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Re: Island

From:James Campbell <james@...>
Date:Monday, May 15, 2000, 7:07
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 ========================================================================= james@zolid.com James Campbell Zeugma--Our Life Is Design www.zolid.com =========================================================================