Hi Runadis,

Well, it looks like your instincts about *bróðlir were right too!

Sjuler has just written to me: "Incidentally, the proposed Old Norse
diminutive *bróðlir exists in modern (northern) Swedish as "brolle"
meaning 'little brother'. Ironically, a Swedish well-known
musician - Brolle Jr - has this as a nickname due to his older
sisters."

http://www.brollejr.com/index.asp?cat=1

Is this pronounced [brUll@]? What would this be in Viking Age
Swedish: *bróþle, bróþleR? The diminutive I'm assuming would work
as a suffix -li(r), rather than an infix -l-. In standard Swedish,
at least, Germanic /r/ stays (bror, broder), whereas Germanic
final /z/ tends to disappear in the nominative singular inflection
(though not elsewhere).

The name of the legendary hero Sörli could be based on *Sörr <
*Saruz + diminutive -li < *-la. Sarus is recorded as the name of at
least one historical Gothic leader.

The feminine diminutive -ka has a masculine equivalent -ki, as in
Böðvar Bjarki "little bear of battle" < PN * badwóz berika.
Incidentally, Theedrich Geat in his translation of the Getica of
Jordanes reconstructs the name of the Gothic dynastic ancestor
Berig, as *Bairika (representing [bErika] in Wulfila's spelling
system). Does Icelandic bersi/bessi "male bear" contain another
diminutive? And is this -si related to the pronominal ending in
þessi, and the old East Norse sási, þansi, etc.?

Llama Nom




--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, Annika Larla Evensen McKibbin
<runadis@...> wrote:

>
> hello, Ilama !
>
> I have asked an icelandic old-icelandic professor about the use of

diminuative in the norse language. She referred to the
name 'Steinunn' with the feminine diminuative -ka used as I
suggested, as 'Steinka', but she couldn't remember from where. you
could try looking it up. Otherwise she said It could be used the
same way in modern icelandic, and the lack of reference to it in the
older litterature could be attributed to it's limitation to
presonal/intimate use. Anyhow, I feel the ice thickening beneath my
feet...

>
> Runadis