3 ms·

My point is simply this: As far as the primary sources go, we have, as of the 1000's, an Anglo-Saxon word "wicing" that looks nearly identical to "viking" and w

My point is simply this: As far as the primary sources go, we have, as of the 1000's, an Anglo-Saxon word "wicing" that looks nearly identical to "viking" and would have been pronounced "wy-ching." As of at least 100 years later, in what may have been an Icelandic dialect of Old Norse, we have a word "vikingr", which would have been pronounced "veek-een-grr" with a trilled "r". The only other thing we know is that Old Norse had a word "vic". I don't think we can rule out that the word "viking" was invented by the Norse, but based on the above information alone, I don't think we can reasonably conclude that it must have been.

thaumasiotes 6y ago
> we have, as of the 1000's, an Anglo-Saxon word "wicing" that looks nearly identical to "viking" and would have been pronounced "wy-ching." Do you have a source for palatalization of the "c"? To know how the word would have been pronounced, you need to know whether it was native to Old English or borrowed from Norse.[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_English_phonology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_English_phonology : > (Although this palatalization occurred as a regular sound change, later vowel changes and borrowings meant that the occurrence of the palatal forms was no longer predictable, that is, the palatals and the velars had become separate phonemes.) Both the velars /k, ɣ/ (including [ɡ]) and the palatals /tʃ, j/ (including [dʒ]) are spelled as ⟨c⟩, ⟨g⟩ in Old English manuscripts. > In modern texts, the palatalized versions may be written with a dot above the letter: ⟨ċ⟩, ⟨ġ⟩. (As just mentioned, it would otherwise not generally be possible to predict whether a palatal or velar is meant, although there are certain common patterns; for example, ⟨c⟩ often has the palatalized sound before the front vowels ⟨i⟩, ⟨e⟩, ⟨æ⟩. Note that Old English had palatalized ⟨g⟩ in certain words that have hard G in Modern English due to Old Norse influence, such as ġiefan "give" and ġeat "gate".) Modern pronunciation (or Middle English confusions) would be a good guide to that question, if the word had survived, which it didn't. > I don't think we can rule out that the word "viking" was invented by the Norse, but based on the above information alone, I don't think we can reasonably conclude that it must have been. How do you get from here to "the etymology isn't mysterious"? [1] The languages are closely related enough that some borrowings were given the "correct" native pronunciation instead of the borrowed pronunciation. But as we see, this was not universal.

thaumasiotes 6y ago

> we have, as of the 1000's, an Anglo-Saxon word "wicing" that looks nearly identical to "viking" and would have been pronounced "wy-ching." Do you have a source for palatalization of the "c"? To know how the word would have been pronounced, you need to know whether it was native to Old English or borrowed from Norse.[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_English_phonology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_English_phonology : > (Although this palatalization occurred as a regular sound change, later vowel changes and borrowings meant that the occurrence of the palatal forms was no longer predictable, that is, the palatals and the velars had become separate phonemes.) Both the velars /k, ɣ/ (including [ɡ]) and the palatals /tʃ, j/ (including [dʒ]) are spelled as ⟨c⟩, ⟨g⟩ in Old English manuscripts. > In modern texts, the palatalized versions may be written with a dot above the letter: ⟨ċ⟩, ⟨ġ⟩. (As just mentioned, it would otherwise not generally be possible to predict whether a palatal or velar is meant, although there are certain common patterns; for example, ⟨c⟩ often has the palatalized sound before the front vowels ⟨i⟩, ⟨e⟩, ⟨æ⟩. Note that Old English had palatalized ⟨g⟩ in certain words that have hard G in Modern English due to Old Norse influence, such as ġiefan "give" and ġeat "gate".) Modern pronunciation (or Middle English confusions) would be a good guide to that question, if the word had survived, which it didn't. > I don't think we can rule out that the word "viking" was invented by the Norse, but based on the above information alone, I don't think we can reasonably conclude that it must have been. How do you get from here to "the etymology isn't mysterious"? [1] The languages are closely related enough that some borrowings were given the "correct" native pronunciation instead of the borrowed pronunciation. But as we see, this was not universal.