At 1:48:32 PM on Saturday, December 26, 2009, dgkilday57
wrote:
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Torsten" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
[...]
>> I have a suspicion the Germanic "heaven" is a loan
>> Wortschatz der Germanischen Spracheinheit:
>> 'hemina, hemila m. Himmel, Zimmerdecke. g. himins m. Himmel;
>> an. himinn m. dass.;
>> as. heBan und himil m.,
>> afries. himel, himul,
>> ags. heofon m., engl. heaven;
>> ahd. himil m. Himmel, Zimmerdecke,
>> mnd. himel, nhd. Himmel.
>> Davon abgeleitet
>> ahd. himilizi, himilze,
>> mhd. himelze, himelz n. Zimmerdecke, Baldachin,
>> mnd. hemelte Zimmerdecke, ndl. gehemelte Gaumen (aus he-militia-).
>> Vgl. gr. kmélethron. (73:8)'
>> 1) the odd suffix -et-,
>> 2) the inlaut alternation w/m and
>> 3) the auslaut alternation l/n (some kind of heteroclitic)
>> sets it apart from other Germanic words (except for
>> *litel- and *mikel- also having property 3)
> The inlaut alternation is due to *-mn- > *-Bn- in those
> cases which have zero-grade in the /n/-suffix. Old Norse
> has nom. sg. <himinn> against dat. sg. <hifne>.
Specifically, in the runic inscription Sö 136:
: suain : iuk : sluia * þaiR : raisþu : ---... ... ...-nu *
at : faþur : sin : hirsi * uksniauin ian uas : unt hifni
bistr
Svæinn ok Sloði(?) þæiR ræisþu ... ... ... at faður sinn,
hærsi(?) hugsniallan(?). Hann vas und hifni bæztr.
Sveinn and Slóði(?), they raised ... in memory of their
father, a doughty(?) chieftain(?). He was (the) best
under heaven.
It even resulted in the analogical creation of a rare nom.
sing. <hifinn>. (Cleasby & Vigfusson mentions four
instances, and <snara.is> describes it as 'nýmyndun seinni
tíma skálda út frá fornu þgf. hifni af himinn'.) There's
also a possible runic example of a gen. pl. <hifna> in
Sö 154:
kunar : raisþi : stain : þansi : at lyþbiurn : sun : sin :
iarþsalr ifna uk ubhimin
Gunnarr ræisþi stæin þannsi at Lyðbiorn, sun sinn. Iarðsalr
hifna ok upphiminn.
Gunnarr raised this stone in memory of Lyðbjörn, his son.
The earthly hall of (the) heavens and high heaven.
But the last part has also been read:
iarþ sal rifna uk ubhimin
Iarð skal rifna ok upphiminn.
Earth shall be riven and high heaven.
The second reading makes better sense to me, as I can easily
read it as an expression of grief, but I don't know whether
there are any parallels; this is the only instance of
<upphiminn> in Rundata.
There's also a rare ON dat. sing. <gafni> beside nom. sing.
<gaman> 'game, sport, pleasure, amusement'.
> Old English <heofon> has simply generalized the -B- to all
> cases. See Streitberg, Urg. Gr. 143.
> The auslaut alternation does occur in other Gmc. words,
> e.g. Old Norse <freknor> 'freckles'. See Noreen, Abriss
> der urg. Lautlehre 193-4. This is Suffixwechsel, not
> heteroclisis as normally understood with the r/n-stems.
This particular change occurred in ME: <freckle> is an
alteration of ME <frecken> (found, e.g., in Chaucer), which
is from the ON word. But ON has <spreklóttr> 'speckled'
beside <freknóttr> 'freckled', which would both seem to be
from Watkins' *(s)preg- 'to jerk, to scatter'.
Brian