A self-correction: Finn. kuningas, like
<konung>, etc., means 'king', not 'prince'. The retention of the
thematic vowel, the old (unrhotacised!) Nom.sg. ending, and absence of any kind
umlaut make <kuningas> look very old. Here are a few other characteristic
loans (the list is far from complete):
äiti 'mother' < *aiti:(n)- (Gothic
aiþei)
kattila 'kettle' (no umlaut)
patja 'mattress' < *badja- (no umlaut,
-j- preserved)
ruhtinas 'prince' < *druxtinaz (all
vowels preserved)
rikas 'rich'
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2001 1:09 AM
Subject: Re: Odp: [norse_course] Finnish loans (was:
synonyms)
> There are scores of old Germanic loans in Finnish, many of them
beautifully archaic and evidently dating back to a chronological
layer
identifiable as Proto-Germanic, e.g. kuningas <
*kuningaz 'prince',
rengas < *xrengaz 'ring', laiva < *flauja-
'ship', etc. Finnish is
rather conservative in terms of phonological
development, so those loans are
conserved like flies in amber, and
their Finnish form is sometimes more
archaic than what you can find
in any historically documented Germanic
language.
This is quite interesting :) I've also heard of Finnish saku
< *saku
and havukas < *habukaz (where the 'b' is actually a
fricative).
I should list the ON equivalents of the words we've mentioned
there:
*kuningaz = konungr
*xrengaz = hringr
(the 'x'
letter used there represents a [x], not [ks])
*flauja = fley (I
think)
*saku = sök
*habukaz = haukr
Of those, all three of the
strong masculine words should be familiar
to you from our
lessons.
Óskar