Talk:blettr
Latest comment: 3 years ago by -sche in topic RFV discussion: February–June 2021
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Old Norse. The user who made it, Drago, is noted by their talk page as being unreliable.__Gamren (talk) 13:48, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
- Cleasby/Vigfusson has it as "blettr, s, m., pl. ir, [Engl. blot; Dan. plet], loc. a spot, blot, Fms. iii. 123 in a paper MS., the vellum MS. Fb. i. 228 reads ‘flekkr:’ blot, mjök grandvarr af blettum, without stain, blotless, 655 xxxii. 19: now much used in a loc. sense, a spot."
Fms. = Fornmanna sögur, Fb. = Flateyjarbók; I suppose one question is whether this is attested early enough to be Old Norse (as e.g. the OED seems to asume it is) or only later in early Icelandic. - -sche (discuss) 07:48, 25 February 2021 (UTC)- Well, Flateyjarbók seems to be right on the edge. We don't have our own definition, but WP says ON began to diverge in "mid-to-late 14th century". The Fornmanna sögur quote is from the story of Þáttr Þorsteins Uxafóts, which says flekk in the text, and blett in a note. Fms is an anthology compiled in the 19th century. However, it looks like that particular story is also found in the Flateyjarbók.__Gamren (talk) 10:11, 25 February 2021 (UTC)
- Yes, apparently the copy of the story found in the Flateyjarbók has flekkr and only later (paper) copies have blettr, if I understand Cleasby correctly. I don't know if there are other works which use blettr; it is absent from Gerhard Köbler's dictionary. I can't find a text using Cleasby's phrase "mjök grandvarr af blettum"; the only text I can find that uses "grandvarr af" is the Maríu saga which has "miok grandvarr af þeim lvtvm". This seems to be what Cleasby is referring to (so perhaps some paper copy of this saga too subs in blettr), since Jón Ólafsson's (?)1915(?) Orðabòk ìslenzkrar tungu að fornu og nỳju has an entry for blettr which mentions "mjök grandvar af b-um, ávirðingum, lýtum, 655". A number of other entries which assume blettr is Old Norse will need to be updated if it's not, such as blot; the etymology of the word also becomes an interesting question. - -sche (discuss) 19:50, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
- @-sche I was originally inspired when adding plet; DDO and ODS both state that the etymology is uncertain, and fail to mention an ON word, although they do refer to some (presumed) cognates: Swedish plätt, Middle Low German plet, plets/pletz, High German pletz, bletz (Old/Middle not specified), Dutch plets, Icelandic blettur, Old English plott.
Is it possible for it to be related to modern German Platz?__Gamren (talk) 12:14, 27 February 2021 (UTC)- Most of those seem to trace back through Low German and Old French to the Latin cognate of English flat. Chuck Entz (talk) 17:23, 27 February 2021 (UTC)
- For the Dutch term I only know it for the sound of a smack, that seems onomatopoeic and unrelated to the meanings in the North Germanic entries.
←₰-→Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 15:44, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
- @-sche I was originally inspired when adding plet; DDO and ODS both state that the etymology is uncertain, and fail to mention an ON word, although they do refer to some (presumed) cognates: Swedish plätt, Middle Low German plet, plets/pletz, High German pletz, bletz (Old/Middle not specified), Dutch plets, Icelandic blettur, Old English plott.
- Yes, apparently the copy of the story found in the Flateyjarbók has flekkr and only later (paper) copies have blettr, if I understand Cleasby correctly. I don't know if there are other works which use blettr; it is absent from Gerhard Köbler's dictionary. I can't find a text using Cleasby's phrase "mjök grandvarr af blettum"; the only text I can find that uses "grandvarr af" is the Maríu saga which has "miok grandvarr af þeim lvtvm". This seems to be what Cleasby is referring to (so perhaps some paper copy of this saga too subs in blettr), since Jón Ólafsson's (?)1915(?) Orðabòk ìslenzkrar tungu að fornu og nỳju has an entry for blettr which mentions "mjök grandvar af b-um, ávirðingum, lýtum, 655". A number of other entries which assume blettr is Old Norse will need to be updated if it's not, such as blot; the etymology of the word also becomes an interesting question. - -sche (discuss) 19:50, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
- Well, Flateyjarbók seems to be right on the edge. We don't have our own definition, but WP says ON began to diverge in "mid-to-late 14th century". The Fornmanna sögur quote is from the story of Þáttr Þorsteins Uxafóts, which says flekk in the text, and blett in a note. Fms is an anthology compiled in the 19th century. However, it looks like that particular story is also found in the Flateyjarbók.__Gamren (talk) 10:11, 25 February 2021 (UTC)
- Additional questions to consider if this is not attested in documents old enough to be Norse: Is this exact nominative blettr attested in Icelandic, such that the entry could just be relabelled Icelandic, or is it only attested in inflected forms like blett and blettum which could be of blettur? And, given that both Icelandic and Faroese have what look like descendants, besides the somewhat more different possible-descendants found in Danish and possibly English blot, should we have a Reconstruction: entry for Old Norse *blettr, or just list all the various possible cognates in one of the descendants, such as Icelandic (and point to it from the others)? - -sche (discuss) 22:22, 27 February 2021 (UTC)
- Perhaps you want a template
{{ghost form of}}; or{{corruption of}}. But this is ironical since Icelandic and Faroese have descendants from the same form, never a corruption, even though the only attestation is from scribal error (in an Old Norse text, I understand?) due to vernacular influence, so that we consequentially put a descendants section under this Old Norse form labelled a corruption though the descendants are not from the corruption. So in this case, just add a usage note or similar, show how it is attested and what one has to assume based on descendants or cognates – avoiding having the same term in the reconstruction namespace and in the mainspace. Fay Freak (talk) 14:15, 4 March 2021 (UTC)- I don't follow - what are you suggesting it would be considered a corruption of? AFAICT it's not a corruption of "flekkr", it's a different but synonymous word some editions (which, however, postdate Old Norse) use in place of the original word. Unless there's some other source which would've resulted in the Icelandic and Faroese and Middle English words, it seems like this must've existed in Norse and just not been recorded until later, hence it may need to be a Reconstruction: entry and not present in the mainspace. - -sche (discuss) 03:27, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
- Some sources give O.N. blehtr, I think from the NED, and maybe Skeat. Rich Farmbrough, 16:26, 29 March 2021 (UTC).
- That looks very much like a later Icelandic form, reflecting the preaspiration still present in modern Icelandic. —Rua (mew) 10:43, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
- I moved it to Reconstruction:Old Norse/blettr, and updated blettur and blot (q.v.). If someone wants to argue that the occurrences in late (post-Norse) copies of Norse texts should "count" as verifying it, I'm open to it being moved back to blettr. - -sche (discuss) 03:38, 4 June 2021 (UTC)