Ken
Old English cennan ‘tell, make known’, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch and German kennen ‘know, be acquainted with’, from an Indo-European root shared by can1 and know. Current senses of the verb date from Middle English; the noun from the mid 16th century.
wiktionary
From Middle English kennen(“to give birth, conceive, generate, beget; to develop (as a fetus), hatch out (of eggs); to sustain, nourish, nurture”), from Old English cennan(“to give birth, conceive, generate, beget”), from Proto-Germanic *kanjaną.
Northern and Scottish dialects from Middle English kennen, from Old English cennan(“make known, declare, acknowledge”) originally “to make known”, causative of cunnan(“to become acquainted with, to know”), from Proto-Germanic *kannijaną, causative of *kunnaną(“be able”), from which comes the verb can. Cognate with West Frisian kenne(“to know; recognise”), Dutch kennen(“to know”), German kennen(“to know, be acquainted with someone/something”), Norwegian Bokmål kjenne, Norwegian Nynorsk kjenna, Old Norse kenna(“to know, perceive”), Swedish känna(“to know, feel”). See also: can, con.
The noun meaning “range of sight” is a nautical abbreviation of present participle kenning.
Perhaps from kennel.
Hebrew קֵן (“nest”)
Japanese 間
etymonline
ken (v.)
"to know, understand, take cognizance of," a word surviving mainly in Scottish and northern England dialect, from Middle English kennen, "make known; give instruction to; be aware, know, have knowledge of, know how to; recognize by sight; see, catch sight of," a very common verb, from Old English cennan "make known, declare, acknowledge" (in late Old English also "to know"), originally "cause to know, make to know," causative of cunnan "to become acquainted with, to know" (see can (v.)). Cognate with German kennen, Danish kjende, Swedish känna. Related: Kenned; kenning.
ken (n.1)
1550s, "cognizance, intellectual view;" 1580s in a physical sense, "range of sight;" from ken (v.), in the second sense perhaps via kenning (n.2) in the same sense in nautical use; both from PIE root *gno- "to know."
ken (n.2)
"house used as a meeting place by thieves or other disreputable characters," 1560s, vagabonds' slang, probably a shortening of kennel (n.).
