Fibula, Fabula, Fact The Viking Age in Finland, ISBN 978-952-222-603-7, Dec 2014
The chapter focuses on toponyms in present day southern Finland, the etymologies of which have be... more The chapter focuses on toponyms in present day southern Finland, the etymologies of which have been claimed to represent borrowings between Finnic and Scandinavian from the Viking Age or earlier. In the paper the best available knowledge of sound history and substitution practises is used in order to amend a number of etymologies. An understanding on why phonological development of toponyms differs from that of appellatives is accounted for and criteria flowing from that understanding are applied on the data. Light is shed on the nature of contacts between language communities, including the time and space where such contacts may have occurred.
En avsikt är att främja forskningen på området genom att granska, förbättra och utveckla några i sammanhanget centrala etymologier. Sådana etymologiska fallstudier inbegriper namnen fi. Köyliö ~ gammalfi. Kiulo ~ sv. Kjulo, östskandiviskt Tafæistaland, sv. Karis ~ fi. karja(h)a- ~? FN Herdalar, gammalfi. Ahuen maa ~ fsv. Alandh, tidigfi. *Rooϑϑi (?<*Roocci) ’svensk osv.’ ~ fsv. Rōþ- samt fsv. Rȳtzẹr ’ryss’, samt namnen upptagna i annexet till Codex ex-Holmensis A 41, allmänt kallat det ”Danska itinerariet”. Som stöd för behandlingen redovisar också uppsatsen för sin förförståelse av vilka lagbundenheter som styr ljudutvecklingen i ortnamn.
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Etymologin för det urfinska ordet *litna, som har betydelserna 'stad' och/eller 'borg', är omstridd. Bara en etymologi har föreslagits, nämligen ett lån från urformen för sv. fläck, dvs. ← +flikna-el. hellre *flekna-. Här bedöms det förslagets gångbarhet och vägs mot en ny möjlig etymologi, nämligen ett lån från urformen för svenskans klippa, dvs. ← *klibn- .
that of Finnic, the era in focus being the first millennium CE. Stratification of loanwords is discussed both as a means to
refine periodisation and as an aim in itself. The problems as concerns the latter half of the first millennium are highlighted.
The account is built on dissertation research defended in September 2018.
the two vowels, active and inert as triggers for front umlaut respectively,
could both have occurred in this position.
'bradawl, auger', namely with determining the form of the Scandinavian loan original *naƀaǥaiza- > Old-Icelandic nafarr (in particular *[z] > [r]) at the time of borrowing.
It is shown that within a material of some 80 potentially borrowed pre-Viking Age Proto-Finnic stems there is not a single ascertained case where a descendant of this Scandinavian diphthong would have been substituted by *ei, whereas the very few possible cases of *äi cannot be judged to testify to a fronted quality in the original. Substitution practices using back stems, which were subject to Finnic palatal vowel harmony, persisted for a surprisingly long time. In parallel with the principal ɑi → *ɑi substitution, one with *ëi ~ [ɤ̞i] is used in 2–4 ascertained cases. This substitution may testifiy to some variation or modification of the Proto-Scandinavian diphthong.
En avsikt är att främja forskningen på området genom att granska, förbättra och utveckla några i sammanhanget centrala etymologier. Sådana etymologiska fallstudier inbegriper namnen fi. Köyliö ~ gammalfi. Kiulo ~ sv. Kjulo, östskandiviskt Tafæistaland, sv. Karis ~ fi. karja(h)a- ~? FN Herdalar, gammalfi. Ahuen maa ~ fsv. Alandh, tidigfi. *Rooϑϑi (?<*Roocci) ’svensk osv.’ ~ fsv. Rōþ- samt fsv. Rȳtzẹr ’ryss’, samt namnen upptagna i annexet till Codex ex-Holmensis A 41, allmänt kallat det ”Danska itinerariet”. Som stöd för behandlingen redovisar också uppsatsen för sin förförståelse av vilka lagbundenheter som styr ljudutvecklingen i ortnamn.
The hypothesis is shown to be ad hoc. The stem vowel of the suffix in *vætur may not be accounted for without hypothetical assumptions not commonly recognized among Norse sound laws for final syllables. Even if this objection could be met, the postulated full grade would be highly hypothetical since evidence for it, putatively Phrygic and Hittite, is elusive. Indeed, the very slot in the paradigm needed to explain *vætur, notably the collective nominative/accusative, seems to have been occupied by a form ódōr, reconstructable for the common IE precursor of Proto-Germanic and Balto-Slavic, thus crowding out this etymology.
The article accounts for a number of alternative etymologies. An inventory is made of conditioning factors that could account for a possible, but unlikely, raising of a stem vowel *-ō-. Options of a derivation from the r/n-stem in question, from a verbal root or from a root noun are also surveyed. In conclusion the word is proposed to continue the remains of a Proto-Norse r-stem declination, cognate to West Germanic *watar, and lost to Norse when a singular back-formed to the plural weak stem *vatna- was generalized.
Explanations that have since then been presented for these names are based on an innovation suggesting that the last element sw. -land ~ fi. -maa did not originally refer to the province, but specifically to one of the largest islands in the Åland archipelago. The oldest connotation of this element, the meanings of which are largely synonymous in Swedish and Finnish, was indeed „large island‟ as in Lolland, Langeland, Helgoland, etc. To correspond to the Swedish name scholars have looked for a large island with no other ancient name and with a brook or stream, which could be explained as being the island with the brook in this archipelago. The main problem with this approach is semantic: a brook is smaller than a creek and due to the uplift of the bedrock, the few creeklets that are there would have had to have been even tinier at the time of origin of this name.
As regards the Finnish name it could still, assuming that it also first meant a large island, have been borrowed from Proto-Norse, although it has also been suggested that the first element refers to what it seems to be, that is, the name for perch (Perca fluviatilis), which is ahven(a).
The idea that the Finnish name may have an independent origin has in turn caused Lars Huldén to suggest in 1976 a reverse direction of borrowing in Proto-Norse times. Yet he failed to recognise the powerful semantic potential that developing his idea could have had. In later publications Huldén upheld this idea only as a secondary choice and reverted to prefer the option that a major island with a creeklet, practically unique in the whole archipelago, had been called „creek island‟.
sivu 2
The author of this article agrees with Lars Hellberg (1987) that this explanation is unsatisfactory; rather the idea of a borrowing from Late Proto-Finnic will be developed. The respective last elements in both languages are now considered separate later additions, while the first element is considered to have been borrowed as a proper name referring to the archipelago region as a whole, functioning as a terrain name rather than as an administrative province. Allusions s to this meaning are found in the oldest occurrences of the word in the Finnish language.
The article continues by demonstrating that such a meaning would correspond to a very early borrowing from a presumed Proto-Germanic original *aʒwiōz „(the) islands, (the) archipelago‟. There are other examples of possible Proto-Germanic borrowed names from this period (SPNK, s.v. Aurajoki, Eura, Karjaa and Kymijoki). The phonologically and semantically exactly matching later representative of the same word *aʒwiōz is known in the form of Öja, further north along the Finnish west coast, and several occurrences of Öja across Sweden, as well as one off the coast of Iceland in (Vestmanna)eyjar, colloquially called Eyjar. This borrowing could either have resulted in a Proto-Finnic e-stem *ahvi/*ahve- *aʒwiōz as in the case of Kymi *kwēmia(z) or even more likely in a stem with a derivational suffix -eh- (< Middle Proto-Finnic *-eɧ- < Early Proto-Finnic *-eš- ) *aɧveɧ- *aʒwiōz. In both cases the original, considering the historic forms of the name, could have been re-borrowed into Late Proto-Norse around the 7th century, which would coincide with the time that the islands were being (re-?)settled by immigrants from Sweden.
The problem with this etymology is the fairly high degree of hypothesising involved. However, the supposed prehistoric Finnish original can be supported from three directions, by later representatives in two separate languages and by a plausible explanation of origin. Support for the form *ahveh- is found in a text from 1833. The type and development of the name is analogous with that of Pohja in the northern Baltic region, which also developed from a terrain name into provincial and regional names by means of adding elements before or after it. Finally, this etymology also renders superfluous one supposition for which there is no hard evidence, that is, the semantic shift from „large island‟ to „province/region‟.
As long as no other irreproachable etymology for the Swedish name can be demonstrated, this explanation would appear to be a tempting one.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons "Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Un-ported" license.
*******************************************************************
THIS IS A FINAL DRAFT. TO BE SURE FOR PURPOSE OF REFERENCE LOOK AT THE WHOLE PUBLICATION AT https://nordisk-leksikografi.com/
*******************************************************************
Etymologin för det urfinska ordet *litna, som har betydelserna 'stad' och/eller 'borg', är omstridd. Bara en etymologi har föreslagits, nämligen ett lån från urformen för sv. fläck, dvs. ← +flikna-el. hellre *flekna-. Här bedöms det förslagets gångbarhet och vägs mot en ny möjlig etymologi, nämligen ett lån från urformen för svenskans klippa, dvs. ← *klibn- .
that of Finnic, the era in focus being the first millennium CE. Stratification of loanwords is discussed both as a means to
refine periodisation and as an aim in itself. The problems as concerns the latter half of the first millennium are highlighted.
The account is built on dissertation research defended in September 2018.
the two vowels, active and inert as triggers for front umlaut respectively,
could both have occurred in this position.
'bradawl, auger', namely with determining the form of the Scandinavian loan original *naƀaǥaiza- > Old-Icelandic nafarr (in particular *[z] > [r]) at the time of borrowing.
It is shown that within a material of some 80 potentially borrowed pre-Viking Age Proto-Finnic stems there is not a single ascertained case where a descendant of this Scandinavian diphthong would have been substituted by *ei, whereas the very few possible cases of *äi cannot be judged to testify to a fronted quality in the original. Substitution practices using back stems, which were subject to Finnic palatal vowel harmony, persisted for a surprisingly long time. In parallel with the principal ɑi → *ɑi substitution, one with *ëi ~ [ɤ̞i] is used in 2–4 ascertained cases. This substitution may testifiy to some variation or modification of the Proto-Scandinavian diphthong.
En avsikt är att främja forskningen på området genom att granska, förbättra och utveckla några i sammanhanget centrala etymologier. Sådana etymologiska fallstudier inbegriper namnen fi. Köyliö ~ gammalfi. Kiulo ~ sv. Kjulo, östskandiviskt Tafæistaland, sv. Karis ~ fi. karja(h)a- ~? FN Herdalar, gammalfi. Ahuen maa ~ fsv. Alandh, tidigfi. *Rooϑϑi (?<*Roocci) ’svensk osv.’ ~ fsv. Rōþ- samt fsv. Rȳtzẹr ’ryss’, samt namnen upptagna i annexet till Codex ex-Holmensis A 41, allmänt kallat det ”Danska itinerariet”. Som stöd för behandlingen redovisar också uppsatsen för sin förförståelse av vilka lagbundenheter som styr ljudutvecklingen i ortnamn.
The hypothesis is shown to be ad hoc. The stem vowel of the suffix in *vætur may not be accounted for without hypothetical assumptions not commonly recognized among Norse sound laws for final syllables. Even if this objection could be met, the postulated full grade would be highly hypothetical since evidence for it, putatively Phrygic and Hittite, is elusive. Indeed, the very slot in the paradigm needed to explain *vætur, notably the collective nominative/accusative, seems to have been occupied by a form ódōr, reconstructable for the common IE precursor of Proto-Germanic and Balto-Slavic, thus crowding out this etymology.
The article accounts for a number of alternative etymologies. An inventory is made of conditioning factors that could account for a possible, but unlikely, raising of a stem vowel *-ō-. Options of a derivation from the r/n-stem in question, from a verbal root or from a root noun are also surveyed. In conclusion the word is proposed to continue the remains of a Proto-Norse r-stem declination, cognate to West Germanic *watar, and lost to Norse when a singular back-formed to the plural weak stem *vatna- was generalized.
Explanations that have since then been presented for these names are based on an innovation suggesting that the last element sw. -land ~ fi. -maa did not originally refer to the province, but specifically to one of the largest islands in the Åland archipelago. The oldest connotation of this element, the meanings of which are largely synonymous in Swedish and Finnish, was indeed „large island‟ as in Lolland, Langeland, Helgoland, etc. To correspond to the Swedish name scholars have looked for a large island with no other ancient name and with a brook or stream, which could be explained as being the island with the brook in this archipelago. The main problem with this approach is semantic: a brook is smaller than a creek and due to the uplift of the bedrock, the few creeklets that are there would have had to have been even tinier at the time of origin of this name.
As regards the Finnish name it could still, assuming that it also first meant a large island, have been borrowed from Proto-Norse, although it has also been suggested that the first element refers to what it seems to be, that is, the name for perch (Perca fluviatilis), which is ahven(a).
The idea that the Finnish name may have an independent origin has in turn caused Lars Huldén to suggest in 1976 a reverse direction of borrowing in Proto-Norse times. Yet he failed to recognise the powerful semantic potential that developing his idea could have had. In later publications Huldén upheld this idea only as a secondary choice and reverted to prefer the option that a major island with a creeklet, practically unique in the whole archipelago, had been called „creek island‟.
sivu 2
The author of this article agrees with Lars Hellberg (1987) that this explanation is unsatisfactory; rather the idea of a borrowing from Late Proto-Finnic will be developed. The respective last elements in both languages are now considered separate later additions, while the first element is considered to have been borrowed as a proper name referring to the archipelago region as a whole, functioning as a terrain name rather than as an administrative province. Allusions s to this meaning are found in the oldest occurrences of the word in the Finnish language.
The article continues by demonstrating that such a meaning would correspond to a very early borrowing from a presumed Proto-Germanic original *aʒwiōz „(the) islands, (the) archipelago‟. There are other examples of possible Proto-Germanic borrowed names from this period (SPNK, s.v. Aurajoki, Eura, Karjaa and Kymijoki). The phonologically and semantically exactly matching later representative of the same word *aʒwiōz is known in the form of Öja, further north along the Finnish west coast, and several occurrences of Öja across Sweden, as well as one off the coast of Iceland in (Vestmanna)eyjar, colloquially called Eyjar. This borrowing could either have resulted in a Proto-Finnic e-stem *ahvi/*ahve- *aʒwiōz as in the case of Kymi *kwēmia(z) or even more likely in a stem with a derivational suffix -eh- (< Middle Proto-Finnic *-eɧ- < Early Proto-Finnic *-eš- ) *aɧveɧ- *aʒwiōz. In both cases the original, considering the historic forms of the name, could have been re-borrowed into Late Proto-Norse around the 7th century, which would coincide with the time that the islands were being (re-?)settled by immigrants from Sweden.
The problem with this etymology is the fairly high degree of hypothesising involved. However, the supposed prehistoric Finnish original can be supported from three directions, by later representatives in two separate languages and by a plausible explanation of origin. Support for the form *ahveh- is found in a text from 1833. The type and development of the name is analogous with that of Pohja in the northern Baltic region, which also developed from a terrain name into provincial and regional names by means of adding elements before or after it. Finally, this etymology also renders superfluous one supposition for which there is no hard evidence, that is, the semantic shift from „large island‟ to „province/region‟.
As long as no other irreproachable etymology for the Swedish name can be demonstrated, this explanation would appear to be a tempting one.
1–4 – Finlands väg till självständighet
1–4. Red. Jussi Nuorteva,
Pertti Hakala (1–2), Päivi Happonen
(3–4) & John Strömberg (3–4).
Arkistolaitoksen toimituksia 18:1-4.
Arkivverkets publikationer 18:1-4
Kansallisarkisto/Riksarkivet 2014–
2017. 276 + 543 + 557 + 751 s. (finska
och svenska)
ISBN 978-951-37-6617-7, 978-951-37-
6711-2, 978-951-37-7004-4, 978-951-
37-7306-9
ISSN 1795-9683
Also a link is provided to "Hurrarnas språk, kreolsvenska eller riksspråklig varietet?"(Språkbruk 1/1990) , a juvenile "pamflet" by myself on the same subject, referred to in the review.
https://sprakbruk.fi/artiklar/hurrarnas-sprak-kreolsvenska-eller-riksspraklig-varietet/
Språkbruk är en populärvetenskaplig tidskrift om språk som ges ut av Institutet för de inhemska språken.
Språkbruk är en populärvetenskaplig tidskrift om språk som ges ut av Institutet för de inhemska språken.
These are the English language portions of the summarising chapter of a compilation thesis.
1) Intro: key characteristics of this East-Nylandic dialect.
2) The following section describes how two underlying
suppletive morphs of the definite article generate 5 surface
allomorphs.
3) The last section compares constraints-based stratal
phonology and rule ordering as means to explain the opacity that
arises from the computation.
PP-sarjassa ehdottelen, että kantasuomen *litna voisi olla laina kantagermaanin vartalosta *klib-n-, jonka konsonanttiyhtymän substituointi -tn- yhtymällä on mahdollinen, joskin rinnakkaistapaukset puuttuvat. Tämän ohella ehdotan, että alkuperäinen lainaoriginaali ei niinkään ole säilynyt alasaksassa vaan itäskandinaavissa, jossa semantinen monimuotoisuus on suurimmillaan ja ensimmäiset attestoinnit samanikäiset kuin alasaksassa.
In the presentation it is shown that by reconstructing one further preGermanic archaism and one chain shift in the Proto-Scandinavian vowel system, as well as a prominence system based on mora count, the most recalcitrant distribution of umlaut, namely when a trigger in a light syllable had followed a target in another light syllable, may be economically explained.
Finnic loanwords do not by and large reflect sub-phonemic umlaut together with reflexes of an unreduced syllable structure. In the presentation three etymons which appear to originate from the umlaut era are discussed: *olut, *rohkeda and *kari.
https://www.academia.edu/33123786/The_notorious_cruxes_of_Common_Scandinavian_umlaut_and_breaking_A_metaphonic_feature-based_unified_solution._Conference_hand-out_
and enhanced by https://www.academia.edu/33124031/THE_NOTORIOUS_CRUXES_OF_COMMON_SCANDINAVIAN_UMLAUT_AND_BREAKING_A_metaphonic_feature-based_unified_solution
2. The loanwords enter before during and after "Middle Proto Finnic" which amounts to more than a millennium. There must have been a few centuries between Proto-Germanic proper and runic Palaeo-Scandinavian to accommodate the Finnic (and Sámi) sound changes.
3. Proto-Germanic developed from Proto-Indo-European in Scandinavia/Baltic Sea Region
4. There is no continuity of “Sievers’ law” from Proto-Indo-European to Palaeo-Scandinavian
5. The precursory period of “allophonic” or “sub-phonemic” umlaut was very short
Kustos: professor Hanna Lehti-Eklund, Helsingfors universitet
Opponent: professor Paul Kiparsky, Stanford University
Fakultetens representanter: professor Riho Grünthal, professor Matti Miestamo, Helsingfors universitet