Re: Digest Number 1239: re: "hogget"

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...>"
<tgpedersen@...> wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@...>
> wrote:
> > At 5:23:39 PM on Saturday, February 15, 2003, John L. Berry
> > wrote:
> >
> > [...]
> >
> > > "swidden"
> >
> > > Another odd word I'd like to know about is "swidden",
> > > often used by anthropologists as a synonym for "slash and
> > > burn agriculture", and to all appearances an English word,
> > > but not in the Compact or Concise OED, Am Herit Dict or
> > > Amer.Coll.Dict. It's a perfectly good Norse word (Sw:
> > > "svida", to burn (the surface of something), OSw svitha,
> > > Isl svitha (but with different "th"s). But how did it
> > > become a technical term in anthropology, and why (or where
> > > from) was it adopted in such an English form?
>
> Danish has 'svedjebrug' ('brug' in this constrained sense =
> procedure, way of going about things, cf. German 'Gebrauch'). The
> word sounds like a loan to me (Swedish or ON). I'll look it up.

Ordbog over det danske sprog:

svedje
(fr. Sw. 'svedja', der. from Sw. 'sveda' or 'svida'...; former only
of matters Nw. (and Sw.), more recently as archaeol. and ethnogr.
term)
agricultural land cleared and made fertile by burning forest.

Earliest quote for 'svedjebrug' is undated, by the historian Johs.
Brøndsted, 1890-1965.

Older forms exist: 'sveebrænding' ('svee' from Nw.), quote from
1760; 'svie-ild' 1746; 'svee-land', 1761.

> Torsten