Re: écagne, and ConLand names in translation (was: RE: RV: Old English)

On Sun, 2 Apr 2000 11:40:12 +0100, And Rosta <a.rosta@...> wrote:

>> An early borrowing (7th century or so) might yield _Shinger_ (riming
>> with _finger_ rather than _singer_). Maybe, with a more ornamental
>> traditional spelling: _Shyngre_.
>
>On reflection, an early borrowing seems unlikely, since the Anglosaxons
>of that early period weren't yet interested in faraway places (AFAIK).
>I'd guess that a borrowing would first enter English during the period of
>the AS monasteries. OTOH, I do seem to recall Paul having mentioned to
>me that Scungrians had early contacts with Northwest Europe, so
conceivably
>there might have been a much earlier borrowing, not mediated by Latin,
>direct from Scungric into Ingvaeonic or Proto-West-Germanic, or possibly
>Proto-Germanic. Perhaps yielding something vaguely along the lines of
>_Scungraland_? Obsolete Modern English _Shungerland_?
Proto-(West-)Germanic *Skungrjo would certantly yield OE *Scyngre,
Middle English *Schingre, modern _Shinger_ (with possible alternative
spellings)

If you wish to play with compounds, you can use, besides OE _land_
(Shingerland), several OE words meaning 'isle': _ea_ (Shingrey),
_ealand_ (Shingriland ?), _holm_ (Shingerholm).

>Still, can you explain why it would be _Shinger_? That is, did we get
>u > y through affection from the final -ia?
Yes, through 'Umlaut'.

>And would -gria regularly
>change to -ger? (I had a mere intuition that it would, but I couldn't
>have said why.)
This appears to be the most natural development.


Basilius