--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>
>
> Perhaps Danish seng, Swedish säng, Finnish sänky, Estonian
> säng "bed" belong to the same pre-PIE root. West of Copenhagen there
> is a Sengeløse, just south of boggy terrain, says my map. It is
> generally recognised that the first element of place names ending in
> -løse are difficult to interpret as Germanic (unlike the
> contemporaneous -lev place names) which is why I believe they were
> redeemed (my interpretation of the semantics of -løse) properties of
> the pre-Germanic inhabitants of Sjælland and Scania; if true, we
> have now placed *seng- "depression in the terrain" (as also 'bed'
> means) in that language too.
>
This leads to associate with "sänka", "dalsänka", a terrain lower than
its surroundings. In German Wikipedia formulated in this way:
Eine Senke im Sinne der Geomorphologie - im Rahmen dieser Wissenschaft
auch Depression genannt - ist ein Gebiet auf dem Festland, das tiefer
liegt als der Meeresspiegel und daher keinen Abfluss hat.
So far German; in Swedish there is no necessity of it being below the
sealevel.
'Säng' is also used as a restricted area dug out in a garden for
cultivation filled with nourishing humus and manure. Danish uses 'bed'
for this.
Well, what struck me was a connexion between seng, säng and the
verb 'sänka', to sink. However Hellquist gives no connexion whatsoever
between säng and sänka. And no etymologist seems to get beyond
Germanic for these words that are kept strictly separate.
For säng Hellquist associates with Anglosaxon Saecing, a sack filled
with hey.
Would a derivation of säng from sänk- be lautgesetzlich? Or was it
perhaps in the pre-Germanic language you suggest.
Lars