Re: R: Re: Blandness (was: Uusisuom's influences)

On Mon, 9 Apr 2001 19:34:45 -0400, Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...> wrote:

>Mangiat wrote:
>> Hey, just a question: is the word 'law' from Latin 'lex' via French 'loi'
>> (sp?), or is there a Germanic root I'm missing?
>
>It's from Old Norse *lagu, the plural of lag "laying, good order" (i.e.,
>"that which is 'laid down'"), derived ultimate from Proto-Germanic *lag-
>"put", also the source of English "lay".
Quite true, except *lagu would be Proto-Norse, not Old Norse; that -u
ending is prior to umlauting, which yielded the ON form "lög" (using "ö"
for the o-tail character). It's a plural form of a neuter, btw; that -u
ending is a cognate to Latin/Greek neuter pl -a, methinks; at least it also
appears in feminine singulars, just like the Latin -a in fem sings (which
was -ee in Attic Greek).

Óskar