The Old Swedish word was <kyrkja>
(cf. Old Icelandic kirkja). Occasional by-forms with (umlauted) *u rather than
*i are found here and there (OHG variant churihha, OE cyr(i)ce), presumably as
an alternative attempt to Germanise Greek /kyriaki/. One wonders when exactly
the word was borrowed, and how it travelled across Germania. It does not date
back to proto-Germanic, but could be old enough to qualify as common NW
Germanic. Did the Scandinavians have it second-hand from their "West Germanic"
cousins, or independently from the Greek? The details remain controversial. It
seems, at any rate, that the term had been entrenched in early
(pre-Christian) Old English by the time of Augustine's mission (AD 597), and
that it belongs to the oldest, "Continental" period of borrowing.
As for the source, Greek <to Ku:riakon
[do:ma]> for "the Lord's house" is known from the early
4th century, and <he: Ku:riake: he:mera:> for "the Lord's day (= dies
Dominica, Sunday)" from the Greek New Testament. Saint Kyriaki, named so because
she was born on Sunday, lived in the 3rd century.
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, April 16, 2001 12:23 AM
Subject: [tied] Re: Cyriaca
--- In cybalist@......, "Piotr
Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@......> wrote:
> It
most likely derives from the Greek adjective kuriakó- 'of the
Lord', from
<kurios>, elliptic for "the house of the lord"
(<kuriakón> is
attested with this meaning). The Germanic forms go
back to something like
*kiri:k-o:n- ~ -jo:n-
I think you would find it difficult to derive
Swedish <kyrka> from
that form.