Re: [tied] Skuggva

The dictionaries I've consulted place the "shadow", "mirror", "sky" and "shoe" words in the etymon *skeuH- 'cover, conceal' (with obscurus, scum, skewbald and sheath), and the "show" words in *skou- 'look at, notice' (with scavenger and Weltanschauung). It seems that the Goths regarded a mirror reflection as a sort of shadow.

Piotr

----- Original Message -----
From: Håkan Lindgren

To: Cybalist

Sent: Tuesday, November 21, 2000 7:52 PM

Subject: Re: [tied] Skuggva

The West Germanic (Old English and Old High German) forms of the same word mean "shadow". I wonder if it's related to _show_, _schauen_ (OE _sceawian_). I'll look it up.

Piotr

Thanks!

Also, if anyone thinks that the etymologies I found are not correct, I'd like to hear from you. The dictionaries where I found the connected words ("shoe", "sky" etc.) are both old, and I'm not sure if they are completely trustworthy.

Hakan

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

In modern Swedish, skugga means "shadow". This word, meaning "mirror", "shadow" and "picture" made me interested. I looked it up in two books and got two different etymologies. It could either derive from an IE root meaning "to cover", which is also found in the word "shoe" and, possibly, in "sky" (I could never have imagined that there was a connection between "shoe", "shadow" and "sky"!). Or it could derive from a root meaning "to shine", "to shimmer".

Does anyone know more about this word and its connections in different languages? What was the original meaning of Gothic "skuggva" - did it originally mean "shadow"? If it didn't - what was the Gothic word for "shadow"?