Re: OE. HERG / HEARG ----> ( herh-eard) GROVE DWELLING

> Lastly, a suggestion that it might be a loan word from a Semitic
> language (eg. Phoenician). This was described as an
> Atlantic/Semitidic proposition out of Theo Venemann's theories (1),
> which apparently to some in the linguistic community, are too
> controversial to be taken seriously. I am not trying to put words
> into other's mouths, so please correct me if I am mistaken in these
> suggestions.
>
>
> In summary, there were two objections raised to my investigation:
>
> 1) Hearg/herg did not refer to a "grove" but rather to an
> altar/stone and therefore not eligible to any meningful comparison.
>

It's most likely both, ie. a sacred grove. If you could show that the
Semitic root had a religious connotation, that would be helpful. A
scenario where one people takes another people's secular term for
"grove" and turns it into "sacred grove" is not plausible. One in
which the term did mean "sacred grove" when it was loaned, is plausible.

> 2) OE. Hearg/herg was not phonetically compatible with Arabic "Hrg"
> (grove, thicket) unless it was a loan word which seems, to the
> skeptical mind, improbable.

A loan Semitic *H > Germanic *h could not plausibly have taken place
before the Germanic Grimm-shift by which i.a. *k- > *h-. That means
that the Germani could not have come into contact with a people that
used that word for "sacred grove". The Grimm-shift, by communis opinio
(pretty much) took place no earlier than the first century BCE. Sacred
groves don't move, they stay. The PGmc. root *harugaz is isolated in
Germanic, it has no cousins elsewhere in IE languages. All in all your
theory is compatible with a scenario where the Germani arrived late in
a (coastal?) area which had earlier been influenced by a
Semitic-speaking people. Now you know why you are in trouble in
linguistics.

> For those who objected to my attribution of the meaning of grove to
> Hearg/herg, I would like to inform you that this was based on behind
> the scenes discussions among reputable Anglo Saxon lexicographers.
> I am taking the liberty to post their exchange in its entirety
> below. I hope that this will put the matter to rest.
>
>
> "Thorpe and Ettmüller regarded "Herheard" as the lord's name,

Which lord was that?

> but later
> scholars have found this implausible. Grein's emendation of MS her
> heard to her eard simplifies the syntax, but deprives the verse of
> suitable alliteration; it is unlikely that the adverb would take the
> stress in preference to the noun. Grein later suggested herh-eard
> (1865, 422), meaning "grove-dwelling," which in the "Nachträgliche
> Verbesserungen" to his edition he relates to wuda bearwe (line 27)
> and to OHG haruc, "lucus," and glosses in his Sprachschatz as
> "habitaculum in nemoribus" (similary Grein-Köhler). Grein's
> suggestion is adopted by Krapp-Dobbie. But the OE he(a)rg/hearh,
> "heathen temple," "idol," has a definite pejorative sense and
> is not recorded in precisely this spelling (see Concordance H002:19
> (haerg-); H010:78 (haerg-); H012:271-73 (hearg-), 273 (hearh-);
> H017:308-12 and 321-22 (herg-); H018:11 and 23-24 (herg-), 64 and
> 70-80 passim (herig-).Toller Supp. gives the emended form hearh-eard
> in Grein's sense with a query, and also cites this line under heard
> as an alternative possibility. Moritz Trautmann's suggestion that
> the word herheard means "sanctuary" in the sense of "refuge" (1894,
> 222-25) is not substantiated elsewhere in OE. Later scholars have
> found a specifically pagan significance in the word. Thus A .N.
> Doane (1966, 86-88). Also Wentersdorf (1981, 509), who finds it in
> Rim 74 also (generally emended to her eardes to provide
> alliteration: see note)."
>
>
> In addition, the original scan of this important exchange has been
> added to my website for everybody's scrutiny.
>
> http://www.theegyptianchronicles.com/ANEW/HERG.html
>
>
> Obviously this exchange changes the outcome as to the first
> objection stated above.
>
> In addition, I find it ironic that when Toller's Supp. gave the
> emended form "hearh-eard" in agreement with Grein's sense, he used
> the term in question in combination with "eard," (2) the native
> soil which corresponds the C. Arabic: 'arD (earth) and Hebrew 'rts,
> and many other Semitic languages (3).
> Coincidence? I don't think so.

Both Møller and Vennemann have pointed out this last correspondence.


Torsten