Linguistics

[Revontulet]

Thanks, that's interesting!
"Sclavus" is the medieval Latin term for "slave" because it's derived from Slav -- i.e. Slavic captives and POWs during the Migration Ages.  "Servus" was the classical Latin word for "slave", and gave rise to "serf" and "servant."

That's also really cool.  The "clavus" part of "sclavus" comes from the Latin word "clave," meaning key.  So combining your and my explanations, it basically meant something like " Slavs under key."  It's true though that the Classical Latin for slave was servus.  That's where the Italian word "servi" and eventually the English word that carries the same meaning( though servi can also be a verb in the "you" form) came from.  It came from the genitive form of "servus," which is "servi."  In Latin, because the Genitive case is the possessive case, it literally translates to "of the slave."  Also, "servi" can be the nominative plural form of servus.  So that would literally translate as "slaves."(nominative is the subject of the sentence).  His is so cool though!  Every word goes back to another one and so on...

[Sunflower]

Swedish "tid" is the 'cognate' word to German "zeit"; they correspond to English "tide".

Initial z- in German generally corresponds to t- in the other Germanic languages.

tooth—Zand
to—zu
two—zwei
ten—zehn
tale—Zahl
tear—zerren
teach—zeigen
…
(note that the meanings have sometimes drifted, so these words, although they share an etymology, are not always the exact translation of each other)

This is really illuminating!

Re: tid/Zeit/tide, I think an even closer cognate in English would be "tidings," an antique word for "news."  (The King James Bible, translated c. 1600, uses it prominently, e.g. in the Christmas story:  "I bring you good tidings of great joy.")

Strengthening the "news" parallel (says the former journalist), "tid" and "Zeit" are both common elements in names of Scandinavian and German newspapers, e.g. the Bergens Tidende our prologue characters read. 

[ruth]

This is really illuminating!

Re: tid/Zeit/tide, I think an even closer cognate in English would be "tidings," an antique word for "news."  (The King James Bible, translated c. 1600, uses it prominently, e.g. in the Christmas story:  "I bring you good tidings of great joy.")

Strengthening the "news" parallel (says the former journalist), "tid" and "Zeit" are both common elements in names of Scandinavian and German newspapers, e.g. the Bergens Tidende our prologue characters read. 

you're on target there! :uk: "tidings", :germany: "Zeitung", and :sweden: "tidning" are all composed of the same etymological building blocks.

[kjeks]

It is so great to start a day reading amazing stuff like this. I always knew there was to be some link, but t-z linking never occured to me. Ok, I never studied linguistics, but this type of knowledge is gorgeous.

[Sunflower]

It is so great to start a day reading amazing stuff like this. I always knew there was to be some link, but t-z linking never occurred to me. Ok, I never studied linguistics, but this type of knowledge is gorgeous.

Yes, it is! 
Several years ago, I worked at a technology startup in San Francisco that hired a lot of Ph.D. linguists to build a concept-based search engine.  I was so envious of all the principles they knew about language and how it works.  Like Grimm's Law:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimm%27s_law  (Yep, the same Grimms of fairy-tale fame.)

Or whatever law it is that words starting in H in Classical Greek show up starting in S in Latin (both presumably having descended from a much older common ancestor).
Examples:
Hepta- :greece: "seven"                                Septem [Latin]  "Seven"
Hal, hales :greece: "the sea," hence "salty"    Sal, salis "Salt"  (cf. "halides" and "halogen"; "salary")
Herpes :greece: "creeping," "latent," hence "creeping THING, e.g. snake"  Serpes [Latin] "snake"

[Hrollo]

To expend a bit:

The original ancestor germanic tongue had three consonants t d th (the latter often written þ or ð).

English and Icelandic preserved all three consonants as such (though in modern Icelandic, t is pronounced with strong aspiration, and d is pronounced more like t, but without aspiration).

German (and other closely related languages, like Yiddish, I think) turned t into z/ss (depending on position in the word), d into t, and th into d.

Other Germanic languages preserved t d, but turned th into something else (generally tor d).

[tedlar]

There is the Old Gods.
And if she want to keep the story light and friendly, I don't think she will give us wars of religion

[Sunflower]

It's certainly both too early and definitely off-topic, but I'm curious to see what Minna has prepared about the religion issue. Because (slightly back to topic) Emil is a christian name.

Not to get too pedantic, but the name "Emil" actually has its roots in pre-Christian Rome.  It derives from the gens Aemilia, one of the oldest and proudest families of ancient Rome.  (Who knows whether Minna was thinking of this or trouble-making Emil i Lönneberga when naming her character...?)


With that said, FrogEater brings up a very interesting question about the religious landscape 90-plus years after the Great Disaster (and the appearance/revival of magic) pretty much wrecked everyone's prior assumptions about how the world works.  That line of speculation has its own places.

Religion gets discussed here (if you'll kindly overlook my posts about the Simpsons, the names of the fallen of Kastrup, etc.).  Fenris in particular makes some valuable points, since he actually practices a modern form of Norse paganism. 

Also in this thread:  "Change of Culture and Religion in Year 90."

[FrogEater]

Thank you for the two links I certainly did not want this thread to drift away from its initial purpose.

[Revontulet]

Wait- I thought I started this topic!  Can someone explain to me why I'm no longer listed as the creator??????

[Sunflower]

Wait- I thought I started this topic!  Can someone explain to me why I'm no longer listed as the creator??????

(Embarrassed Torbjörn face.)* 
I think that was my doing.  I asked Noako as admin to move a sequence of posts re: name etymologies from the "Translations and Readings" thread in the SSSS board to this one.  I didn't realize they'd automatically float up to the "top" of this thread -- much less dethrone you as creator of the topic! 

I'm sorry about the accidental "dethroning."  Shall I ask Noako to rearrange the post order, or whatever other trick she has for returning credit to you?  (Also, I note that replies 1-5, and several later ones, are no longer relevant, since they were debating where the name-etymology should go...)

* I have to make that face so often, I should probably have it stored on a save/get key...

[Revontulet]

(Embarrassed Torbjörn face.)* 
I think that was my doing.  I asked Noako as admin to move a sequence of posts re: name etymologies from the "Translations and Readings" thread in the SSSS board to this one.  I didn't realize they'd automatically float up to the "top" of this thread -- much less dethrone you as creator of the topic! 

I'm sorry about the accidental "dethroning."  Shall I ask Noako to rearrange the post order, or whatever other trick she has for returning credit to you?  (Also, I note that replies 1-5, and several later ones, are no longer relevant, since they were debating where the name-etymology should go...)




* I have to make that face so often, I should probably have it stored on a save/get key...

Yes please!  Thank you  very much!

[noako]

Wait- I thought I started this topic!  Can someone explain to me why I'm no longer listed as the creator??????

This is because of the merge and I am very sorry but I'm not sure it can be fixed.

Merging the topics puts them in time order - you had started the topic a few days ago (november 22), while the post that was going to get merged to this one was posted at least a week before it.(november 12)

I can't seem to move separate posts within threads. I'm sorry. I can modify the first post to quote your first post here?

[Sunflower]

This is because of the merge and I am very sorry but I'm not sure it can be fixed.

Merging the topics puts them in time order - you had started the topic a few days ago (november 22), while the post that was going to get merged to this one was posted at least a week before it.(november 12)

I can't seem to move separate posts within threads. I'm sorry. I can modify the first post to quote your first post here?

Revontulet, I'm sorry too -- since it was my request that ended up demoting you as thread creator.

[kjeks]

Yes please!  Thank you  very much!

I know you started this amazing topic As long as there are no achievements for starting a topic, it is not too bad for you, I hope. Without you starting it I would haver never dug deeper into nordic names