https://www.academia.edu/1959273/On_Germanic_Saami_contacts_and_Saami_prehistory?email_work_card=view-paper

SUSA/JSFOu 91, 2006

Ante AIKIO (Oulu)

1. Introduction

Systematic research on Scandinavian loanwords in Saami began well over acentury ago (e.g. Thomsen 1869; Qvigstad 1893; Wiklund 1896). However, the concept of earlier Germanic borrowings in Saami is newer. In the 1960s it wasstill commonly maintained that few, if any,independent Indo-European loan-words had been directly adopted into Pre-Saami (e.g.Sköld 1961 passim).Of course,ever since the loanword studies by Thomsen (1869, 1890) it had beenknown that a few older Indo-European loan items, such as North Saami ruovdi ‘iron’ (< Germanic) and luossa ‘salmon’ (< Baltic), were present in Saami. "

HM: Wrong: Ruovdi is also a West-Baltic loan. There a no words like rauda in any germanic language meaning "iron".*Rauđan- (?) means red - and it is neither Proto-German nor PIE. PIE word has been about "hrend-" = bloody (< *kremd- = raadeltu, verinen) - and this is the origin of Enlish red.

A.A.: " But as such words were shared with Finnic whose lexicon showed a signifi-cantly stronger Indo-European impact, it was maintained that these words had been mediated to Saami by Finnic. Thus, there seemed to be little evidence of direct contacts between Pre-Saami and the early Germanic and Baltic tribes.During recent decades it has become clear that this classical picture had been influenced by the ways in which etymological research was conducted.With the exception of studies of Scandinavian loanwords which have a long and fruitful research history, there has been a tradition of treating Saami etymologyas a sort of extension of the etymologi-cal study of Finnish vocabulary; untilrecent times few researchers had taken the ety-mologisation of Saami words asan aim in itself. Recently this tradition has been changing, though. For instance,the thorough studies of Germanic loanwords conduc- ted by Jorma Koivulehto have revealed that there is much more to the contact his-tory of Saami and Germanic than was previously thought.The purposes of this paper are to examine the strata of old Germanic borrowings in Saami and to discuss the prehistory and formation of the Saami language branch in the light of what is known of its contacts with Germanic as well as other language groups. The next section summarises the present knowledgeof the stratification of Germanic borrowings in Saami. In the third section 27 Saami words are etymologised as early Germanic loans.The concluding section discusses the main lines of Saami ethnic history on the basis of the results of the present study as well as other recent linguistic research.
 
Aikio 10

2. The stratification of Germanic loanwords in Saami

Jorma Koivulehto has demonstrated in his studies that there are two distinct strata of Germanic loanwords in Saami which precede the extensive stratum of Proto-Scandi-navian loans,the existence of which has already for long beenrecognised.Even these older borrowings seem to have been adopted largely independent of Finnic, as most of them do not have Finnic cognates. Koivulehto’s stratification of the Germanic loan items in Saami is summarised below, as it provides the background for the study in the next section; see e.g. Koivulehto (2002) and the references mentioned there for further material. The oldest stratum of Germanic loanwords has participated in all the known Proto-Saami vowel changes, including the shift *a > *uo. 2

These loanwords are often, but not always, shared with Finnic. In this layer of borrowings Saami *k occurs in the place of Germanic *h. The words were borrowed either before the Germanic sound shift (i.e. before Indo-European *k > PGerm *h) or at an intermediate phase when the Germanic sound was still pronounced as a velar fricative  (*x). "

HM: "Germanic loans before the Germanic suond shift", Grimm´s laws, ARE NOT GERMANIC LOANS. Germanic languages as a separate group of lnguages START FROM GRIMM´S LAWS.

A.A. : " Examples of borrowings in this layer include:

SaaN guos'si ‘guest’ < PS *kuossē  < PreS *kansa (~ Finn. kansa ‘people, crowd’) < PGerm *hansō- (> Old English hōs crowd, host’, Old HighGerman hansa id.) 3
(LÄGLOS s.v. kansa) "

HM: Wrong. Finnish kansa is from Lithanian kamša = people, croad, rush, Cur kam(p)sa = crew of a ship. From the same origin are Fin kansi < Lith kamštis = deck, cover, cap (of bottle).

A.A.: " SaaN gierdat  ‘to endure’ < PS *kiertë- < PreS *kärti- (~ Finn. kärsiä  ‘to suffer; to endure’) < PGerm *hardja- (> Swedish härda ‘to harden, to endure’) "

HM: Wrong:Finnish kärsiä is related with Lith ker̃šyti (~ija,~ijo) = to revenge, ker̃šinti, -ina, -ino = l.m.; irritate, annoy, make angry; prepare for sthg;  keršáuti, -áuja (-áuna), -ãvo = to act for hate, anger, to have a quarrel, kérščioti (~ja, ~jo) = act for hate, for revenge, riidellä, belong together to karštas = hot, heated. (Fraenkel)

The followwing words have nothin to do with these:

A.A. : " (LÄGLOS  s.v. kär SaaSk kuârgg ‘range of rocks, reef’, SaaL guorgoj ‘rocky shore’ < PS* kuorkō(j) < PreS *karko(j) < PGerm *hargu- (>Old Norse horgr  ‘heap of rocks; sacrificial site’) (LÄGLOS  s.v. karkea) "

HM: Wrong. Finnish karkea = rough (material) is in relation to Lith gargždas, Latv. zvirgzdi = gravel.

A.A. " The second stratum of Germanic loanwords has also participated in many Proto-Saami vowel changes, such as *a > *uo, but shows Ø as the substitute for Germanic *h. "

HM: Disappearing of h-, f-, þ- consonants is a Baltic characteristic feature.

A.A.: " These loanwords are not shared with Finnic – there are no loanwordsin Finnic showing a loss of foreign h. These borrowings were thus adopted at astage when Saami and Finnic were already distinct languages spoken in twomutually exclusive speech communities, but these languages still closely resembled each other, as at least most of the complex Proto-Saami vowel shiftshad not yet taken place.

Examples of borrowings in this layer include: SaaN vuoma ~ vuopman ‘a kind of hunting fence’ < PS *vuomën < PreS *amin < PGerm *hamen- (> Old High German hamo ‘hunting net; net in a weir’) (Koivulehto 2002: 589) "

HM: This is difficult to beleve: PGerm *hamen- would entail PIE **kamen-, ка́мень, which means in Russian a "stone", oririginally, metathetically from Proto-Balto-Slavic **ak̑men- = a stone tool > Lith. akmuo = stone, and ašmuõ = a sharp edge (of a tool).

SSA connects Saam vuoma with Finnish uoma

vuoma ks. uoma.
vuomen (Lönnr 1880; paik. Peräp), rinn. vuomeno (paik. Länsip), uomen(o) ’suppilonmuotoinen johdeaitaus lampaiden t. villiintyneiden hevosten kiinni saamiseksi t. peurojen pyydystämiseksi / trichterartiger Zaun zum Einfangen von Schafen oder verwilderten Pferden bzw. zum Jagen von Waldrentieren’
< lpN vuobmân, (Friis) vuoma, vuobman (Lu) ’suppilonmuotoinen johdeaitaus’. "

German *hamen might be connected with Finnish ammentaa or hämmentää, which might be connected with PIE *hen- = in-, Proto-Slavic etc. agent particip *hen-m-en "drive(n)-in" etc., like *ak-m-en and aš-m-en.

 

A.A.:"SaaN vuoksa ‘depth of a fishing net’ < PS *vuopsë < PreS *api/as < NwGerm *hāba-z  (< PGerm *hēba-z) (> Old Norse háfr  ‘pocket net, hoopnet’)  (Koivulehto 1999b: 364–365; 2002: 589)

SaaN vuos'su ‘PIE *bhelgh- > bellows = palkeet’ < PS *vuosëjō < PreS *asijo < PGerm *hasja- (>Icelandic hes ‘skin pouch’) (Koivulehto 1999a: 365–367) "

HM: Finnish palje seems to be a Germanic, Gothic loan, but SaaN vuos'su seems to be same root as Finnish Baltic ahjo < *ankščia, guessing that the word had been bended like inkšti (inkščia, inkštė).

" On Germanic-Saami contacts and Saami prehistory 11

In the case of individual words it is often impossible to distinguish between these two layers of borrowings. Indeed, there are quite a few Germanic borrowings which have undergone the Saami vowel shift *a > uo and hence must havebeen adopted during one of these two early periods, but there are no criteria formore exact dating. But, even though the majority of the old Germanic loan-words in Saami are phonological-ly ambiguous so that their adoption cannot bewith any certainty assigned to either the first or the second phase of borrowing, a principal distinction between these two strata must be assumed in order to explain the two reflexes of Germanic *h-.

The following cases are ambiguous inrespect to their stratification:

SaaN buoidi ‘fat’ < PS *puojtē < PreS *pajta < PGerm *faita- (> Old Norse feitr ‘fat’) (Koivulehto 1976: 260) "

HM: Wrong!

A.A.: " SaaL buollda ‘hillside, mountain side’ (~ Finn. dial. palsi ‘hard layer of soil or clay, e.g. in the bottom of a lake’) < PS *puoltë < PreS *palti < PGerm* falþa- (> Engl. fold)  (Koivulehto 1976: 254–257) "

HM: Wrong!

A.A.: " SaaL guobas ‘witch’ (~ Finn. kave ‘creature; mythological being; girl, maiden (myth.)’) < PS *kuopës < PreS *kapis < PGerm *skapa- (> Old English ge-sceap ‘creature, creation’). (LÄGLOS s.v. kave)

SaaN guolla ‘testicle’ < PS *kuolë  < PreS *kali < PGerm *skallV- (> OldEngl. sceallan ‘testicles’, Old Frisian skall ‘testicle’). PS *-l- in the place of foreign *-ll- is predictable in an early loan, as geminate sonorants were originally not permitted in Finno-Ugric. (The etymology derives from J .Koivulehto,  p.c.)
 

SaaL luogge ‘rectum’ (~ Finn. lank  ‘thread’) < PS *luoŋkē < PreS *laŋka <PGerm *langan- (> Icelandic langi ‘rectum of a bovine’) (LÄGLOS s.v. lanka) "

HM: Bullshit!

SaaN luoikat ‘to lend’ < PS *luojkkë- < PreS *lajkki- < PGerm *laigwē- / *laigweje- (> Old Norse leiga ~ leigja ‘to hire’) (Koivulehto 2002: 588–589) "

HM: Bullshit!

A.A.: " SaaN luoska (obsol.) ‘decorative seam or trimming on the edge of a Saami-man’s coat’ < PS *luoskë < PreS *lask < PGerm *laskV- (> Middle LowGerman
lasch ‘piece (of textile, leather, metal,etc.) with a sharp end; gussetin woman’s coat’; cf. Norwegian lask ‘invisible or decorative seam (on leather); cloth gusset’, which is a Low German loan) (Koivulehto 1976:262–263) 4 "
 
A.A.: " SaaN ruoksi ‘udder’ (~ Finn.rauhanen ‘gland’) < PS *ruovsē  < PreS *rawsa < *rawša < PGerm *hrauza- (> Norwegian røyr  ‘groin’) (cf. SSA s.v. rauhanen)
 
 
Aikio 12 SaaN ruovda ‘edge (of a boat, bed frame, shoe sole, etc.)’ < PS *ruomtë < PreS *ramti < Pre-Germ *ramdō- (> PGerm *randō- > Old Norse rond  ‘edge’)  (Koivulehto 2002: 589) "

HM.: Wrong.

A.A.: " SaaN ruovdi ‘iron’ (~ Finn. rauta id.) < PS *ruovtē < PreS *rawta < PGerm *raudan- (> Old Norse rauði ‘bog iron ore’) (SSA s.v. rauta) "

HM: Bullshit! There is no such woreg meaning "iron" in  any Germanic language!!!

A.A.: " SaaN suovdi ‘gill; mouth, gullet’ (~ Finn. hauta ‘pit; grave’) < PS *suovδē  < PreS *sawδa < *šawδa < PGerm *sauþa- (> Old English sēaþ ‘pit, hole; well,  pool’)  (Koivulehto 1976: 35 – 37) "

HM: Bullshit!!!

A.A.: " SaaN suovri ‘filthy person’ < PS *suovrē < PreS *sawra < PGerm *saura- (> Old Norse saurr ‘filth’) (the etymology was presented by J. Koivulehto, p.c.)

SaaN vuohčču ‘narrow, wet bog’ < PS *vuoččō < PreS *waććo < NwGerm *wātjō- (> Swedish dial. vät ‘boggy place which gathers water in the spring and autumn’) (Koivulehto 2002: 589)

SaaN vuohppi ‘small, narrow bay’ (~ Finn. apaja ‘fishing ground’) < PS *vuopējē PreS *apaja < PGerm *aban- (> Swedish dial. ave ‘small andnarrow bay of a lake’) or *abjōn- (> Old Norse efja ‘bay in a river; mire’) (LÄGLOS s.v. apaja) "

HM: Wrong.

A.A.: " SaaL vuolldo ‘the strongest reindeer bull in the herd’ < PS *vuoltō < PreS *walto < PGerm *waldan- (> Old Norse valdi ‘ruler (poetic)’) (Sammallahti 1984: 144; cf. Sköld 1961: 96)

SaaN vuorbi ‘lot; destiny’ (~ Finn. arpa ‘lot’) < PS *vuorpē < PreS *arpa <PGerm *arba- (> Old Norse arfr  ‘inheritance’)  (LÄGLOS  s.v. arpa)

SaaN vuordit  ‘to wait’ (? ~ Finn. vartoa, varrota id.) < PS *vuortē- < PreS *warta- < PGerm *wardō- (> Old Norse varða ‘to guard, watch over’) or *wardē- (> German
warten ‘to wait’) (SSA s.v. varrota)

SaaN vuordnut ‘to swear’ (~ Finn. vanno- ‘to swear’) < PS *vuornō- < PreS *watno- < PGerm *wahwna- (> German erwähnen ‘to mention’); there are parallels for the substitution *-kn- > *-tn- (Koivulehto 1999b: 121)

SaaN vuotta ‘shoelace (laced around the thigh)’ (? ~ Finn vanne ‘hoop’) <PS *vuontëk < PreS *wantik < PGerm *wandu-z (> Old Norse vondr  ‘twig,  whip’)  (Koivulehto 1976: 257–258)

SaaN vuovdi ‘forest’ < PS *vuovtē < PreS *awta < PGerm *auþa- (>OldNorse auðr
‘uninhabited, desert’, German öde id.; cf.Old Norse eyði-mork ‘desolate forest land’, German Einöde ‘wilderness,wilds’)(the etymologyderives from P.Sammallahti, p.c.)."

HM: Most propably this is original Uralic word outa = (uninhabited) forest, related with word outo = unknown.

" outa (Gan 1787;paik.Peräp Länsip) ’metsä(maa), metsäseut / Wald(land)’
< lpN vuow |de (U Pi Lu In Ko) ’metsä(maa), salo’.

— Lp sanan vastineiksi on esitetty ostjI wont, E unt, P wont ’metsä, erämaa’ (> vogP unt id.) | unk vad ’villi’, vadász ’metsästäjä’.
 

Ganander 1787 NFL 2 301 (sm ~ lp outatje), Gyarmathi 1799 Aff 91 (lp wuo(w)de ~ unk vad), MUSz 1873–81 553 (lp ~ ostj unk), Lönnrot 1880 SRS 2 112 (sm vrt. lp), Qvigstad 1881 Beiträge 118 (sm ~ lp), Genetz 1899 UnkVok 5 (lp (? > sm) ~ unk), T. I. Itkonen Vir 1920 49–50 (sm < lp), FUV 1955 122 (lp ostj unk), SKES 1958 445 (sm < lp), MSzFE 1978 664–65
(? lp ~ vog ostj unk), UEW 1988 556–57 (lp (> sm) ~ ostj (>vog) unk).

outo (Agr; yl.) ’vieras, tuntematon; vieraisilla olija (LounSm); kummalli-nen, poikkeava, epämiellyttävä; ruma (et. KSm EPohjanm Verml); tottu-maton / fremd, unbekannt; Gast;merkwürdig, ungewöhnlich, unangenehm; häßlich; ungewohnt’, johd.oudoksua ’pitää outona, kummeksua; vierastaa, ujostella (et.LounSm)’, oudostaa (paik.PSm) ’vierastaa, vieroksua; oudok- suttaa’, oudostella (etup. PSm) ’ujostella, vieroksua; aavistella, uumoilla (paik. Savo); oudoksua, ihmetellä’

~ ka outo ’outo, vieras, kummallinen; viisas; oudoksuttava asia t. esine, omituisuus; äly’, ouvostoa ’huomata; aavistaa, epäillä; ymmärtää’, ouvostuo ’kummeksua; epäillä; viisastua’

| vi õudne, murt. õud ’hirveä, kolkko, kammottava’, murt. õutada ’ihmetellä, halveksia’.

— Sm > lpN oaw |do (Lu Ko) ’outo, merkillinen, kumma’.

Budenz 1873 NyK 10 21 (sm ~ lp), Setälä 1896 NyK 26 413 (sm ~ vi lp), Lagercrantz 1939 LpWsch 592 (lp < sm), SKES 1958 445–46 (+ ka). ... "

http://eki.ee/dict/ety/index.cgi?Q=%C3%B5ud&F=M&C06=et

" õud : õu : õudu 'hirmsa nähtuse põhjustatud erutusseisund'; mrd 'häbi; õudne, hirmus'
● soome outo 'tundmatu, võõras; kummaline, ebatavaline; imelik, veider'
Aunuse karjala oudo 'tundmatu, võõras'

Läänemeresoome tüvi. "

" As for the semantics, cf. SaaN meahcci ‘wilderness, wilds, uninhabited territory’ <  Finn. metsä ‘forest’. "

HM: A Baltic loan word: Lith. medis, mẽdžias = tree, pl. medžiai = trees, forest,

Medis is not original PIE or Proto-Balto-Slavic word tree, wood, but that is *derew, from which to Lithuanian comes derva = tar.

Metsä, medis and medium may be related with Paleo-Asiatic (Itelmen, FU)

" 107. K:W *meca- > mécake "far away", mecaq "distantly", mecalax "distant" (Steb-nickij), mečaan "far-off" (Radliński), see Worth 1969:161; FU *mećä "weit, entfernet" (UEW 269-70). Lit.: Bouda 1965: 163: K + FU. "

On Germanic-Saami contacts and Saami prehistory 13

A.A.: " It must be noted that even the presence of a regular Finnic cognate does not guarantee that the borrowing belongs to the oldest stratum because it is possible that the words are quasi-cognates which show regular sound correspondenceeven though they do not go back to the common proto-language. It is likely that many words were borrowed between Pre-Finnic and Pre-Saami at a date when these lan-guages were still phonologically relatively close to each other,just as e.g.many Scan-dinavian loanwords have recently diffused between the various Saami languages, conforming to regular correspondences as they were transferred between the alrea-dy diverged idioms (see e.g. Sammallahti 1984: 145). Borrowings between relatively closely related languages frequently becomeconformed to the sound corresponden-ces that are observed in cognate vocabulary,a process which can be called ‘etymo-logical nativisation’ (see Aikio in press a). Moreover,in some cases Finnic and Saami may have independently borrowed the same Germanic word.

This is probably the case with SaaN vuordit ‘to wait’ and Finnish vartoa id.: Saami adopted the word from Proto-Germanic, whereas the Finnish item is likely to have been a later Proto-Scandinavian loan. Separate borrowing is supported by the irregular correspondence of the secondsyllable vowels (PS *ē ~ Finn. o), as well as the narrow distribution of the Finnish word: vartoa is only attested in the western dialects of Finnish, and is absent in all other Finnic languages. 5

Another likely case of separate borrowing is SaaN vuotta ‘shoelace’ (< *want-ik) and Finn. vanne ‘hoop’ (< *want-iš), wherethe suffixal elements differ; in this case separate adoption has been argued also by Koivulehto (1976). It appears that even the oldest Germanic loanwords were adopted into Pre-Finnic and Pre-Saami largely independently of each other (see also  Koivulehto 1988).

In contrast to the two strata discussed above,the later stratum of Proto-Scandinavian loanwords is markedly different in phonological terms; and it isalso lexically more ex-tensive, containing several hundred borrowings. Proto-Scandinavian borrowings can usually be easily distinguished from earlier loan-words on the basis of their vowel reflexes, because they were adopted after theseries of sound changes that transfor-med the Pre-Saami vowel system into the Proto-Saami one – this process left none of the vowels in the system unaltered, and hence it could be called ‘the great Saami vowel shift’ (I owe the term to Janne Saarikivi).PScand *a and *ā are reflected as PS *ā (>SaaN á) as opposed to the PS *uo (<PreS *a) in earlier loans.Likewise, PScand *e was rendered with PS *ie (> SaaN ie), whereas in older Germanic borrowings one finds PS *ë or *ea (both< PreS *e under different  conditions).Consonant substitution patterns also differ from the earlier periods of borrowing. It appears that one must postulate an early dialectal division within Proto-Saami on the basis of how certain Proto-Scandinavian consonants weretreated. does not include the

Aikio 14

In North-western Saami (henceforth NwS), which predecessors of Skolt and Kola Saami,the foreign consonants /h/ and /f/ becameestablished at quite an early date.6
Thus, in Proto-Scandinavian loanwords *f- is reflected as f- in NwS,but as v- in Skolt and Kola Saami – but never as p incontrast to earlier borrowings. "

HM: Which rae false.

A.A.: " Foreign *h-, too, shows a dual treatment: in NwSit was inconsistently either dropped or retained, but in Skolt and Kola Saamialways dropped. Medial *-h- was varyingly either replaced with -k- or -f- or assimilated to a preceding sonorant. Also some initial consonant clusters, especially sk-, were retained in Proto-Scandinavian loanwords in NwS, but simplified in the predecessor of the more eastern Saami idioms. A further consonantalcriterion is that loanwords in the Proto-Scandinavian period frequently show the (hitherto unexplained) sound substitution PScand *-j- > Saami *-č-, which isnot attested in earlier borrowings.

The following examples serve to illustrate the phonological characteristics of  Proto-Scandinavian loanwords in comparison to the two earlier strata:

SaaN áhpi ‘high sea,open sea’ < PS *āpē < PScand *haba- (> Old Norse haf ‘sea’)"

HM:

A.A.: " SaaN ávža ‘bird-cherry’ < PS *āvčë < PScand *hagja- (>Old Norse heggr ‘bird-cherry’)

SaaN biergu ‘meat’ < PS *pierkō < PScand *bergō- (> Old Norse bjorg ‘aid,  rescue, food’)

SaaN  fárru ‘trip; party, travelling company’ < NwS *fārō < PScand *farō- (> Old Norse for ‘journey, journeying’); cf. SaaSk väärr ‘trip’ < *vārō, with initial v-
 

SaaN fiel'lu ‘board’ < NwS *fiellō < PScand *felhō- (> Old Norse fjol ‘board’)
 

SaaN háittis ‘very hot (of stove)’ < NwS *hājttēs < PScand *haita-z  (> Old Norse heitr ‘hot’) "

HM: A Boat-Axe-Baltic Word.

 

A.A.: " SaaN lávkkis ‘flea’ < PS *lāvkkēs < PScand *flauha- (> Old Norse fló ‘flea’); cf. SaaP laaffies ‘flea’ (< NwS *lāffēs), with a different sound substitution!

SaaN márfi ‘sausage’ < NwS *mārfē < PScand *marhwa- (> Old Norse morr ‘fat   in the intestines’)

SaaN miel'li ‘steep, sandy bank on the shore of a river or lake’ < PS *miellē < PScand *melha- (> Old Norse melr ‘heap of sand’)

SaaN skálžu ‘seashell’ < NwS *skālčō < PScand *skaljō- (> Old Norse skel ‘shell, crust’); cf. SaaK kā¬vz ‘seashell’(< *kālčō), with simplification of the initial cluster

On Germanic-Saami contacts and Saami prehistory 15

The adoption of Proto-Scandinavian loanwords was contemporaneous with the dis-integration of Proto-Saami, as revealed by the dialectal differences in the patterns of phonological nativisation. This suggests that the loans were adoptedinto an already widely spread dialect continuum instead of a geographicallynarrow proto-language. As this study concentrates on the earliest periods of borrowing, Proto-Scandinavian loanwords will not be discussed below. The criteria set for theinclusion in the earlier strata of loans are phonological. A Germanic loanwordmust have already been adopted into Pre-Saami if it fulfils one of the following phonological criteria:

1) The word has participated in the vowel shift PreS *a > PS *uo.

2) It shows the reflex of the metaphonic change PreS *e (–i) > *i(–i) > PS *ë (–ë) or PreS *e (–ä) > *ä (–ä) > PS *ea (–ē).

3) It shows the sound substitution PGerm *f- > PS *p- or  PGerm  *h- (*x-) > PS *k- .

In addition to these criteria also the lowering and velarisation of PreS *i to PS *ë is probably a valid criterion for early Germanic origin. This change isattested in e.g. SaaN lađas ‘joint’ < PS *lëδës < PreS *liδis < PGerm *liþu-z (>Old Norse liðr id.) and in an even earlier borrowing from the same word, SaaN lahttu ‘limb’ < PS *lëttō < PreS *litto (Koivulehto 2002). However, I have not discovered any new examples of Germanic loanwords displaying this vowel correspondence, so  it  is not  of  relevance  to  the  present  study.

3. New Germanic loan etymologies

In the etymological articles below the lexical material from Saami and Germanic is first presented, with references to the relevant etymological dictionaries. Only one or two members of each Saami cognate set are cited as examples. The intra-Saami distribution of each item is given in parentheses, together with a reference to Juhani Lehtiranta’s common Saami vocabulary (YSS) if the cognate  set  can  be  found  there. The  following dictionaries,  which have  been  used  as sources of Saami lexi-cal data, are not separately referred to: Bergsland & Mattsson Magga 1993 (South Saami); Lagercrantz 1939 (South Saami, PiteSaami, Sea Saami); Schlachter 1958 (Ume Saami); Halász 1891 (Pite Saami); Grundström 1946–1954 (Lule Saami); Friis 1887, Nielsen 1979 and Sammallahti 1989 (North Saami); E.Itkonen 1986–1991 and Morottaja &Sammallahti 1993 (Inari Saami); Sammallahti & Mosnikoff 1988 (Skolt Saami); T. I. Itkonen 1958 (Skolt, Kildin and Ter Saami). The cited forms have been normalised according to the modern orthographic standards of the Saami languages, except for Kildin Saami.

Aikio 16

3.1.

SaaN bahta ‘arse, behind’ (S–T; YSS 872) < PS *pëtë << (via labial dissimilation)  *potë < PreS *puti < PreGerm *putV- ‘arse; vagina’ > PGerm *fudV- > Old Norse fuð- ‘vagina’(only attested in compounds),Icelandic fuð ‘vagina’,Middle HighGerman vut ‘vagina; arse’, English (dialectal) fud ‘buttocks; vagina’ (? < Nordic). Note also Germ Fotze ‘vagina’, which either shows expressive gemination (*futt-) or is an “s-Bildung”. (ÍO s.v. fuð; AEWb s.v. fuð-; Kluge s.v. Fotze)

No etymology has been proposed for common Saami *pëtë ‘arse, behind’. However, the word very closely resembles PGerm fudV- (< PreGerm *putV-) ‘arse; vagina’. The loan etymology is otherwise quite straightforward, but it requires the postulation of a sporadic labial dissimilation in *o >> *ë after *p- in Proto-Saami. While the change is not regular,the Saami languages show astrong tendency towards this kind of dissimilatory development. Irregular variation between PS *o and *ë next to labial consonants is relatively common. In North Saami one finds dialectal oscillation in many words, cf. e.g. monni ~ manni ‘egg’, botnit ~ batnit  ‘to plait’, bohčit ~ bahčit  ‘to squeeze; to milk’ (SaaN-a- reflects PS *-ë-).

Illabialisation is also common in the other Saamilanguages; e.g. the three words above show only illabialised forms in Eastern Saami. The labial vowel is original in such cases, as demonstrated by extra-Saami cognates (cf. Finn. muna ‘egg’, punoa ‘to plait’, pusertaa ‘to squeeze, wring’ < Proto-Uralic *mun, *puna-, *puśa-). There are even other cases like PS *pëtë which uniformly show labial dissimilation in all Saami languages: cf. SaaN laksi ‘dew’ < PS *lëpsē (the change *ps > ks is regular in SaaN) < Proto-Uralic *lupsa ‘dew’ (> Komi lïsva ‘dew’, Tundra Nenets yøbta id., etc.) and SaaN avvit ‘to leak (of boats)’ < PS *ëvē- < Proto-Uralic *uwa- ‘current; to flow’ (> Finnish vuo ‘current’, Mansi ow- ‘to flow’, etc.). Reflexes of the predictable regular forms *lopsē and *ovē- are not attested anywhere in Saami. A new example of this type can also be presented.One can connect SaaN bahkket ‘to cram, stuff; to force oneself into’,bahkat ‘narrow,tight,taut’ and bahku ‘crowd’,which are derivatives of a PS root *pëkë-, with Finn. pukea ‘to dress, put on (clothes); to thread, slip into’ (the previous comparison to SaaN bohkat ‘to pierce’ is hardly feasible, cf. SSA s.v. pukea). Similar cases are also involved in SaaN savu: savvon- ‘smooth waters (in ariver)’ (< PS *sëvōn) ~ Finn. suvanto id. and SaaN lahppu ‘lichen on trees’ (< PS *lëppō) ~ Finn. luppo id. On distributional grounds these words are probably not cognate, though, but more likely borrowings between Saami and Finnish.

On distributional grounds these words are probably not cognate, though, but more likely borrowings between Saami and Finnish.

Germanic-Saami contacts and Saami prehistory 17 

But even in this case one must postulate an original labial vowel o in Saami, because otherwise one could not account for the -u- in the Finnish forms: thesound substitution PS *ë > Finn. u (or vice versa) is not attested in loanwords.

As a further parallel, there is also another Germanic loanword which shows the same kind of labial dissimilation as the word *pëtë: cf. PS *këppë- ‘to jump, run, gallop’ << PreS *kuppi- < PGerm *huppō(ja)- ‘to jump, hop’ (see  3.10.). As there are numerous examples of sporadic labial dissimilation in Saami, it would not be too daring to assume that also SaaN bahta belongs to the group of words that have undergone this change. Moreover, there is in fact an obscured derivative in South Saami which has preserved a trace of the labial vowel: SaaS buhtehke ‘the outermost part of the rectum of a reindeer’ (< PS *potēkkē). Thus, a Pre-Saami form *puti can be postulated, which in turn can be straight forwardly derived from Pre-Germanic *putV-. This borrowing is very likely older than the Germanic consonant shift, because borrowing from the Proto-Germanic form *fudV- (where */d / = phonetically *[ð]) would have re-sulted in PS *pëδë > SaaN *bađđa; cf. e.g. SaaN lieđđim ‘flower’ < PS *lieδē < PGerm *blēda- (> Old English blæd ‘flower, blossom; fruit’), which shows aspirant as the reflex of PGerm *-d- = *[ð]. But in fact many other Germanic borrowings may have been adopted before the consonant shift as well; in mostcases there is just no phonological criterion that would allow this to be determined.

Semantically the loan etymology is perfect, as ‘arse, behind’ has been reconstructed as the original meaning of the Germanic item as well (Kluge s.v. Fotze). Notably, the secondary meaning ‘vagina’ is also attested in the South Saami        cognate:     SaaS bahte ~ bïhte     ‘arse;   vagina’.

3.2.

SaaS boelnedh ‘to wilt (of grass, leaves; derogatorily of old people)’ (S–L) < PS *puolnë- < PreS *palni-  < PGerm *falwnō- (> Old Norse f polna ‘to grow pale; to wilt’, Icelandic fölna id.),  a derivative of PGerm *falwa- (> Old Norse f p olr ‘pale’ ,     Icelandic fölur  id., German fahl id.). (ÍO s.v. fölur ; VA s.v. falme;AEWb s.v. f polr ; SEO  s.v. falna; Kluge    s.v. fahl) The Saami word *puolnë- ‘to wilt’, attested from South to Lule Saami, has not been etymologised. However, the word has a straightforward Germanic etymology.The PreS form of the word can be reconstructed as *palni-,which strikingly resembles  PGerm  *falwnō- ‘to grow pale, to wilt’. The sound substitutions are quite regular. The PGerm cluster *-lwn- was predictably simplified by leaving the *w without a substi-tute, as a three-consonant cluster would not have been possible in Uralic. Germanic *ō- stem verbs have been adapted as PreS *i-stems in other cases, too; see etymologies 3.8., 3.10., 3.18., 3.22., and 3.26.

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Also the meanings of the Saami and Germanic words match very well; note that  the Lule Saami cognate buollnat is glossed ‘(ver)welken, gelb, fahl werden (von Gras und Laub)’ by Grundström (1946–1954: 756) and as ‘vissna, gulna; falna ´(om glöd)’  by  O.  Korhonen  (1979a) (emphasis added).  Another Saami verb with an identical meaning can also be etymologised as a Germanic borrowing. SaaN goldnat  ‘to wilt (of grass, leaves etc.)’ (< PS *kolnë-; attested in SaaL–I) derives from PGerm or PScand *gulnō- (> Norwegian gulne ‘to turn yellow’). The word is a derivative of *gula- ‘yellow’ (> Norwegian gul). Note that in this case, too, a PS *ë -stem verb reflects a Germanic *ō-stem. This borrowing cannot be reliably dated; it could have been    adopted   either   from     Proto-Germanic  or  later   from Proto-Scandinavian.

3.3

SaaS boernes ‘embryo’ (not attested elsewhere in Saami) < PS *puornës < PreS *parn < PGerm *barna- (> Old Norse, Icelandic,Norwegian and Swedish barn ‘child’)  (ÍO,  AEWb,  SEO,  VA  s.v. barn) The correspondence between SaaS  boernes ‘embryo’ (< PS *puornës) and PGerm *barna- ‘child’ is rather self-evident, and the word can be analysed as a borrowing that has undergone the vowel shift *a > PS *uo.The ending -es (< PS *-ës) is probably a native suffix. The meanings of the words are not identical, but the etymology is still quite transparent. Furthermore, the Germanic itemis originally a derivative of *ber- ‘to bear, carry’, and its original semantic motivation is thus ‘one that is or was born in the womb’. This brings the compari-son even closer to the South Saami word. The same Scandinavian word was also later borrowed into Saami a second time: cf.SaaN bárdni ‘son’, SaaS baernie ‘unmarried son’  (< PS *pārnē).

3.4.

SaaN boldni ‘hillock, mound; roundish, steep hilltop’, SaaS belnie ‘hillock, mound; heap’ (S–N) < PS *polnē < PreS *pulna,cognate with Finnic *pullV- (> Finnish pullea ‘plump, chubby’, pullistua ‘to distend, swell out, bulge out’, pullottaa ‘to bulge out, be bulging’, olla pullollaan ‘to be crammed, bulging, full of’, etc.; Estonian (dial.) pullas ‘chubby’, pullakas ‘large and fat’) < PreGerm *fulna- > PGerm *fulla- ‘full’ (> Icelandic fullur, English and Norwegian full, German voll, etc.) (ÍO s.v. fullur; SEO, VA s.v. full; Kluges. v. voll) 7

On Germanic-Saami contacts and Saami prehistory 19 
 

The equation of Saami boldni and Finnish pullea derives from P.Sammallahti (p.c.). In Saami one can assume the semantic development ‘bulging object, something that bulges out’ > ‘hillock’, ‘heap’. The semantics of the Finnic cognates come particularly close to Germanic *fulna- ‘full’;SSA even glosses Finn. pullea as ‘rund, voll, dick’ (emphasis added). It is also worth noting that the expression olla pullollaan ‘to be crammed, bulging, full of’ is practicallysynonymous with Finn. olla täynnään (< täysi ‘full’). Phonologically the etymology is flawless. On account of Saami *-ln- the borrowing must have taken place before the assimilation *-ln- > *-ll-    in     Germanic.

According to SSA (s.v.), Finn. pullea is a “descriptive” word, but this hardly provides a viable alternative to the loan etymology presented here.

First, ‘descriptivity’ (i.e. sound symbolism) as such does not yet explain the origin of a word, and second, in the case of pullea it is even hard to agree with the suggestion that the word is sound-symbolic (what are the putative symbolic con-ventions that this word displays?). SSA also mentions the similar SaaN words bullas, bul'lái ‘thick, bulging’, bul'lát ‘to bulge out’, bul'li ‘swelling; reindeer with thick udders’, and maintains that they might be “partially” of Finnish origin. What this means is unclear; all the cited items are obvious loans from Finnish.

3.5. SaaN (dial.) borsi ‘foaming rapids in a canyon’ (not attested in the other Saami languages) < PS *porsē < PreS *pursa or *purša (~ Finnish (dial.) purha ‘waterfall’, unless this is a parallel borrowing) < PGerm *fursa- ‘rapids; waterfall’ (> Old Norse fors ~ foss, Swedish fors, Norwegian and Icelandic foss id.)  (ÍO, VA  s.v. foss; AEWb, SEO  s.v. fors) The word borsi is only marginally attested in the North Saami dialects (Qvigstad 1944: 14), and it is not included in the main dictionaries. However, it must earlier have been in more frequent use at least in North Saami, as it occurs in river names in various areas. 8
 

The word is an obvious borrowing from PGerm* fursa- ‘rapids, waterfall’. Due to the sound substitution *f- > *p- the  borrowingmust have taken place quite early. A much newer borrowing from the sameGermanic word is SaaS fuersie ‘rapids’ (< *fuorsē); this must have been adopted either  from  Old Norse fors  or  from  an even  later Nordic  language. It is possible that SaaN borsi has a cognate in Finnish, cf. dialectal Finnish purha  ‘waterfall’  (<  PreF  *purša). These words were compared (with a question mark) in SKES (s.v. purha), but this phonologically regular comparison has for some reason been left unmentioned in SSA (s.v.), even though the Saami verb boršut ‘to foam (e.g. of rapids, waterfall)’ is mentioned; the latter word is apparently a separate borrowing from the same Germanic word family, see 3.6.

 

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