Monday, December 26, 2011

Miscellaneous neologisms

nanometre: hármýrjungur (In nanotechnology, the nanometre is most often refered to a technology that operates at the scale of ten thousandth of the breadth a human hair. The 10.000th part (mýrjungur from mýrio- 10.000th part, like þriðjungur). It is unnecessarily to use the full compound "hárbreiddarmýrjungur-" because when referring to comparisons in magnitude, "hair" is always used with reference to its breadth, because hair-lenght may vary greatly (cfr. the word for "capillary" is formed with hár (hárpípa). http://www.nanodic.com/General/Nanometer.htm and the term "hair-breadth" is informally used for ten to the minus fifth metre (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hair's_breadth )
nanotechnology: hármýrjungstækni: Of course, nanó- and the loan-translation dverg- is shorter, but hármýrjungs- is an uninternational, alternative approach that describes its smallness more thoroughly
nanorobot: hármýrjungsþjarki, vélögn

angström: örmýrjungur (The "micro-scale (ör-) myriadth (mýría (10.000), mýrjungur, the 10,000th part, like þriðjungur). It is unnecessary to add 'stika' or 'metri' to denote this unit of lenght because the ångström is the only name in use for a "ten billionth of a basic unit". There can't be any mistake whatsoever here.)

Nanosecond: ljósfet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_units_of_measurement see under the paragraph of "light-nanosecond") When you combine the word light with the name of a time-unit you express a distance (lightyear), when you combine light with a unit of lenght you express a time-frame: ljósfet (the time light needs to travel a distance of 1 foot. This is so extremely close to a nanosecond that ljósfet can be used to express the time-frame of a nanosecond.)

barn: kjarnekra (barn (symbol b) is a unit of area defined as 10 to the −28 m2 (100 fm2) and is approximately the cross sectional area of an uranium nucleus.)

outhouse (1 millionth of a barn, rarely used in practice): öreindarreitur

shed (10−52 m2, or 1 yottabarn, rarely used in practice): niftlumýrjungsreitur (a typical neutrino (niftla, físeind) cross section is some ten thousand sheds. mýrjungur = a 10.000th part, from mýrío- 1/ 10.000, Icelandic mýría- + -ungur, as in þriðjungur)

planck area: plakkneskur teigur, teiglingur, reitur, reitlingur, reiteind

Hubble parametre: Hugbeldringsstika (The surname Hubble derives from Hugbald (Icelandic Hugbaldur), so the family name for one individual of the Hubble family (Hugbeldringar) becomes Hugbeldring(ur) + -s +stika (parameter)

Jurassic Park (movie)
1) Skriðrisagarður (sounds better and more elaborated than risaeðlugarður)
2) Miðlífsgarður (The most prominent and sensational of all beasts presented in the movie, the tyrannosaur Rex, is actually a LATE CRETACEOUS species, not a strictly JURASSIC one, so this gives us a reason to refer to the entire mesosoic era and use Miðlífs- (Mesozoic) in the Icelandic translation of the movie's name. Still, this doesn't completely renders "Jurassic" inappropriate a term in this case. Apart from its function as a strict designator of the "central mesozoic epoque", it can also be used in a broader or let's say more popularized sense of "anything that has to do with the largest land animals that ever lived". And indeed, the largest of dinosaurs came about in the Jurassic.)

Vosges Mountains:
1) Vasgáfjöll (Exonym mentioned in the first volume of the Icelandic magazine Gefn from 1870, probably an icelandification of German exonymic equivalent Wasgenwald) http://timarit.is/view_page_init.jsp?pageId=2043282
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogesen
2) Veiðiguðsfjöll (The construction veiðiguð (hunting god) is phonetically similar enough to the name of the Celtic hunting-god Vosegus, whom the mountain range was called after, that we can, in my opinion that is, construct an Icelandic exonym from it)
2) Frakkneskur Svartiskógur (Because it has the same geological characteristics as the Black Forest on the other side of the Rhine).

sea mile (sjómíla): hnútstund (knot-hour) The knot (pronounced not) is a unit of speed equal to one nautical mile (which is defined as 1.852 km) per hour, approximately 1.151 mph. This means that the term 'knot-hour' is equal to a seamile.

Stalinism/ Stalinist: Stælinsstefna/ Stælinssinni (The Russian name Stalin means 'man of steel'. The Icelandic adjective stælinn (hard, stiff, but also quarrelsome, argumentative) is derived from stál (steel). We can use the adjective as a surname to denote the russian dictator: Stælinn)

kamikaze: hrapherjabylgja

nazism/ nazist (person)/ nazist (adj.): þjóðherjastefna, aðylfingastefna/ Þjóðherji, Aðylfingur / þjóðherja-/ aðylfskur
(A friend of mine told me that þjóðherji wouldn't exclusively apply to 'nazism' but also to 'Prussian', which were known for there militarism, but I disagree: the first element in the term 'national socialism', nationalism translates as 'þjóðerni' in Icelandic, which has the same first element þjóð in þjóðherji. The masculine personal name Adolf consists of the elements athall (noble, Icelandic Aðall) and wulf (wolf, Icelandic úlfur or -ólfur). The full name would be Aðalúflur or Aðalólfur, but the most sound-similar adaptation is to contract it to Aðólfur. The names of family members AND FOLLOWERS of Aðólfur are called Aðylfingar, which can be used for all national socialists. The adjective derivation 'nazist' or 'nazistic' becomes aðylfskur.

Switzerland, Swiss: Gnáfylkin, Gnáfold (compare adj. foldgnár), Gnáfylkjamaður, Gnáfylkja- (after the epiteth 'roof of Europe')

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Archaizing hyperpurists of Iceland unite!

Isn't it a great feeling to have a mother-tongue in which you can easily form terms for postultramodern concepts with lexical building blocks that are unchanged since the era of Icelandic saga literature. No Icelander should be ashamed to be a bloody, exaggeratedly archaizing hyperpurist. There's no evil in it when you don't impose these views upon other individuals.

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Names of auxiliary languages

1. Esperanto (speranska)
Like the language itself, the name esperanto is almost unassailably international and I would be surprised if any linguist, however purist he may be, would have meade attempts to adapt it to the phonology of their language, let alone translate it completely. I used voneska or vonarmál in my ultrapurist High Icelandic model, but these solutions are surely too far a leap of radicalism for the more moderated Icelandic crowd. Still an in between solution, a succesful addaptation of the word without exaggerated corruption that would violate its interational character, could be palatable for most Icelandic neologists.

a) I thought of omitting the initial e- as is seen in many borrowings from Romance languages in Germanic languages:

espagnol (sp.) - spanska (isl.)
espacia (sp.) - espace (fr.) - spássía, spesíudalur (isl.)
espiritu (sp.) - esprit (fr.) -sprítt (isl.)
epinanca (sp.) - épinards (fr.) - spínat (isl.)

b) Secondly, I would let the word end in -anska, as in danska, franska, spanska, which works as a designator of a language.
The ending -anska is completely relevant because but you might as well regard the meaning of Esperanto it as 'the language of hope' (cherished by Zammenhof, to unite people of different languages)
Even though "speranska" is a loan-word, no language in the world has made even the slightest alterations to this word, so 'speranska', even though we're still dealing with a foreignism, is already very hyperpuristic an adaptation.

Ido (í(ð)ska: the name of a simplified form of esperanto, which was derived from the Esperanto word ido meaning 'offspring'. It actually has the same origin as the suffix -íð (eng. -ide) in klóríð (eng. chloride), so if we make use of -ska as in speranska we get: íðska, which, on omission of the 'eth' becomes íska (íðneska would be inappropriate because it gives rise to an unconvenient connotation with -iðn). Many languages end in -íska, and this speaks in favour of using this suffix on its own as the name of an interantional language.

The method of using the suffix -ska to coin names for auxiliary languages has the property to reduce word-lenght significantly: henska (hand + -ska = henska (táknmál, fingramál (sign language)), lenska (drunkard's language, from landi (kind of moonshine)), blenska (blanda + enska, Pidgin English, contracted form of blendingsmál), frenska (franglais), einska (ideolect)

Monday, December 12, 2011

Neologisms 12/12/2008

þyngdarvíti: black hole
Móðurþokan: synonym for 'Vetrarbrautin' (our milky way)
Korpúsarinn: Le Corbusier (The name, Le Corbusier, is French. It is a different version of his grandmother's surname, Lecorbésier. The name translates in to English as "the crow like one". The icelandic name is based upon the similar word Korpur: Korpúsarinn.)
nýplatneskur: neoplatonic
nýplatneska: neoplatonism
nýplatneskusinni: neoplatonist
Mynnishæðaey: Manhattan (see English wikipedia article Manhattan)
Gengusar(heims)metabók: Guinness record book (The Icelandic form of the surname Guinness is Gengus. The origin is the Gaelic MagAonghusa, which easily icelandicizes into Magengus (Engus is the form found in Old Icelandic literature) after the example Magbjóður (MacBeth). The prefix 'mag' was dropped except for the "g" which became the initial of the bastardized name. MagAongus slowly transformed into Guinness. We can ape this transformation by adding 'g' to Engus: Gengus (Gengus, Gengusi, Gengusar). compounds: Gengusarbjór, heimsmetabók Gengusar.)
Hrafjáll / Hrafælskur: Raphael / Raphaelian (compare: Michael - Mikjáll)
Kambrýningaland: Cameroon
Huddsynskur flói: Hudson bay
lésveyskur: lesbian, lesbosian (This seems like a very strange construction, but it is the only one founded upon the oldest Icelandic spelling for the name of the island found in Icelandic literature: Lésvos http://www.facebook.com/pages/L%C3%A9svos/111642312192786?sk=wiki , see also Íslenska alfræðiorðabókin. There is a tendency however to icelandify these names by replacing the Greek ending "-os" in "-ey" in the names of Aegean islands: examples are:
Lemney (Limnos) http://is.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemney
Roðey (Rhodos) http://is.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%B3dos
Kíey (Chios - Ensk-íslensk orðabók með alfræðilegu ívafi: Chi-os. n. Chios, Kíey, eyja í austanverðu Eyjahafi, af sumum til forna talin fæðingarstaður Hómers.
We can do the same with Lésvos and call it LÉSVEY. Derivations of Lésvey would be Lésveyskur, which would stand for: - inhabitant of the island of Lesbos but also lesbian (why should the ending -"-eyskur" be disturbing? After all, Lesbos was the island where the Greek poetess Sappho wrote about female homosexual love. There have been many attempts in the past to adapt the adjective Lesbian to Icelandic phonology and there's obviously no consensus about its definitive form: Lespa, Lespískur, Lesbískur, so why not take the oldest spelling of the word, slightly altered by the change of -os into -ey as a reference point upon which a solid definitive spelling can be founded. Furthermore, the more reductionist form LÉSKUR could also be possible.
lestund: 100 milion (lest = tonne, a million units, + und (hundred, as in þúsund (þús-hund-rað) = 100.000.000)
mikiljón: milionaire (after meðaljón)
mýsopi: microlitre, ýrill
maurahaus: millimetre
örvíddaröst, þursund: billion (In the same way as 'lightyear' expresses the distance light travels in a year, örvíddaröst expresses the amount of times in which a "micro-scale object" fits into a "kiloscale" space: a billion times. The second possibility, þursund is a combination of þurs(i) (giant, greek gigas, a billion units) integrated into the word þúsund (thousand)
hneitill, ikla, iklingur: crystal (from hneita, the crystals of salt that form on stockfish and the sugar-crystals that form on dried dulse-leaves. ikla is the diminutive of jaki, which is formed by adding the diminitive suffix -la to jaki (it sounds like its English etymological cognate -icle in icicle.)
hneitilfræði, iklufræði: crystallography
hneitla, ikla: crystallize
hneitlun, iklun: crystallization
hneitlaður, iklaður: crystallized
hneitiltær, iklutær: crystalline
hneitilsgerð

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Uninterantional Icelandic names for the magnitudes of thousand.

In the Western world, specific names for larger numbers did not come into common use until quite recently. The Ancient Greeks used a system based on the myriad, that is 10.000; and their largest named number was a myriad myriad, or "one hundred million". The Romans, who were less interested in theoretical issues, expressed 1,000,000 as decies centena milia, that is, "ten hundred thousand". But it was only in the 13th century that the (originally French) word million was introduced. Until then, the name of the largest number in Latin that was uncompounded was mille (1000).
In the Icelandic as well in other Germanic languages, the possibility exists to create alternatives for the names of the magnitudes of thousand based on the Greek myriad instead on the Latin mille.
In Icelandic the ending -und in þúsund (1000, -and in English, -und in German) derives from the word hundred: þús-hund-rað (þús, thous-, taus- means 'a lot', and rað, red, -ert (*raþ, number).
In a parallel universe, history with regard to the lexical development of names of large numbers could have been different. Imagine a 15th century English mathematician developping the first magnitude of thousand, a million, by using the Graeco-English myriad (10.000) instead of the Latin mille and letting it end on -and (= hundred) as in thousand (thous-hund-red): myriand, which is exactly 1000.000. It really is possible to create an alternative term for million from the Greek myriad when developping it on a Greek or Anglos-Saxon morphological substrate. All right, first part of the problem solved. We have a solid name for the first magnitude of thousand, now the only thing we have to do to develop the other large numbers is applying the same method that was used in the creation of the existing names of multitudes of thousand: by cutting the initial character of the name of the first magnitude of thousand (as was done with the 'm' in million: billion, trillion) and replace it by the first characters of the Greek or Latin maybe even the native English names of cardinal numbers. Consider this model:

million (myriand)
billion (biryand or dyriand)
trillion (tririand)
quadrillion (tetriand, tesseriand or quadriand)
quintillion (pentriand or quint
riand)
sextillion (hexriand or sexriand)
septillion (heptriand or septriand)
octillion (octriand)
nonillion (novriand
)
decillion (dekriand)
undecillion (undekriand)

This scenario isn't unthinkable. Imagine if the creators of the large numerals in the 15th centrury had chosen the Greek largest single-name numeral myriad instead of the ten times smaller Latin counterpart mille to base their names upon. These words look weird at a first glance's sight, but so would be the existing ones, if we weren't used to them.

This model of creating alternatives for the names of the multitudes of thousand do actually happen to work in Icelandic because of the fact that there is lexical artefact in the old language that is similar in sound and meaning: mýr (a great many). This is what the Íslensk orðsifjabók (Icelandic etymological dictionary) has on this word:

mýr: 'mergð, grúi'. vafaorð, e.t.v. s.o. og myr (s.þ.) en ý tilkomið vegna þess að lærðir menn tengdu það við lat. mýrias, gr. mýrias (ef. mýriados) 'tíu þúsund' af mýrios (ótölulegur).

The Icelandic model goes as follows (and I would like to express my thanks to an Icelandic friend of mine who has helped me adjusting these construction)

mýrjund (million, myriand), tvírjund (billion, duriand), þrírjund (trillion, tririand), fjórjund (quadrillion, tetriand, tessyriand), fimmjund (quintillion, pentyriand, pentriand), sexjund (sixtillion, hexyriand, hexriand), seyjund (septillion, heptriand, heptyriand), áttjund (octillion, octyriand octriand), nírjund (nonillion, nonyriand, niniand), tírjund (decillion, dekriand), ellefjund (undecillion, undekriand), tólfjund (dudecillion, dudekriand).

*mýrjungur, mýrjungs- is the equivalent of the suffix myrio-, which means 1/10,000th
*mýrjund- could serve as the equivalent of mega- in mýrjundlest- (megatonne), mýrjundlát (megadeath), mýrjundrið (megahertz), mýrjundstafur (megabyte, but also gagnalest, a data-tonne), as well "mega" used in youth culture to express something fabulous. The same can be done for the other prefixes of the metric system: giga- (tvírjund-), tera (þrírjund), peta (fjórjund-), exa (fimmjund-); examples: terabyte: þrírjundstafur, þrírjundstafa-
*myrjöld means 'a million years', names for larger units of time can be formed by replacing -und by -öld: tvírjöld (a billion years, a gigayear), þrírjund (a trillion years): Jörðin er talin hafa myndast fyrir um 4,55 tvírjalda.

The term mýrjund for million and mýrjöld for "a million years" or a "megayear" could have been constructed at any point in Icelandic literary history. The Greek word has been around for thousands of years and could, in theory, have been borrowed even by medieval Icelandic scribes to construct a neologism like mýrjund at any time in Icelandic literary history. As for the other construction miklund (another possible construction, based upon the international metric prefix designating a million units: mega- (from Greek megas, the etymological cognate of Icelandic mikill) there's no lexical artifact, no historical basis in Icelandic literature to give this construction nay validity. The fact that this prefix 'mega' has been confirmed only as late as 1960 as a designation of " a million units" makes it unlikely for the 19th centrury hyperpurists and further down the road the Icelandic medieval scribes (if they would ever have experienced the urge to do so) to have come up with constructions like miklund.

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Stærðfræðiorðaskrá: More thourough icelandifications

To my surprize it's possible to Icelandicize foreign proper names by turning them into adjectives and use them as concepts rather than strictly personal names because this terminological method is not uncommon. An example we all know is the word Cartesian, derived from Descartes (Icelandic Karteskur)or Arguesian from Desargues (Icelandic Argeskur), see Ensk-íslensk stærðfræðiorðaskrá).
In the same way, we can easily form similar constructions like Nýtúnskur (Newtonian, from Nýtún, an Icelandicized form of the toponym Newton, new town, new village), Smiðsynsk stjarneðlisfræðistofnun (SAO, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory), allneskur geislabelti (Van Allen's radiation belt), mikjálsynskur víxlunarmælir (Michelson interferometer), dobbsynskur sjónauki or dobbsynsk hásjá (Dobbsonian telescope) , meilangavískar sveiflar (Milankovič cycles), Makksvellsku fjöllin (Maxwell Montes on Venus), pálísk einsetulögmál (Pauli exclusion principle), Hrylfskar töflur (Rudolfsine tables, from Hrólfur, the Icelandic form of the German Rudolf), koparnísk heimsmynd (Copernican system, the Latinized Slavic surname Koparnik means 'copper-smith', hence the adaptation kopar- in koparnískur), platneskur for platonic, ect. I Icelandicized part of the names of mathematicians that are used in the terminology of the Ensk-Íslensk stærðfræðiorðaskrá.

Archimedean: Erkimeðs- (This Greek personal name means 'master of thought' and is derived from the Greek element archos (master) combined with medomai (to think, to be mindful of). The first element is identical with Icelandic prefix erki-, the second medes can be adapted to -með, like in the Arabism Múhameð. The reason this is wasn't done is because there has never been real uniformity in the icelandification of Greek and Latin names. In the Íslenska alfræðiorðabókin, the Greek personal name Euclides and is adjectival derivation Euclidean were entered as Evklíð and Evkliðskur respectively, no -es or -esar here, while Euripides, an other name ending in -es preceded by the consonant 'd', became the semiadapted, halficelandic Evrípídes, instead of Evripíð. The Icelandic Evklíð is similar to the French Euclide and both are examples of good adaptations. So my proposition for the name Archimedes and its derivative Archimedean are Erkimeð and Erkimeðskur/Erkimeskur respectively, instead of the far too unicelandic Arkimedesar- or Arkimedískur.
Erkimeðsstuðull (Archimedean constant, the number Pi)
Erkimeðskuðungur (Archimedean spiral)
Erkimeðsvirðing (Archimedean valuation)
Erkimeðsraðsvið (Archimedean ordered field)
Banach-: banaks
Bartlett: bartleskur
Bayes, bayesian: bæjeskur
Bertrand's: bjarthrafneskur
Boolean: búlskur
Brownian: brúneskur
Cantor: kantreskur
Cauchy: kósískur
Cevian: sefjanskur (sefjanskur þríhyrningur)
Chebyshev: Tébbískur
Cholesky: kóleskur
Dirichlet: ríkleskur
(Di- is omitted because it is prepositional, compare: Descartes - Karteskur (Cartesian))
Dynkin: dynkneskur
Feuerbach: fúrbekkings- (Feuer, fire, Icelandic phonosemantic match = fúr + bach (brook, Icelandic bekkur), Fúrbekkingar (Feuerbach family), Fúrbekkingur, Fúrbekkings- (Individual of the Feuerbach family)
Fermat: fermskur
Galois: galeiskur (compare: Bourgeois - Burgeis, courteois - kurteis); galeiskt mengi
Gaussian: gáskur, gásneskur
Gödel: gæðleskur (It derives from a Germanic and later Anglo-Saxon baptismal name of the pre 8th century, of which the principle element was 'god' meaning 'good', plus a varied range of suffix, most of which are simple patronymics and diminutives, or are compounds and descriptive as in the surname "Godwin" meaning good-friend. The Icelandic construction is as follows: góður (good) + -ill (gæðill), + -eskur (gæðleskur, gödelian)http://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Gohn
compounds and derivations: gæðleskun (gödelization), gæðlesk fullkomleikasetning (Gödel's incompleteness theorem)
Grassmann: grassmennskur
Haar: hærskur (Haar is originally a Dutch surname meaning 'hair' (Icelandic hár, adjective derivation: hærskur)
Hamel: Hamleskur
Hamiltonian: hamltúnskur
Hartogs: hertyggskur
Hausdorff: húsþyrpskur

Heron (from Alexandria): Herneskur
Hessian: hessneskur

Hilbert: hilbirskur (from Hildibjartur, Hildibirtingur, Hildibirskur, but here we adapt it after the modern name: Hilbirskur)
Hippocratic: Jóveigs- (Greek name Latinized form of the Greek name Hippokrates, which meant "horse power", derived from the elements hippos "horse" and kratos "power". The Icelandic equivalent is Jóveigur
Jacobian: jakobískur
Jacobson: jakobsynskur
Jordan: Jórdanskur
Kendall's: kendælskur
(Two possible origins here: Kendal in Westmorland was originally named Kirkby Kendal, and is recorded as Cherchebi in the Domesday Book of 1086 and as Cherkaby Kendale in "Records of Kendal" from 1090 - 1097. The toponym means "the valley of the River Kent", from the ancient British (pre-Roman) river-name "Cunetio" with the Olde English pre 7th Century dael, which means valley or Kendale in Yorkshire is in the parish of Driffield, and derived it's name from the Old Norse kelda, spring, with dalr, valley. Read more: http://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Kendall
So, one thing we can be certain of: whatever the etymology, the second element is 'valley' for certain. Best way to proceed is to leave the first element as it is and add the adjectival derivation of Icelandic dalur: dælskur.
Klein: klénskur
Kronecker: krónakarneskur
(Kron = krón- + ecker = akarn +eskur)
Landau: Landár- (The place-name Landau, from which this surname is derived consists of Land (land) + au (watery place, related to Icelandic á and agi). The best possible addaptaion is Landá, gen. Landár-)
Laplace, laplacian: plássneskur (plássnesk liðun (Laplace expansion), plássneskt virki (Laplace operator), plássnesk mynd (Laplace transform)
Laurent: lafranskur
Lebesgue: Beggneskur (The article in the name 'le-' can be dropped like the prepositional 'Des-' in Descartes (Cartesian, Karteskur) or Desargues (Arguesian, Argeskur. Besgue derives from the verb bégayer, which means 'stammer, stutter'. The most appropriate adaptation of the name is Begg- + neskur)
Leibnitz: lífnískur (From the city of Leibnitz (Slovenian: Libnica, adapted with German leib- which is the same word as leib (body, Icelandic líf)
Lie: lískur
Möbius: möbbskur
Pascal's: Páskals-
Picard: píkarðneskur (see http://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Picard )
Pythagorian: þagreskur: þagresk setning (Pythagoras's theorem), þagreskt svið (pythagorean field), þagresk aljafna (pythagorean identity), þagreskur þríhyrningur (pythagorean triangle), þagresk þrennd (pythagorean triple).
Riemann: rímanneskur, rímennskur (from ricmann, meaning 'king's man')
Russell: hríslneskur, Hrísils- (Fjölnismenn called the contemporary British politician John Russell 'Jón Hrísill'. Compounds: Hrísilsþversögn (Russell-paradox)
Steinitz: steinískur
Sylow: sylveskur
Turing: þýrings- (surname is a habitational one derived from Thüringen in Germany, Icelandic Þýringaland)
Venn: Fenjungs- (This name is of English topographic origin for someone who lived by a marsh or fen (Icelandic fen, fenjar, Fenjungur (comp. land -lendingur)). The name derives from the Old English pre 7th Century 'fenn', translating as 'a low-lying marshy area', and is first recorded at the end of the 12th Century.) compounds: Fenjungsmynd (Venn diagram) http://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Venn
Wronskian: vornskur http://surnames.behindthename.com/name/wronski )
Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory: Sermlesk-Frekklesk mengjafræði (Origin of the surname Zermelo is the place-name Tormählen (Google Zermelo Tormählen), but this name is unicelandicizable so I adpapted it as Sermill - Sermleskur -Sermlingar). The origin of Fraenkel is frank (Icelandic Frakkur + -ill Frekkill, Frekkleskur). see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fr%C3%A4nkel

Úllakan (Hooligan)


The surname Hooligan derives from Irish Uallach, which means 'proud'. Because of the sufficient phonetic similarity with Ceallach, the root of the old Hiberno-Icelandic personal name Kjallak(u)r, it is possible to create an exact Icelandic version of the name without the need of a validating lexical artifact in the Old Literature: Úllakan

http://www.libraryireland.com/names/oh/o-huallachain.php
http://www.libraryireland.com/names/on/o-nuallachain.php

The pronounciation of the root of the surname Hooligan: ullach (proud) is OOlakh (Icelandic: ÚLLAK). http://namenerds.com/irish/trad.html

The 'l' is written twice because of the doubling of the character in the root uallach (compare: kjALLAK(u)R (from ceALLACH) 'O huALLACHain - ÚLLAKAN (the ending -ain is the diminutive ending -an, -án in Icelandicized Irish personal names: Kjartan, Kvaran, Dufan, Brjánn).
The 'h' in Hooligan is formed by adding the patronymic prefix 'O' as in O' Hara. But I decided to keep 'Ú' as the initial character because there isn't one existing Icelandic name or word of Irish origin beginning with húl-, but we do have one beginning with Úl-: Úlaðstíri (Ulster) and because of this example, the force of folk-etymology would always make people favourize the version without the initial 'h'. Morover, variants of the surname do exist: Oolihan, Oolahen, see
http://www.houseofnames.com/hooligan-family-crest?a=54323-224
An example of this folk-etymology in Icelandic names of Irish origin is mentioned in the book 'Keltar á Íslandi' by Hermann Pálsson: ROÐÍAN: Hinn gáfaði höfundur Göngu-Hrólfs sögu hefur ekki gripið slíkt nafn úr lausu lofti. Mér hefur komið til hugar að það sé með einhverjum hætti tengt við nafnið ROTHNÍAN í MetDinn. og kunni að eiga rætur að rekja til orðsins ruithen, kvenkyns 'ljósgeisli', EN VITASKULD HEFUR ÍSLENSKA ORÐIÐ 'ROÐI' ÞÁ ORKAÐ Á MYND NAFNSINS.

I propose Úllakan as the Icelandic equivalent of Hooligan.

Friday, December 2, 2011

Köðnungur samþegn (Borgari Kane)

The surname Kane derives from Gaelic cath "battle" combined with the diminutive suffix -an, -án. This name doesn't occur in an Icelandicized form in the Old Literature, but can be constructed easily from existing names. The first part of the name is Kað- (Cath-) as in Kaðlín (Caithlin), Kaðall (Cathal), the second part is the diminutive -an, occuring in Kjartan, Kalman, Dufan. Kane as a personal name is Kaðan. The chief character in the movie is Charles Foster Kane (Köðnunga-Karl), which means that Kane is a family name, so we have to make a derivation from Kaðan. For that reason we have to take the singular form of the Old Norse style collective family name: Kaðan - Köðnungar
I chose samþegn and as opposed to the original Icelandic translation of the movie-title I postpositioned the word. I know that titles like Herra are prepositioned but these are exceptions and not naturally icelandic, so I post-positioned samþegn. It it also very uninterantional. The number of lightyears of difference between Icelandic and other languages shouldn't ever be reduced.
Therefore my choice is the eccentric: Köðnungur samþegn

Thursday, December 1, 2011

"Kjalli" instead of "sella"

If there has to be a synonym of foreign origin for fruma (cell): sella, why must it look so much like the international word. The word should be kjalli instead of sella.

Kjallari derives from Latin cellarium, derived from cella, which is the etymological root of the modern biology term cell. If kjallari corresponds with cellarium, then cella corresponds with something like Kjalla or Kjalli in Icelandic.

Why not using the more uninternationally sounding kjalli instead of the simplisticly adapted sella if it is really necessary that fruma has a loan-word as a synonym.
I made the word masculine (KJALLI) because it sounds a bit like 'karl' and because their has to be some "gender balance" with the feminine fruma. Maybe it's phonetical similarity with karl makes it a good candidate as a shorter word for sáðfruma.

ljorka (laser)

1) LEYSIR: This neologism is a lousy attempt to ape the sound of the Anglo-Saxon acronym LASER, which hasn't even remotely anything semanticly in common with the Icelandic verb "að leysa".
2) LJÖRVI: is the other alternative which unfortunately hasn't gained acceptance with the wider public. It is based on the acronym laser: Light (LJós) Amplification by Stimulated (að ÖRVa) Emission of Radiation. It's still somewhat a loan-translation of two words in the acronym (light and stimulate), but qualitatively superior to the 'lélegur leysir', which sounds too uninternational, too little eccentricly icelandic. The problem with ljörvi, but this can as well be said of leysir, is that the connection with the word ljós is lost, where in neologisms like tölva, the connection with töl- and völva is retained.
3) LJORKA: This is really my final attempt. The short o in ljorka is not the same sound as ó in ljós but still more closely than the ö in ljörvi. I hope the connection with both ljós and orka is retained. Another good thing is that the word isn't by any means tributary to the idea behind the word laser. Yes, ljós is used as the first element in a name for the device, but this is so obvious a choice. The vast majority of neologists would come up with light as the first element when having to coin a name for the device, so this can hardly be considered no loan-translation. the second element orka just refers to the power of the beam and don't occur in the English acronym. For that reason, the only connection between LJORKA and LASER is the acronymic nature of both words. If that's too unpuristic, I'm glad to be a loan-word lover!

But, of course, the "market" still have to kind-a-like this word.

Note: It is even possible to call a boy after a "laser beam": Ljósgeir (Sound a bit like Ásgeir; Ljós- is a first element in Icelandic personal names: Ljósbjörg, Ljósbjört, Ljósborg and Ljósbrá, Ljósálfur)