Gripla - 20.12.2018, Page 159

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the fire hypothesis and the idea that the word refers to askr Yggdrasils, both
of which take for granted that -nari is derived within old norse-Icelandic
from the verb næra ‘nourish’.
Here it is proposed that the old Icelandic word has a similar meaning
to the old English one, although the formation of the latter part of the
compound is different in the two languages. thus, old English *ealdorneru
is an action noun meaning ‘salvation of life’, but old Icelandic aldrnari is
an agentive noun. there is no need to exaggerate the semantic difference
between the two words; old Icelandic aldrnari could in effect be synony-
mous with *ealdorneru in Azarias, as understood by Anlezark, signifying
‘the one who saves life, lifesaver’. on the assumption that the second part
of aldrnari is not derived from old Icelandic næra ‘nourish’, two possibili-
ties present themselves with respect to its origin:
(i) the old Icelandic word is directly related to the old English
one, both going back to Common Germanic.
(ii) the old Icelandic word is a loanword from old English.
according to the first hypothesis, -nari would be akin to the verb *nazjan-
‘save’ just like old English *-neru. This verb is attested in Old English ne-
rian and related forms in other old West Germanic languages and Gothic
(all meaning ‘save’). However, a problem with this possibility is that there
is no real evidence for an exact cognate of this verb in north Germanic,
except possibly in loanwords from West Germanic.69 If the element -nari
were truly derived from the verb *nazjan-, it would be a unique archaism
in old Icelandic. although conceivable, such an assumption is not sup-
ported by any other evidence. therefore, it seems more likely that this
verb was confined to Gothic and West Germanic and was absent from the
vocabulary of old norse-Icelandic.
the second hypothesis, according to which aldrnari is borrowed from
old English, is more feasible in my opinion. as mentioned above, this
69 See Kroonen, Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, 385. It may be noted that Ásgeir
Blöndal Magnússon, Íslensk orðsifjabók, 680, posits two verbs næra in (old) Icelandic: næra
(1) and næra (2), which would be virtually synonymous. the former (old Icelandic nę́ra) is
hypothesized to be a loanword from Middle Low German while the latter (old Icelandic
nœra) is assumed to be a genuine norse word, most probably derived from *nōzjan- (on
which, see section 3.1 above). I cannot pursue this matter further here.
ALDRNARI