Re: Old Norse/Germanic myth. question

Hi!

Roger Mills <rfmilly@...> writes:
> The name of Thor's hammer-- mjollnir-- cropped up tonight.  Am I correct in
> assuming it's related to Germ. mahlen, Du. molen 'to mill'? (pound/smash??)
> If not, any other thoughts? ...
Well, possible: in PG, the stem 'mill/mahlen/molen/...' is _mala_,
from IE _*mel-_ according to my list of ON words.  For a stem of
'mjöl-', I'd expect a PG (or Proto-Norse) form similar to *mel-u- (or
*melw-).

There is ON _melDr_ 'grinding', 'flower' (powder), PG _meldraz_,
which is also from IE _*mel-_.

And indeed, there seem to be some ON words from the same IE stem that
show fracture, e.g. 'flower' _mjQl_ < PG _*melwa-_, which seems to fit
the **melu- pattern.

Finally, my word list gives ON _MjQllnir_, too, namely < PN
_*melluniaR_ < _*melDuniaR_.  Thus maybe 'the grinder' or 'the
powderizer', but I don't fully understand the derivational morphology
of this one.

I also don't know how well this is founded.  My main source was:
http://www.koeblergerhard.de/germanistischewoerterbuecher/altnordischeswoerterbuch/an-M.pdf

**Henrik
--
Relay 13 is over soon:
http://www.conlang.info/relay/relay13.html