From: Brian M. Scott
Message: 18854
Date: 2003-02-17
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...>"SAOB has it somewhat earlier. If I'm reading it correctly,
> <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@...>
>> wrote:
>> > At 5:23:39 PM on Saturday, February 15, 2003, John L. Berry
>> > wrote:
>> > > Another odd word I'd like to know about is "swidden",
>> > > often used by anthropologists as a synonym for "slash and
>> > > burn agriculture", and to all appearances an English word,
>> > > but not in the Compact or Concise OED, Am Herit Dict or
>> > > Amer.Coll.Dict. It's a perfectly good Norse word (Sw:
>> > > "svida", to burn (the surface of something), OSw svitha,
>> > > Isl svitha (but with different "th"s). But how did it
>> > > become a technical term in anthropology, and why (or where
>> > > from) was it adopted in such an English form?
>> Danish has 'svedjebrug' ('brug' in this constrained sense =
>> procedure, way of going about things, cf. German 'Gebrauch'). The
>> word sounds like a loan to me (Swedish or ON). I'll look it up.
> Ordbog over det danske sprog:
> svedje (fr. Sw. 'svedja', der. from Sw. 'sveda' or
> 'svida'...; former only of matters Nw. (and Sw.), more
> recently as archaeol. and ethnogr. term) agricultural land
> cleared and made fertile by burning forest.
> Earliest quote for 'svedjebrug' is undated, by the
> historian Johs. Brøndsted, 1890-1965.
> Older forms exist: 'sveebrænding' ('svee' from Nw.), quote<Svedje-eld> 1620, referring to the fire set to clear the
> from 1760; 'svie-ild' 1746; 'svee-land', 1761.