The proper sense of bauen , namely dwelling, falls into oblivion. At first sight this event looks as though it were no more than a change of meaning of mere terms. Man has hardly yet pondered the mystery of this process. Language withdraws from man its simple and high speech. Man, though, fails to heed this silence.
Building is really dwelling.
Dwelling is the manner in which mortals are on the earth. We do not dwell because we have built, but we build and have built because we dwell, that is, because we are dwellers. Let us listen once more to what language says to us. The Old Saxon wuon , the Gothic wunian , like the old word bauen , mean to remain, to stay in a place. But the Gothic wunian says more distinctly how this remaining is experienced.