> Hi!
>
> Benct Philip Jonsson writes:
>
>>Henrik Theiling skrev:
>>
>>>Hi!
>>>What is 'sem' in Icelandic derived from? Or Swedish 'som' or Faroese
>>>'sum' (i.e., the modern North Germanic relative clause particle)?
>>>I could not find a convincing etymology online and unfortunately don't
>>>seem to have the appropriate books.
>>
>>Go to <
http://tinyurl.com/fkz7l> and look for Root / lemma "sem-2".
>>NB there is no space between the hyphen and the 2!
>
>
> I did not find the relative pronoun cognates in this query. Why is it
> this root the relative pronoun derives from? I probably missed
> something.
True, but there is the pronominal adjective _samr_ which
de Vries says is cognate. Hellquist's "Svensk etymologisk
ordbok" says that _som/sum_ is from _sem_ in unstressed
syllable (he probably means that the vowel first became
@-ish and then became labialized by the following /m/).
Hellquist too says that it derives from IE *sem, and
relates it to Skt. _sam-_, OSax., OHG _sama/samo_ etc.
--
/BP 8^)>
--
Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch at melroch dot se
a shprakh iz a dialekt mit an armey un flot
(Max Weinreich)