Hi Laz,

On Sat, May 18, 2002 at 03:51:35PM -0400, Lazarus wrote:
>
> You're confusing me now. Is Jötunn feminine now too? Zoega doesn't say so.

The problem is that grammatical gender is not the same as biological gender.
Thus one norse word for mare (female horse) is of neuter gender. The _word_
"jötunn" is of masculine grammatical gender.

The best english analogy might be the words "dog" and "bitch". The word "dog"
refers both to a species and specifically to the male of the species. The
word "bitch" refers to the female of that species. So it's perfectly OK
to say both "my dog plays with her toy" and "my dog plays with his toy",
and utter nonsense to say "my bitch plays with _his_ toy".

This contrasts with the words "horse", "stallion", and "mare", where both
genders have special words, and an individual of unknown or irrelvant gender
might also be called "horse".

I'm not expert enough on the language to know to what extent the word "jötunn"
refers to the species, and to what extent only to males or individuals of
unknown gender.

To make things more confusing, in some languages grammatical and biological
gender are much closer. In them, the species word might have a different
ending depending whether it was refering to a female, male, or to a group
of unknown gender. (I.e. there wouldn't be cases like we have in english.)
I don't believe norse/icelandic is this type of language.

>
>
> -Laz
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Heiðrún Bergsdóttir
> To: norse_course@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Saturday, May 18, 2002 2:24 PM
> Subject: Re: [norse_course] New Topic
>
>
> Jötunn og Gríðr is the same thing. They are basically giants, like in the norse tradition (Snorra-Edda).
> Heiðrún
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Lazarus
> To: norse_course@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Saturday, May 18, 2002 12:40 AM
> Subject: Re: [norse_course] New Topic
>
>
> Thanks Heiðrún.
>
> So what is the name of the species then? Þurs? Jötunn? Something else?
>
> -Laz
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Heiðrún Bergsdóttir
> To: norse_course@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Friday, May 17, 2002 9:19 AM
> Subject: Re: [norse_course] New Topic
>
>
> Þurs and Gríðr are still used in Icelandic today, and they are the male and female name of the same species.
>
> Heiðrún
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Lazarus
> To: norse_course@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Thursday, May 16, 2002 8:28 PM
> Subject: [norse_course] New Topic
>
>
> I was thumbing through Zoega today and ran across a term I'd like some input on.
>
> Usually when I post things like this I get nothing in response, but I'll try again anyway.
>
> The word is 'Gríðr' and Zoega translated it as 'giantess'. What strikes me is that I've never heard of this word before. The term 'Þursr' meaning 'giant' is well known and the topic of many discussions, yet nowhere have I read of a separate word for the feminine gender of the same 'species?'.
>
> Does anyone know anything about this term and how it is used? Any instances in the lore that might shed light on this? Could the word 'Þurs' exclusively mean the male gender of 'giants' or does it include the female as well, with 'Gríðr' being a rare term?
>
> -Laz
>
>
> Sumir hafa kvæði...
> ...aðrir spakmæli.
>
> - Keth
>
> Homepage: http://www.hi.is/~haukurth/norse/
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> norse_course-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
>
>
>
> Sumir hafa kvæði...
> ...aðrir spakmæli.
>
> - Keth
>
> Homepage: http://www.hi.is/~haukurth/norse/
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> norse_course-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
>
>
>
> Sumir hafa kvæði...
> ...aðrir spakmæli.
>
> - Keth
>
> Homepage: http://www.hi.is/~haukurth/norse/
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> norse_course-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
> ADVERTISEMENT
>
>
>
>
> Sumir hafa kvæði...
> ...aðrir spakmæli.
>
> - Keth
>
> Homepage: http://www.hi.is/~haukurth/norse/
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> norse_course-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
>

--
Arlie

(Arlie Stephens arlie@...)