Re: CHAT: RPGs (was Re: Wargs)

Thomas R. Wier wrote:
>
> John Cowan wrote:
Sally Caves wrote:
> > > A werewolf was more than just a man wolf-like,
> >
> > Hey, if "man wolf" was a good enough compound for our Anglo-Saxon predecessors,
> > it should be good enough for us!
>
> Well, more importantly, specific names of new or alleged
> (and therefore, not very well known) phenomena are not
> usually given based on detailed information -- if all you know,
> really, about him is that he's like a wolf, well "man-wolf" is
> an accurate naming given your understanding of him.
Tom, John Cowan has simply taken me out of context, and appears to be
responding to a half-sentence of mine.  Actually, I don't understand
John's remark at all, or why my half-quoted sentence inspired it.  I
think
it had something to do with my original question, and that was: how do
you
say werewolf in your language?

To put it back into context:
Teonaht doesn't have the flexibility of the Germanic languages,
and you can't simply juxtapose two items without explaining their
relationship, or semi-relationship.  You can't imply, as you can with
werewolf, that a man is both a man and a wolf.  In Teonaht you can only
say man wolf-like or wolf man-like.  The other compounds are for things
like man for a wolf, wolf for a man, man full of wolfness, etc.  Since
a werewolf is MORE than a wolf-like man, I was lamenting the rigidity
of Teonaht compounds.  Perhaps I need to expand its compounding
capacities,
for how can I also say hermaphrodite in Teonaht?  man woman-like?  That
just doesn't cut it, does it?

FYI, John,
It is simply not known whether the element "were" in English
werewolf really means man.  It's used only once in the Old English
corpus, and to mean Satan.  But wer, man, a word with a short vowel in
it,
is spelled were, implying a long vowel.  It was shortened in Middle
English
to werwolf, and has the variants werewolf and warwolf.  In the
Scandinavian
traditions it was vargulfr, vargulv, and to the Normans it was garulf...
...all of these meaning WARG WOLF, or WOLF WOLF or OUTLAW WOLF but not
human-wolf.  The Norman tradition still persists today in the French
word
loup-garou.  Since garou has become obscure, they've added a third wolf
to
it.  Very curious.

Wergild did not mean "man money," as it is popularly conceived.  Wer(e)
was "pledge," with a long e.  I have no proof of what the were in
werewolf
is, but I suspect it was a distorted form of OE wearg, werig, or WARG,
bringing it in tradition with the Scandinavian forms.  This requires my
looking at Old and Middle High German and seeing how early or late it
was in its weriwolf, wariwolf.  Why our modern spelling with were?

I suspect that the concept werwolf as "man wolf" comes through later
contact
with Gr, lykanthropos, so it was just assumed that were means man, as
the Greek
means wolf-human.  The concepts may be the same, but the etymology is
obscure
in the Old English.  I'm toying with finding a Teonaht term for
warg/varg,
which has given us our word "worry," meaning to strangle, throttle,
seize
by the throat and shake.  What every dog does to a toy bear, pretending
it's
a rabbit.

<G>

In fact, if any one has in his or her possession an OHG or MHG
dictionary,
or at least a good German etymological dictionary, I would be much
obliged
if you could look Werwolf up for me and tell me what it says, since our
library
is without these, unfortunately.  Dates would be VERY helpful.

I've also decided, based on a conversation we had about flour some
months ago,
that Teonaht flower and flour will be the same word, just as in Dutch!

Sally
============================================================
SALLY CAVES
scaves@frontiernet.net
http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves (bragpage)
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http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/contents.html (all else)
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Niffodyr tweluenrem lis teuim an.
"The gods have retractible claws."
                                from _The Gospel of Bastet_
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