Re: CHAT: Subtitles (was: Re: Proto-Romance)

At 21:42 27.3.2004, John Cowan wrote:

>Benct Philip Jonsson scripsit:
>
>> Oh yes, but usually in the compound _Norrbaggar_.
>
>Norwegian Bulgarians, is it?  Hm.  IB's Scots of Egypt have nothing on that!
No.  Superficially it looks like 'North-rams', and the singular
exists too, but I strongly suspect that _baggar_ in this case
is a corruption of Old Norse _baglar_ 'bishop's staffs' which
was the name of one of the political parties in medieval Norway.*
FWIW I'd bet some money that _bagall_ is a cognate of English
_bagel_, due to the shape no doubt.

(*) The other, royalist, party was _birkibeinar_ 'birch-legged ones',
which is explained as referring to shoes of birch-bark which they
used at some point.

/BP 8^)
--
  B.Philip Jonsson mailto:melrochX@melroch.se (delete X)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Truth, Sir, is a cow which will give [skeptics] no more milk,
and so they are gone to milk the bull."
                                    -- Sam. Johnson (no rel. ;)

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