Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1962, Side 7

Blak
13
hjálpt mær at finna hetta — »kiarnamiolk« (1. liður: kjarni
í frukt) tað sama sum »lac amygdalorum« — og hevur einki
við kirnu ella kirning at gera.
SUMMARY
In the paper above a survey is given of the different Scandinavian
and other Germanic names for ’buttermilk’. There are no traces of a
common word in the Western Scandinavian languages in their older
stages, the only surviving older words are Norw. saup, n., Icel. á(f)ir,
f.pl., and Far. blak, n. — Alexander Bugge showed (Vesterlandenes Ind-
flydelse, 1904, p. 358) that the Faroese word was borrowed from Gaelic.
It is suggested in the present paper that blak is derived from *blaðak
(from Gaelic bláthach) and contracted to one syllable after the disap-
pearing of ð (in the 16th cent). It is difficult to explain that the former
vowel in the Faroese word is short, but long in the Gaelic equivalent.
In the appendix it is demonstrated that the word kjarni, m. ’churn’
is a ghostword, owing its existence to a wrongly interpreted word in
the Thomas Saga: kjarnamjolk — corresponding to lac amygdalorum
(literally ’almond milk’) in the Latin source.
BÓKMENTIR
1. O. Beito: Genusskifte i nynorsk. Oslo 1954.
2. Sigf. Blondal: Islandsk—dansk Ordbog. Rvk. 1920—1924.
3. Alexander Bugge: Vesterlandenes Indflydelse paa Nordboernes og
særlig Nordmændenes ydre Kultur, Levesæt og Samfundsforhold i
Vikingetiden. Chria 1905.
4. Richard Cleasby &. Gudbrand Vigfusson: An Icelandic—English
Dictionary. Oxford 1874.
5. Franck’s EtymologischWoordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal. Tweede
Druk door Dr. N. van Wijk. 1949.
6. F. Holthausen: Vergleichendes und Etymologisches Worterbuch des
Altwestnordischen. Góttingen 1948.
7. Alexander Jóhannesson: Islandisches Etymologisches Wórterbuch.
Bern 1956.