Re: [tied] A swedish fiord

>I grew up on the swedish westcoast near the only fiord in Sweden,
>Gullmaren. The fiord's name is actually mentioned in the sagas, as
>Godmaren, and the explanations has been merely that God- means divine
>being and -maren is from latin "Mare" for sea. I think this
>explanation is strange, because why would there be a name that is some
>kind of cross-breed between old norse and latin? Does anyone have an
>alternative explanation?

Perhaps what they intended to say was that the -maren part of the name is
related to the Latin word for "sea", which it is. Old Norse <marr>, Old High
German <mari, meri>, Gothic <marei> and several other words for "body of
water" in the various Germanic tongues indicate a Proto-Germanic form *mari-
(ON marr < Runic *mariR < PGmc. *mariz). This form derives, in turn, from
Proto-Indo-European *mori-, which appears in Latin <mare> "sea" (and
currently in words like "maritime" and the Latin-derived Swedish word for
navy, "marin"), as well as in Old Irish <muir>, Old Church Slavonic <morje>,
Romanian <more>, etc. ... Hope this helps!

Regards,

Dagfinn