Scandinavia and the World
Scandinavia and the World

Comments #9489319:


Karen

36
Icelandic place names may sound exotic, but they're usu 30 5, 4:09pm

@Tjalve

Now I'm curious - I'm going to tally up the differences here into which Norwegian is more like :)

"afgangur: avgang -> leaving, or finishing. As in "the train is leaving" or "finishing student (last year of studies)"

I'd say that that sounds more like the Icelandic meaning (leftovers) rather than the faroese (semen). In Icelandic, afgangur can also mean the remainder of something (not necessarily food)

"skref: skrev -> crotch, but can also be used when stepping over something, especialy when it's so tall that you have to step over it sideways"

Sounds like somewhere in-between the Faroese and Icelandic

"limur: lem -> limb"

Clearly all three versions have the same origin, but different meanings.

"ríðingarfélag: rideklubb -> riding association. The faroese and norwegian words are not completely the same, but sufficiently similar."

Yeah, Icelandic is the unusual one, where "ríða" took on a sexual connotation

"Reyði Krossurinn: Røde Kors -> Red Cross"

Versus "Rauði krossinn" in Icelandic. I'd say yours is somewhere between ours (but you don't attach the definite article like we do)

"ástand: åsted -> scene, as in "crime scene", where something has happened"

So yours is clearly more like the Icelandic, I'd say.

"bert: bort -> away. But could also be "bare" which means "only". I think I'll go for "bort" though."

So it sounds like you're sort of in-between, but closer to the Icelandic.

"yfirgangsfólk: overgangsfolk -> This word doesn't exist in norwegian. But if it had existed, it would mean something like "people who are crossing" or "people who are moving from one thing to another"."

So you have similar meanings for yfir/over and ganga, just not the compound

"bumba: bombe -> bomb"

So more like the Faroese. But that's a loanword, not a native one, from the French "bombe". The Icelandic "sprengja" (both noun and verb) comes from "springa", to burst.

"afmynda: Doesn't really have an equivalent in norwegian. The closest might be "avbilde (take a picture)" or "umyndiggjøre (disempower, as in taking away a person's right to make decisions for himself)""

So neither.

"spæla: spela (new-norwegian), spille (dano-norwegian) -> play"

So you have one version more like the Icelandic and one more like the Faroese ;)

"dýna: dyna/dyne -> duvet (I assume that's what you meant when you wrote "heavy blanket")"
"sæng: seng -> bed"

Yeah, couldn't think of the best word in English for it at the moment ;) Icelandic is clearly the one that reversed these two for some reason.

"ljóð: ljod (dialect), lyd (standard norwegian) -> sound"

Interesting, more like the Faroese.

"ljóðaldur: No equivalent word in norwegian"
"skuldsettur: skuldsatt -> This word doesn't really exist in norwegian, but if it had existed, it would probably mean "indebted". It might actually exist in some dialects. I don't know."

Okay, so +1 Icelandic.

"lífsvandi: Doesn't really exist in norwegian, but similar words do exist, with varying meanings."
"pingvinir: pingviner -> penguins"

So more like the Faroese. But again, note that that's a foreign loanword that you both took on. The Icelandic is "mörgæs" ;)

sjúkrabilur: sjukebil/sykebil -> ambulance

Icelandic: sjúkrabíll. So yours is similar to both. The difference is that in bila, bilaður, etc (aka without the comma) refers to broken things. :)

"rúsdrekkakoyring: ruskjøring -> not really the word we use, but it would mean "intoxicated driving"."
So another case of more like Faroese.

So the total looks like, comparing the Norwegian word and seeing what it looks like:

Clearly Faroese: 5
Somewhat Faroese: 0
In-between: 5
Somewhat Icelandic: 2
Clearly Icelandic: 2
Neither / nothing similar exists: 4
Like the Faroese, but both are loanwords: 2

But this is of course just a rather small subset :) But looking at it, I'd say that it looks like Norwegian is equally similar to both except in regards to loan words, where you and the Faroes have taken on the same loan word while Icelandic just adapted native terms. Which is generally what we do - it's kind of fun sometimes to go to Wikipedia for a technical term, then mouseover the equivalent terms in other languages on the left, Icelandic is usually a standout. E.g., picking from different fields:

Photon (EN) / Foton (NO) / Ljóseind (IS)
Integral (EN) / Integral (NO) / Heildun (IS)
Mitochondria (EN) / Mitokondrium (NO) / Hvatberi (IS)
Polymer (EN) / Polymer (NO) / Fjölliða (IS)
Autism (EN) / Autisma (FO) / Autisme (NO) / Einhverfa (IS)
Transistor (EN) / Transistor (NO) / Smári (IS)
Seismograph (EN) / Seismograf (NO) / Jarðskjálftamælir (IS)
Hippocampus (EN) / Hippocampus (NO) / Dreki (IS)
Supernova (EN) / Supernova (NO) / Sprengistjarna (IS)
Velociraptor (EN) / Velociraptor (NO) / Snareðla (IS)

I think that's where Icelandic gets its reputation of being more "pure" of a language, being more resistant to loanwords (although English still infiltrates :Þ Nothing is so grating on my ears as the word "basically", I don't think your average teenager even knows the Icelandic equivalent). But still, we try. I remember when tablet computers came out, for example, and at first everyone was calling them tablets. But then there was big push, "no no, they should be called spjaldtölvur", and soon the stores picked up the name, and now everyone calls them that. :)

" (I tend to have fun saying that "cuneiform" means "cunt shaped")"

Haha, I didn't know that one, that's great ;)