Rit (Vísindafélag Íslendinga) - 01.06.1970, Page 368

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The semantic field of a word can in many cases give an indica-
tion of the historical event with which a borrowed innova-
tion is connected. Thus, most religious loanwords in Icelandic
are due to the introduction of Christianity in Iceland, the
missionary work preceding it, and the subsequent history of the
Icelandic church. Yet I want to stress that it may be risky
to conclude from the semantic field alone what the cultural
background of a certain loanword may be. I shall take only one
example to show this. The word kærr ‘dear’ first occurs in
Icelandic in a poem by Sighvatr Þórðarson, considered to
have been composed in 1038. The word in its context in
Sighvatr’s poem, ker kœisara (Sk. A 1.450) ‘dear to the
emperor’, has no religious connotation, although in later
Icelandic texts it has. The Icelandic derivative kœrleikr,
together with its equivalents in the other Scandinavian langu-
ages has two meanings, ‘the love of God’ and ‘love’ in general.
The first occurrence of the word kærr, however, indicates that
its religious connotation is of a later date. That the secular
meaning of kœrr is the oldest seems confirmed also by its
probable origin, OFr. cher or Pic. ker, for the French influence
on the Christian vocabulary of Icelandic seems to have been
negligible.
Historical facts and semantic fields can, in my view,
however, never alone determine the lending language. In
combination with other criteria they are, on the other hand,
very useful. Let us, in this connection, glance at the words
herra and frú. In Old Icelandic, herra is sometimes used in
the sense ‘Our Lord’ (dominus) and sometimes as a title for
prominent persons, such as kings, earls, and bishops. The
former sense points to the influence of Christianity, the latter
to the influence of chivalry. The same applies to frú. It was
used as an epithet with Máría, i.e., frú Máría ‘the Virgin
Mary’. It was, however, also used in the sense ‘a noble lady’.
These two words, herra and frú, occur in both senses at a
similar date, in the beginning of the thirteenth century. In
both cases we have to do with Christian influence, on the