Orð og tunga - 01.06.2016, Side 102

Orð og tunga - 01.06.2016, Side 102
92 Orð og tunga The correct etymology is then the following: Icel. abbadís – OIc. abbadissa < MLG. abbadisse < Vulg.Lat. abbadissa < Lat. abbatissa, where the Latin noun is a derivative of abbās ‘abbot’ < AGr. ἀββᾶς < Aram. ‘abbā ‘father’ (cf. also ábóti). altari: The oldest occurrence of this word (E. ‘altar’) is to be found in Glælognskviða, a skaldic poem from the 11th century by Þórarinn loft unga, preserved in the Óláfs saga helga and Snorri Sturluson’s hom- onymous saga in Heimskringla (LP, Skjald, A–I:324–325)8. Given its early occurrence, there are two most probable languages from which Icelandic might have borrowed the word, namely Old English (altar) and Old Saxon (altāri). According to Halldór Halldórsson (1969b:112), Latin is to be excluded as a source of direct loan because, he argues, there must have been litt le direct infl uence from Latin in the period immediately before and aft er conversion. Following Halldór Halldórsson’s (1969b:112–114) argument, OSax. altāri appears to be the most likely source for OIc. altari for three main reasons, both from a linguistic and historical perspective: 1) Lat. altāre has been borrowed in Old English as altar. However, two native coinages, namely wīgbed and wēofod, seem to be used con- siderably more frequently than the Latin loanword (1969b:114, ASD). Moreover, there are no native coinages for this word in Old Icelan- dic, neither with a structure resembling the Old English ones such as **vígbeðr, **vígbjóðr or **vébjóðr, nor with a diff erent one. In other words: Old Icelandic does not have a native word to label Lat. altāre, which – I posit – would have been the most probable outcome of Old English infl uence. 2) A variant of OIc. altari is att ested, namely altári9, which is phone- mically most similar to its Old Saxon and Old Frisian (altáre) counter- parts, i.e. with /ā/ in the unstressed syllable. The /ā/ in OIc. altári later underwent shortening causing a merge of the two variants (see also Raschellà 1988:93 for a diff erent explanation). 3) As has been shown above, this word occurs very early in Old Icelandic and was most probably introduced as early as the fi rst evan- gelical mission (cf. footnote 2), if not earlier via Norway. In both cases it is natural to think more of an infl uence from the archbishopric of Hamburg-Bremen, i.e. an Old Saxon infl uence. 8 For a complete list of the mss. in which the poem is preserved see SkP I, 1:872. 9 For instance in the Icelandic Homily Book (ms. Holm perg 15 4to), f. 96r and 97r (cf. de Leeuw van Weenen (ed.) 1993 and ONP). tunga_18.indb 92 11.3.2016 14:41:15
Side 1
Side 2
Side 3
Side 4
Side 5
Side 6
Side 7
Side 8
Side 9
Side 10
Side 11
Side 12
Side 13
Side 14
Side 15
Side 16
Side 17
Side 18
Side 19
Side 20
Side 21
Side 22
Side 23
Side 24
Side 25
Side 26
Side 27
Side 28
Side 29
Side 30
Side 31
Side 32
Side 33
Side 34
Side 35
Side 36
Side 37
Side 38
Side 39
Side 40
Side 41
Side 42
Side 43
Side 44
Side 45
Side 46
Side 47
Side 48
Side 49
Side 50
Side 51
Side 52
Side 53
Side 54
Side 55
Side 56
Side 57
Side 58
Side 59
Side 60
Side 61
Side 62
Side 63
Side 64
Side 65
Side 66
Side 67
Side 68
Side 69
Side 70
Side 71
Side 72
Side 73
Side 74
Side 75
Side 76
Side 77
Side 78
Side 79
Side 80
Side 81
Side 82
Side 83
Side 84
Side 85
Side 86
Side 87
Side 88
Side 89
Side 90
Side 91
Side 92
Side 93
Side 94
Side 95
Side 96
Side 97
Side 98
Side 99
Side 100
Side 101
Side 102
Side 103
Side 104
Side 105
Side 106
Side 107
Side 108
Side 109
Side 110
Side 111
Side 112
Side 113
Side 114
Side 115
Side 116
Side 117
Side 118
Side 119
Side 120
Side 121
Side 122
Side 123
Side 124
Side 125
Side 126
Side 127
Side 128
Side 129
Side 130
Side 131
Side 132
Side 133
Side 134
Side 135
Side 136
Side 137
Side 138
Side 139
Side 140
Side 141
Side 142
Side 143
Side 144
Side 145
Side 146
Side 147
Side 148
Side 149
Side 150
Side 151
Side 152
Side 153
Side 154
Side 155
Side 156
Side 157
Side 158
Side 159
Side 160
Side 161
Side 162
Side 163
Side 164
Side 165
Side 166
Side 167
Side 168
Side 169
Side 170
Side 171
Side 172
Side 173
Side 174
Side 175
Side 176
Side 177

x

Orð og tunga

Direkte link

Hvis du vil linke til denne avis/magasin, skal du bruge disse links:

Link til denne avis/magasin: Orð og tunga
https://timarit.is/publication/1210

Link til dette eksemplar:

Link til denne side:

Link til denne artikel:

Venligst ikke link direkte til billeder eller PDfs på Timarit.is, da sådanne webadresser kan ændres uden advarsel. Brug venligst de angivne webadresser for at linke til sitet.