Orð og tunga - 01.06.2016, Page 104

94 Orð og tunga
A more probable etymology for OIc. abbati/abbáti is that the word
had been borrowed directly from Vulg.Lat. ab(b)atis, where the pho-
nemic resemblance with the Old Icelandic loanword is the highest.
During the adaptation process in Icelandic, then, the Latin word
would have lost the fi nal /s/ being infl ected according to the Old Ice-
landic masculine weak declension.
bagall: The oldest occurrence of this word (E. ‘crosier’) in Icelan-
dic is preserved in the 17th-century copies of Ari fróði Þorgilsson’s
Íslendingabók (AM 113 a–b fol.), originally composed in the 12th centu-
ry. All three major Icelandic etymological dictionaries treat the word
as a Latin loan via OIr. bachall. This etymology is, however, to be con-
sidered partial: In fact, as pointed out by de Vries (AeW), who quotes
Björkman (1900:259), and also as reported by ÍOb, it is probable that
the word had fi rst reached Norway via English (cf. ME. baghel). A
more complete etymology would then be: Icel./OIc. bagall = ONorw.<
ME. baghel < OIr. bachall < Lat. baculus. A derivation via Middle Eng-
lish is also favoured by the higher likeliness of ME. /gh/ [ɣ] than of OIr.
/ch/ [x] to be adapted as OIc. /g/ in-between vowels, i.e. [ɣ].
biskup: The word occurs for the fi rst time in a níð verse about the
Saxon bishop Fredrik and his assistant, Þorvaldr víðförli Koðránsson.12
The verse is considered to have been composed in the last quarter
of the 10th century, albeit preserved in later manuscripts (LP and
Skjald, A–I:178)13. IeW treats this loanword as a common Germanic
borrowing from Lat. episcopus (< AGr. ἐπίσκοπος), while AeW and
ÍOb consider OE. bisceop as an intermediary language between Latin
and Old Icelandic.
Given the fact that the fi rst occurrence of this loanword designates
a Saxon bishop and that Old Saxon missionaries played an infl uen-
tial role in early Icelandic and Norwegian ecclesiastical matt ers, the
etymology proposed by IeW is to be discarded as well as those of
AeW and ÍOb. OSax. biskop shall be preferred as an intermediary form,
giving the following: Icel. biskup – OIc. byskup/biskup < OSax. biskop <
Vulg.Lat. piscopu < Lat. episcopus. In favour of this etymology is the
phonemic similarity between the Old Saxon and the Old Icelandic
12 Hefr bǫrn borit / byskup níu, / þeira’s allra / Þórvaldr faðir (Skjald, B–I:168). The bishop
has borne nine children, and Þorvaldr is father to them all. (My translation.)
13 For a complete list of the mss. in which the poem is preserved see The Skaldic Pro-
ject.
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