Re: Island

Lars skreau:

> > From: John Cowan <cowan@...>
>
> > Lars Henrik Mathiesen scripsit:
> > > The early Germanic word was *auia, however.
> >
> > Hence NHG "au(e)"? My mother lived in the "village" of Aumuehle
> > 'watermill', near Heringen (which in turn is near Bad Sachsa), just
8<
> I don't know about NHG au. German seems to have had as much i-umlaut
> as North Germanic and Old English --- so I would expect something like
> äu /Ey/.
>
> Any real Germans in here?
Not here, but my copy of Duden's _Herkunftswörterbuch_ gives, in part:

# Au, Aue: «Insel»: Mhd. ouwe, ahd. ouw[i]a «Land im oder am Wasser,
# Halbinsel, Insel; Wasser», afries. ei-, aengl. íeg, schwed. ö ...
# germ. a[g]wjó «Insel, Au» ...

[mhd=Mid High German, ahd=OHG, a-=Old, etc]

Without laboriously translating the rest of the entry, it's hard for me to
follow the exact meaning beyond the gist, but it goes on to give the
[presumably] related cognates for water, i.e. OHG aha, Goth ahwa, OE éa, Sw
å and even L aqua.

From another source, there seems to be a Dutch cognate _ouw_ (_ooi_ in
placenames). Perhaps our Nederlands contingent could help here with details?

BTW, Jameld has »ey« for island, isle (clearly from OFris, as one would
expect).

James

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james@zolid.com  James Campbell  Zeugma--Our Life Is Design  www.zolid.com
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