Hi Mike,
I am Cc: ing this to you privately, because
my last few mails never did return from the Yahoo
list-server. I've also heard they are having big troubles
at yahoo: Someone said they are planning to charge a dollar
for each email :)


You wrote:

>This makes me wonder.
>Do you know how the pre-modern Old Norse speakers
>treated unfamiliar objects? That is, when they
>encountered something for the first time, did
>they tend to create new names, or would they
>adopt the names used by the people who
>introduced them to the thing?

Some years ago, we had a discussion about the Old Norse word
for "elephant". This was of course an animal almost
totally unknown, even to most vikings - though perhaps not
the ones who visited Constantinople. Apparently the name
"fíll" came to ON via Bulgarian, because of the ivory trade.
But perhaps others will be able to say more.

Best regards
Keth