I am not sure why the -s is sometimes
missing in original masculines (such as the "kettle" word). Younger loans,
perhaps, or just the usual messiness in loanword endings. Its absence is to be
expected in original Germanic neuters (like <patja> from *bad-ja-n,
OE bedd, OHG betti, Gothic badi [n.], as opposed to ON beðr [m.]).
The "mother" word <äiti> has Gothic
and West Germanic cognates (OHG eidî), and this fact seems to guarantee its PGmc
origin, but I don't think it is found in the documented Scandinavian languages.
It would seem that it was borrowed into Proto-Baltic-Finnic from PGmc or perhaps
Old Runic (which I'd identify more generally with Proto-NW-Germanic rather than
exclusively Proto-Norse). Some loans in Finnish are clearly older than attested
Old Runic; for example, <rengas> shows no raising of *e to *i before
*n, and that's a very archaic state of affairs even within Proto-Germanic. This
implies that some of the loans must date back to well before 200
AD.
What we find in <ruhtinas> is not
preaspiration but a separate segment corresponding to the PGmc. *x (velar
fricative) in *druxt-i:n-a-z. You can see it in Old English dryhten 'lord' (same
word, of course), where the articulation was still velar. Again, OE and Finnish
reflect the original cluster slightly more faithfully than Icelandic
does.
Finnish in general preserves the vocalism
of early loans very well, but simplifies initial clusters (banned in Finnish
phonotactics), so e.g. *fl-, *dr-, *xr- > l-, r-, r-, and adjusts the
voicing and/or tenseness of Germanic obstruents in accordance with its own
phonotactic demands. This is why *badja- became <patja>.
The number of old Germanic loans in Finnish
is so high, and their semantics so characteristic (government, social
institutions, technical terms, housekeeping, but also an occasional kinship
term) that they strongly suggest something like a Germanic-speaking élite
among the Baltic Finnic peoples about 2000 years ago and perhaps even earlier
than that, not unlike the Normans in England. There is an interesting discussion
of this in Raimo Anttila's (1972) _Introduction to Historical and Comparative
Linguistics_ (New York: Macmillan), and in less readily accessible Finnish
sources.
Hope we aren't moving too far
OT.
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2001 1:31 PM
Subject: Re: Odp: [norse_course] Finnish loans (was:
synonyms)
--- In norse_course@......, "Piotr
Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@......> wrote:
> 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'
ketill
beðr
(?)
drottinn
ríkr
Why is it not "kattilas"? Younger loan?
I
suppose Finnish has no [b], explaining why *badja gets
rendered
"patja".
The *aiþi:(n) word I cannot figure out; what is its descendant
in ON?
Is "ruhtinas" actually pronounced [ruhtinas]? That is, is there
pre-
aspiration there?
Last, I think some here would like some more
explanations of what we
are talking about; the source forms (the ones from
which the Finnish
forms are thought to derive) are reconstructed forms
(often from the
Finnish forms themselves) of "Proto-Norse", the language
preceding
ON. If I remember right, we're looking at the period 200-500 AD
(?).
I trust Piotr will correct my dating. In any case, this is also the
language of the earliest rune inscriptions, right?
Óskar