wealth, power and homonyms.

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DaveBee
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wealth, power and homonyms.

Postby DaveBee » Wed Jun 28, 2017 9:40 am

In a documentary about celts, one of the academics mentioned that in some celtic languages (he didn't say which) the word for mead-distributor, and the word for power, or lord were homonyms. (55m into video).

Which reminded me that in Bernard Cornwell's Uhtred books, I think he mentions that the danish/norwegian jarl (lord) literally translates as ring-giver.
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Iversen
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Re: wealth, power and homonyms.

Postby Iversen » Wed Jun 28, 2017 10:16 am

I checked my "Politikens Etymologisk Ordbog", and it doesn't confirm that an earl should be a ringbearer. There may be a connection to a reconstructed word *ero- which is thought to have signified 'fight' or 'struggle' ... and that of course evokes the name of the Greek goddess "Eris"

The word is supposed to come from Common Germanic *erulaz or erilaz (quote below), which may be related to the name for a tribe the '(H)eruli" which supposedly lived here in Denmark, but apparently had to move away since the name also pops up in other parts of Europe. In another book I have seen the opposite theory, namely that the name "(h)erul" actually is derived from the title "eril", which may (or may not) have designated a wizard of some kind.

The Kragehul I (DR 196 U) spear-shaft found in Funen[3] that bears the inscription:

ekerilazasugisalasmuhahaitegagaga […]
ek erilaz asugisalas muha haite, gagaga […]

Which is interpreted as "I, the earl of Āsugīsalaz, am called Muha," followed by some sort of battle cry or chant ("gagaga").
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