Monday, June 30, 2008

Hjólkur (torus - dougnut - inner tube)

The orðaskrá íslenskra stærðfræðifélagsins mentions hjólhringur or hjólflötungur for torus. Maybe an uncompounded word is possible here: hjólkur (-s, -ar), "cylindrical wheel', composed of hjól (wheel) and hólkur, which is mentioned in the Orðaskrá um eðlisfræði as a synonym of sívalningur (cilinder).
This short and robust neologism could also be used as the Icelandic equivalent of the English doughnut. If not then we must content oursellves with compounds like hjólkaka or hjólbaka, because kleina in kleinuhringur (existing Icelandic translation of doughnut) is a danicism.
And last but not least it could be synonymous with slanga (í hjólbarði), the Icelandic equivalent of the English automobile term inner tube.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Names of Popstars (Part 1)

Elvis Presley - Alvís Presló


1) Elvis - Alvís: Meaning is unknown. It is possibly a form of ALVIS (Icel. Alvís) or ELWIN or it might be derived from the surname Elwes. The name is adapted with most sound-similar Old Icelandic name: Alvís
2) Presley - Presló: The same name as priestley, derived from a place-name meaning 'woodland clearing of the priest'. The Icelandic equivalent of this name is 'Prestló'. In order to distinguish between the family names Priestley and Presley, we will also cut the 't' in 'Prestló', resulting in 'Presló'.

Keith Richards - Kíði Ríkharðs


1) Keith - Kíði: The name Keith derives from a Scottish surname which was originally derived from a place name possibly meaning "wood" in British. This was the surname of a long line of Scottish earls. The name is adpated to the Icelandic spelling with addition of -i.
2) Richards - Ríkharðs (Ríkherðingur)


Kurt Cobain - Kort Kobbeimur



1) Kurt - Kort (not Konni):
The Icelandic form of the German pet-name Kurt is Kort. Normally the Icelandic pet-form of Konáð is konni, but in iceladicizing foreign personal names one should less hyperpuristic than when dealing with other kinds of words. For that reason I choose Kort (see Íslensk Orðabók, önnur útgáfa, aukin og endurbætt, Mál og Menning, Reykjavík 1992.


2) Cobain -Kobbeimur
This family name is a toponymical one derived from Cobham, a village in Kent. The Oxford dictionary of English place-names mentions: Cobbeham 1197. 'Enclosureor homestead of a man called *Cobba (phonologically adapted to Kobbi in Icelandic). Old English pers. name + hamm (no Icelandic equivalent) or hám (Icel. heimur).The resulting Icelandic adaptation of the place name would be Kobbaheimur, but could also be contracted to Kobbeimur, with loss of the initial 'h-' in heimur, as is seen in many Old Norse place-names: Asseimur, Lisseimur, Surðeimur (see Íslensk Orðsifjabók) and modern Danish place-names like Bygum (Byggeimur), Darrum (Darreimur), see http://users.telenet.be/Hafronska/Icelandic_equivalents_of_the_Danish_place-names_(uncorrected_version).doc

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Random names (Part 1)


Ingrid betancourt - Ingríður Betánkurt


Maurice Chevalier - Mórits Kaplari

1) Maurice: Mórits in Icelandic. The name literally means 'moorish' and should be 'Márískur' or 'Mári' as the pet-form. The even more pure High Icelandic form would be 'Móverskur'.
2) Chevalier - Kaplari: The family name 'chevalier' means 'knight' and is phoneticly adapted by adding '-ari' to the loan-word 'kapall' (horse), see Íslensk orðsifjabók.

Nicolaus Copernicus - Nikulás Koparsmiður

Nicolaus: Icelandic version is Nikulás

Copernicus: Latinized version of Polish family name Kopernik, which means 'copper-worker'. The purely Icelandic equivalent is 'eirsmiður', but for reasons of sound-similarity we will use the loan-word 'kopar': Koparsmiður

Michel Foucault - Mikjáll Fólkveldingur

1) The Icelandic equivalent of French Michel is Mikjáll (Raphael should be Rafjál)
2) Foucault - Fólkveldingur: The family name foucault derives from a Germanic personal name the first memmber of which was 'folk' (Icel. fólk) and vald (Icel. -valdur). The Icelandic equivalent of the family name is constructed by adding -ingur to Fólkvaldur: Fólkveldingur.

William Shakespeare - Vilhjálmur Skakspjör

1) The Icelandic equiavlent of William is Vilhjálmur.
2) The family name Shakespeare is a compound of the words 'shake' and 'spear' and adapted with the Icelandic cognates these two words.

Yves Saint-Laurent - Ívi Sankti Lafrans

1) Yves - Ívi:
The French personal name Yves, derived from Germanic iv meaning "yew" is the equivalent of Icelandic Ívi, a name of a sea-king, which is probably (according to the Íslensk Orðsifjabók) derived from ýr (yew). Some would like to use Ívar, but the etymology of this name is disputed.
2) Saint-Laurent -Sankti Lafrans

Lech Wałęsa - Læsir Valensa

1) Lech - Læsir
No personal name is so typically Polish than Lech. It was the name of the Legendary founder of the Polish nation and the name of one of the most widely known Poles in the world today: Lech Wałęsa. The name is related to Ljachy, Lenkya, Lengyel, respecively the Old Russian, Baltic and Hungarian name for the Polish people. In Hungarian, Lengyel still means 'Pole' and Lengyelország 'Poland'. The Orðsifjabók mentions 'Læsir' as the name of a Polish tribe living near the Vistula and as a masculine personal name related to the name of this tribe. This means that an equivalent of this typically Polish name existed in Old Icelandic!! This resulted in the following High Icelandic neologisms:
Læsir (masc. pers. name): Lech
Læsir: Poles (Analogue to Hungarian Lengyel)
Læsaland: Poland (analogue to Hungarian Lengyelország)
Læsneskur: PolishLæsneska: Polish language
2) Wałęsa - Valensa:
This polish family name is pronounced 'vawensa' and Icelandicized Valensa.

Bertrand Russell - Bjarthrafn Hrísill

1) Bertrand -Bjarthrafn:
Bertrand is derived from Bertram and means "bright raven", derived from the Germanic element beraht "bright" combined with hramn "raven". The corresponding Icelandic construction is Bjarthrafn.
2) Russell - Hrísill:
The Fjölnismen icelandicized John Russell as Jón Hrísill in their magazine Skírnir, so we will use this as the Icelandic equivalent of this personal name (Jack Russell terrier - Hrísilsgrefill)

Aristoteles - Aðaltili

1) Aristo -Aðal
The prefix Aristo in Greek personal names derived from αριστος (aristos) "best". The equivalent in Icelandic personal names is Aðal- "noble, foremost, premier".
2) -teles - -tili
The Icelandic suffix -tili (derived from til (to, toward), which occurs in aldurtili and ótili is etymologically related to Greek telos and German ziel and have a similar meaning (goal, destiny). Since there is no equivalent in Icelandic personal names, tili has to be introduced as a phono-semantical match for Icelandicized Greek personal names ending in -teles.

Publius Cornelius Scipio - Fólki Hyrnill Skífingur

1) Publius - Fólki
The Latin personal name Publius means 'public' in Latin and is related to the Icelandic fólk. The obvious Icelandic equivalent is Fólki (see Íslensk Orðsifjabók, under fólk and Fólki).
2) Cornelius - Hyrnill
This Roman family name possibly derives from the Latin element cornu "horn". Since the only similar word in Latin means 'horn', it is appropriate to adapt the name with Icelandic horn.
3) Scipio - Skífungur
Related to Icelandic skífa (see íslensk orðsifjabók) so I used the stem of this word for the adaptation: skíf- + ungur (singular form of -ungar, which, along with -ingar, was used to denote families and follwers of someone in Old Icelandic, e.g. Völsungar, hjaðningar).