Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1977, Blaðsíða 8

16
Some traces of Gaelic in Faroese
Heusler, Altisl. Elementarbuch, 19. In grúkr, however, we
evidently see an example of sound substitution, possibly under
the influence of some native word, in which case búkr ‘body,
belly’ seems a likely source of contamination. The treatment
of the consonants is demonstrably regular. Initial gr- occurs
again in gresjárn ‘a sort of iron wire’, presupposing gres iairn
lit. ‘art of iron’, while the final consonant is otherwise attested
three times: in the personal names Patrekr < Pátraic, Taðkr
< Tadc (C. J. S. Marstrander, Bidrag til det norske sprogs
historie i Irland, 95) and in *mákr ‘seal’s flipper’ < *mác
(postulated from Mod. Icel. mákur, Mod. Gael. mág).
Now Old Gael. grúac is feminine, but the Norse loan is mascu-
line, with the appropriate and obligatory termination. Shifts
of gender are seen in other cases, e. g. the comparable Far.
lámur ‘paw, etc.’ m. from Old Gael. lám f., or vice versa Far.
krógv f. from Old Gael. cró m. (above). When a language
distinguishing grammatical gender and employing a declen-
sional system borrows a noun from a foreign source, various
analogies play a part in determining what gender the loan
shall take and what declension it shall follow. A likely analogy
in the present case would again be ON búkr masc.
Gassi
We again begin from Chr. Matras, Álmanakki, 29, where
the possibility is voiced that gassi, i. e. kópagassi ‘cudgel for
killing seals’, might derive from (Sc.) Gael. gas ‘bough’. We aim
to show that this derivation can be accepted as certain.
Far. gassi is formally identical with ON gassi, a Common
Scandinavian word, with the basic sense ‘gander’, cf. de Vries.
But the uniquely Faroese meaning ‘cudgel’ ill accords with
such a sense, so that one automatically suspects that the Faroese
word is etymologically distinct. We therefore readily pursue
the lead given and turn to a closer examination of Gael. gas.
To begin with, we note that final s in such a word represents