From: Pavel Iosad
Message: 1052
Date: 2001-03-20
> Do you know how many words we are talking about ? (order of magnitude)I guess no, since I also have an idea that much of the cultural lexicon
> If you were to make up a list, would it be exhausted in a
> single mail ?
>I think not. Grammatically it is less complex (even though I am hardly
> Personally I have never looked too deeply into this question
> of Finnish,
> because the Finnish language is soo different from the other European
> languages, and is supposed to be soo difficult to learn, that very few
> people make the effort. Far more people have actually tried to learn
> languages like Russian, and I suppose those who got a chance to live
> there are also more or less fluent. But Finnish is, I think, even
> more difficult than Russian !
> Of course, there is the same phenomenon with respect to the Saamic[list snipped]
> language(s): e.g.. the Saamic god "Horgallis" is supposed to derived
> from ON "Torekall".
>
> Looking it up, I find, then, 426 (for hundred and twenty
> six) borrowings from North Germanic into Finnish. The list
> includes such well known words as:
> So what this list suggests is: social institutions (marked),It would be natural for the more or less nomadic Finns wandering into
> weekdays, gods, supernatural beings, instruments, things
> to do with fishing and sailing; also the plow, as well as
> things that have to do with the building of houses.
> "jól" (=yule) was indeed part of the list I quoted.Looks like speculation to me - the chronists were good at ascribing
> Also note that words like geohol, gehhol, geol, geola
> are documented in Anglo-Saxon. Also in the Gotic language
> there is "fruma-jiuleis" = the month of November.
> All this shows that the word "jól" is an old one.
> But when the Icelandic Annals say that this name
> was introduced in honour of Julius Caesar, how seriously
> are we to take this? It is of course relevant to consider
> that it was Julius Caesar who *was* responsible for an
> important calendar reform. But the question is whether
> the Icelandic annalists are merely speculating, or -
> what would be more interesting - are passing on a genuine
> tradition.