topics of Human Geography.
The modern form of the word with its connotations of scenery appeared in the late 16th century when the term landschap was introduced by Dutch painters when referring to paintings of inland natural or rural scenery. Landscape, first recorded in 1598, was borrowed as a painters’ term from Dutch during the 16th century, when Dutch artists were on the verge of becoming masters of the landscape art genre. According to Jackson: “From 1577 with Harrison’s Description of Britain onwards, a new awareness of the aesthetic nature of landscape emerged as a new kind of topographical writing flourished…”.:[5] Originally the term was translated landskip which the Oxford English Dictionary refers to as the corrupt form of the word, gradually to be replaced by landscape; the English word is not recorded as used for physical landscapes before 1725 (OED). The word landskip, (from landschippe and landscipe?)is extensively discussed and actualized by Fitter.[6]