{"id":2535,"date":"2013-05-27T00:08:49","date_gmt":"2013-05-27T00:08:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/islenzka.net\/?p=2535"},"modified":"2013-05-27T00:08:49","modified_gmt":"2013-05-27T00:08:49","slug":"how-odd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/islenzka.net\/how-odd\/","title":{"rendered":"How Odd"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"spearpoint\"<\/p>\n

Sometimes it just takes one word to send you off on a linguistic journey – in this case it led me to the origins of the English word odd<\/em>, which of course has something to do with Icelandic as well \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

What actually started this whole thing was the word oddbrotinn<\/strong> – I came across it while reading a short story (sm\u00e1saga<\/strong>) called Hylurinn<\/strong> in the book Gula h\u00fasi\u00f0<\/a><\/strong>, by Gyr\u00f0ir El\u00edasson<\/a>. I really like the stories in this collection that I’ve read so far, and they truly are short stories, maybe 3-5 pages each, which is perfect for someone learning the language. Trying to read an entire novel can be daunting, but a short story can be worked through in a couple of hours. The prose is also not too difficult, so if you’re an intermediate student like me looking for a new challenge, I can recommend this book or another of his collections of short stories, Milli trj\u00e1nna<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The story Hylurinn<\/em> is about a father and son who are fishing in a river. The father is actually using a spear, throwing it into the deep part of the river (hylur<\/strong>) trying to spear a fish. The passage was:<\/p>\n

“Ma\u00f0urinn horf\u00f0i \u00e1fram \u00fat \u00ed hylinn. Svo skaut hann \u00ed \u00feri\u00f0ja sinn. Broddstafurinn lenti \u00e1 steininum. \u00deegar hann dr\u00f3 stafinn upp var hann oddbrotinn.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

“The man looked out at the spot in the river. Then he threw for a third time. The spear landed in the rocks. When he pulled the staff out the spear tip was broken off.”<\/em><\/p>\n

I knew brotinn<\/strong> meant that something was broken, but I wasn’t sure what odd<\/strong> meant. I found the word oddur<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
oddur (m) – point (of a sharp object)<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/th>\nsingular<\/th>\nplural<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
nom<\/th>\noddur<\/td>\noddar<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
acc<\/th>\nodd<\/p>\nodda<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
dat<\/th>\noddi<\/td>\noddum<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
gen<\/th>\nodds<\/td>\nodda<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

The word broddstafur<\/strong> had come earlier in the story, but I hadn’t looked it up yet, figuring it was a staff of some sort; it turns out that one meaning for broddur<\/strong> is similar to oddur<\/strong> (point, spike). Another meaning of broddstafur<\/strong> is a letter with an accent on it (\u00e1<\/strong>, \u00e9<\/strong>), but context should rarely make this confusing \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Some other Icelandic words that incorporate this idea of a point<\/em> are<\/p>\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
oddi (m) – spit of land, point<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/th>\nsingular<\/th>\nplural<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
nom<\/th>\noddi<\/td>\noddar<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
acc<\/th>\nodda<\/p>\nodda<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
dat<\/th>\nodda<\/td>\noddum<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
gen<\/th>\nodda<\/td>\nodda<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n  <\/td>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
odd\u00b7bogi (m) – Gothic arch<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/th>\nsingular<\/th>\nplural<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
nom<\/th>\noddbogi<\/td>\noddbogar<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
acc<\/th>\noddboga<\/p>\noddboga<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
dat<\/th>\noddboga<\/td>\noddbogum<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
gen<\/th>\noddboga<\/td>\noddboga<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

The word bogi<\/strong> means arc or curve, so combining it with odd<\/strong> give the word for a Gothic arch, which has a point-like shape:
\n


\n\"gothic_arch\"
\n<\/center><\/p>\n

There is also the adjective odd\u00b7mj\u00f3r<\/strong>, which means pointed. By itself, mj\u00f3r<\/strong> means thin or narrow, so it’s interesting to see how the meaning changes with the prefix.<\/p>\n

A more abstract idea related to point would be that of head<\/em> or primary<\/em>; prominence <\/em>. This seems to be the idea in the word odd\u00b7viti<\/strong>, a chairman or representative.<\/p>\n

So in looking up the meaning of odd-<\/strong> in an Icelandic word, I found its relation to the English word odd<\/em>, which has a long history going back through Old Norse, Old English and even Old High German, and probably whatever came before that. According to various dictionaries, the origin is:<\/p>\n

“Middle English odde<\/strong>, from Old Norse oddi<\/strong> point of land, triangle, odd number; Old English ord<\/strong> point of a weapon; Old High German ort<\/strong> point, place”<\/em><\/p>\n

I’ve only dabbled in Old English (Anglo-Saxon), but the ties it shares with Old Norse are immediately recognizable, and for a speaker of English it makes learning Icelandic even more fascinating \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes it just takes one word to send you off on a linguistic journey – in this case it led…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[3],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/islenzka.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2535"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/islenzka.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/islenzka.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/islenzka.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/islenzka.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2535"}],"version-history":[{"count":61,"href":"https:\/\/islenzka.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2599,"href":"https:\/\/islenzka.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2535\/revisions\/2599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/islenzka.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/islenzka.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/islenzka.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}