--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, "Patricia Wilson"
<originalpatricia@...> wrote:

>
> Found it under andaðr in my glossary of the New Intro. to O/N and it

just

> means dead
> this is just probably a vowel mutation or something

That's right. No ducks, unfortunately! You can find it in Zoega in
the entry for the verb 'anda' "to breathe". With the reflexive
suffix, 'andask', it means to breathe one's last, i.e. "to die"
(compare the etymology of English 'expire'). 'andaðr', the past
participle of the simple unsuffixed verb, means "dead". 'önduð' is
just the feminine nominative singular of 'andaðr'. Maybe this
paradoxical situation arose when the unstressed prefixes of Proto
Germanic were lost in the transition to Old Norse; compare Gothic
'uz-on' "died", literally "breathed out, expired" (Go. uz = ON ór, úr).

In 'önduð', the vowels have been changed according to the usual rules
of u-mutation (also called u-umlaut). 'a' became 'ö' when it was
followed by 'u'. But in unstressed syllables a further change
happened, and 'ö' became 'u'. For more of this, see for example the
paradigm of 'kalla' in Zoega's appendix.

The change 'a' to 'ö' happened in an earlier stage of the language,
back when the only writing was runic inscriptions, before Iceland was
settled. In those days, the feminine nominative singular (and neuter
nom./acc. pl.) ended in 'u', hence the u-mutations there; but this 'u'
ending had been lost long before the time when the sagas were written.

*andaðu > *andöð(u) > *anduð > önduð

I hope that makes sense, more or less!

LN