Re: [tied] Non-IE elements in Scandinavian

ekorn is cognat of OHG eihhorno and OE acweorna <PGerm *aika-werna-. There's
the possibility that -werna- was cognat Latin viverra "ferret", Greek
aielouros "cat" (-ouros <*weworo- or aielo- <*waiwelo-<*waiwero-) and Slavic
vever- "squirrel".
Joao SL
Rio

----- Original Message -----
From: Thomas Nordengen <thomasno@...>
To: <cybalist@egroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, September 16, 2000 4:16 PM
Subject: [tied] Non-IE elements in Scandinavian


>
> As a speaker of Norwegian, German and English, I have noticed that
> Norwegian (and the other north-germanic languages) have a wealth of
> words which don't exist in other languages. Certainly any language
> will have unique words, but there are just too many to be a
> coincidence.
>
> My theory is that when IE settlers came to Scandinavia, they had to
> live in peace and harmony with the aboriginal population because of
> the harsh climate here. To survive, they had to learn new skills
> from the natives. For a long period of time they lived side by side,
> and the Indo-europeans took up a large number of native words. Since
> very few words in modern Norwegian bear any resemblance to Uralic
> words, I doubt the pre-IE language was Uralic.
>
> What kind of language did they have? Would it be possible to get a
> glimpse of this (or these) ancient language(s) by searching modern
> Scandinavian languages and Icelandic for non-IE elements?
>
> Examples of unique Sc. words: fjell = mountain, jente = girl, hav =
> ocean, furu = pine, ekorn = squirrel, ørret = trout, tjern = pond,
> rar = strange/funny, nes = tiny peninsula, skog = forest
>
>
>
>
>