From: dgkilday57
Message: 65170
Date: 2009-10-02
>That seems reasonable enough, a PIE root *lek- 'still, slow-flowing' vel sim. with derived nouns *lo'ka:-, *loku'-.
> I had this idea. Then I had another one. More often than not my ideas
> are crap, but still:
>
> There are two Norwegian rivers 'Lågen' < ON <lögr> < *lagú- (with Gmc.
> cognates meaning "lake"). The name is probably related to the word
> refected as Icel. 'lá' f. "water on the tidal sands", No. 'lå' f. "pit
> in bog", LG <la:> f. "pit, bog, wetland" < Gmc. *láho:- "still water?".
> There's also a raised bog (I think), an old oxbow lake (cut-off
> meander), near Hønefoss (in a third river basin) called 'Lamyra' "the
> /la/ bog".
>
> The two rivers named Lågen have both long parts of slow, still water,
> one meandering for long parts of its lower course, the other forming
> long wide river lakes on its way and ending in a shallow wetland with
> sands and back eddies. I want to propose that the suffix accented *lagú-
> is derived from the stem accented *láho:- with a resulting meaning close
> to "one with still water". Moreover, Norwegian rivers are feminine, so
> the gender is wrong. But it would be right for a lake. Thus, the name
> may originally have denoted the shallow, slow-flowing river-lakes, or
> perhaps oxbow lakes.
> Finally, could Gmc. *láho:- f. and *lagú- m. and their cognates OIrUnfortunately Lat. <locus> comes from OL <stlocus>, for which I have no etymology, and no principled way to connect it with *stel-. Likewise Lat. <li:s> 'lawsuit' comes from <stli:s>, again without etymology, and <locus> rhymes with <focus> 'fireplace', without etymology (known to me, anyhow).
> <loch> n. "lake", PSl. *loku:- "dam, cistern", Lat. <lacus> m. "lake,
> pool, basin" < PIE *lok- "an isolated stem meaning something with water"
> all be related to lat. <locus> "place" <- "placed", reflecting an
> earlier meaning "still (water)"?
>
> (Incidentally, for a parallel see the different meanings of the cognates
> of Eng. 'still'.)