Re: Vowel length in Old Icelandic


"Neeraj Mathur" <neemathur@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote ...
>
> "John Atkinson" <johnacko@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote...

> >> > Neeraj wrote:
> >
> >> >> Nevertheless, in the case of Old Norse, a quick look at the
> > glossary of
> >> >> Gordon's 'Introduction to Old Norse' gives the minimal pair
<far>
> > 'track,
> >> >> subject, conduct' and <fár> 'few, little, a small number'.
> >
> > My reference (Konig and van der Auwera, The Germanic Languages),
> > exemplifying the same pair, gives the meanings as <far> = 'ship' and
> > <fár> = 'damage' :-)
>
> Those may well be better translations; my source, Gordon, was giving
> basically a vocabulary for the texts that make up the bulk of the
book,
> which may well use specific meanings in those passages. The difference
is
> striking, though!

The vocab in "Teach Yourself Icelandic" (the only other ref I have here)
tends to agree with your translations:

far (noun): passage (on a ship); track, trace; print; conduct; manners;
drift (in the sky)
fár (adj): few, cold, reserved.

These are Modern Icelandic, of course. But these meanings (and yours)
agree with the obvious cognates in Norwegian. The listing in The
Germanic Languages gives "ship" and "damage" (noun) for both Old and
Modern Icelandic. Norwegian has <fare> = 'danger, risk', which I
suppose could be cognate with <fár> = 'damage'. Brian?

John.


.

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