Orð og tunga - 01.06.2015, Blaðsíða 20

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Orð og tunga
(3) befala vb. 'command', befaling/befalning í. 'command', befalingsbréf
n. 'written order', befalingsmaður m. 'officer', begáfa vb. 'grant,
give', begáfaður adj./past part. 'provided (with sth)', begering f. 're-
quest', besetinn adj./past part. 'bewitched', besetning f. 'being pos-
sessed (by an evil spirit)', bestilla vb. 'do, work', bestillmg 'work'
(among other meanings), betala vb. 'pay', betalaður adj./past part.
'paid', betalingstími m. 'payment time', betalingur m. 'payment',
bevara vb. 'preserve', bevísa vb. 'demonstrate', bevísaður adj./past
part. 'proven', bevísing f. 'evidence', bíhalda vb. 'keep', and bíklín-
ast vb. 'soil, become dirty'.
These words are used in total about 110-120 times (some more often
than others, betala for example about 25 times, betalingur and bevísa
about 15 times each, befala at least eight times), so they seem to have
been a part of the author/translator6 Bishop Jón Árnason's (1665-1743)
active lexicon.
In Björn Halldórsson's (1724-1794) Icelandic-Latin-Danish diction-
ary from 1814 (Björn Halldórsson 1814/1992), probably finished by
its author in 1785, only one be-/H-word is found as a dictionary en-
try, bíræfinn (bifræfinn, bifræfr, bifrænn, p. 69 in the 1992 edition). The
author's brother-in-law was Eggert Olafsson (see further below), "an
outstanding figure in the history of Iceland's fight to preserve and re-
vivify its language, culture, and economy" (Encyclopædia Britannica),
at whose home Björn stayed for several years in the 1760s. It is very
likely that the almost complete absence of be-lbí-'words in the diction-
ary reflects this.
In Gunnlaugur Oddsson's Danish-Icelandic dictionary from 1819
(Gunnlaugur Oddsson 1819/1991), containing "rare, exotic and dif-
ficult words occurring in Danish books" (transl. from the Icelandic
title), not a single be-/bí-word seems to be used in the Icelandic expla-
nations, according to a word-list in the 1991 edition. The dictionary
contains, on the other hand, around 100 Danish be-words which the
author has deemed necessary to explain for Icelandic users.
Lastly, during a cursory perusal of Konráð Gíslason's large Dan-
ish-Icelandic dictionary from the middle of the nineteenth century
(Konráð Gíslason 1851), no be-/bí-words have been found in the Ice-
landic translations.
6 See Guðrún Kvaran (2012:31-34) on the differences between the dictionary and its
Danish model.