Hi
"João S. Lopes Filho" <jodan99@...> wrote:
>
> What's the etymology and meaning of MUSPELL ?
I see in the Snorri- Edda that "the sons of Muspell" seems to be
synonymos with evil or misfortune.
E. g. in Gylfagining 13.
"Hög says: 'The gods are not to be blamed for that deed. Bifrost is a
good bridge, but nothing in this world is safe when the sons of
Muspell are raging"
My theory is then that it could have something to do with words
similar to missfall
E. g the definitions for the danish words missfald ( the 1) one
misfortune) and missfejl (error, mistake)here seem quite attractive
semantically.
http://www.hist.uib.no/kalkar/
III/99
Våre Arveord has a long disscussion of the word fall but sees the
closest relative outside germanic in Lit. inf. pùlti "fall", pres. 3
sg. púola< IE *po(long)l- (IE. *o(long)> lit -ou-).
There is something about this here too:
http://machaut.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/WEBSTER.sh?WORD=fall
I also read in Våre Arveord that Germ *missa- many derives from the
verbal theme in the foundation of Old Indian méthati "he attacks,
want (somebody) evil, fight",..."
Perhaps I'm wrong but to me it doesnt seem that an i > u transition
is uncommon in germanic languages.
Here I'm thinking loud and I should probably check with tyou
linguists here first.
But isn't there an i> u transition (way back in time perhaps ) in e.
g. G. sieden E. seethe > Sv. sjuda?
Best whishes
Anders
PS I remember that I have another homecooked theory about Nifelhem,
but i think I will save it unto next time.zs