Noh.
Who has sailed up to the Narrow Shore but Timbur-Helgi himself, as can be seen in the comments to the immediately previous post. Eins og sæmir góðum gesti og komumanni ber hann með sér gjafir: fleira orð yfir krókódílum. More words for crocodiles are always vel þegin. But I have to take issue with the complaint that dreki in bakkadreki is a loanword, and therefore undesirable.
Dreki? Yes, the word is borrowed in from Latin draco, draconis, but long, long ago. It is the word for a longship, a sleek ship of war with a shallow draught and gaping head on the prow. Medievals used this word of their ships. Perhaps I am missing something, but I have trouble reconciling the idea of a Háfrónska that excludes medieval words.
What about the word kær (ON kærr)? It's a medieval French borrowing, from the same root as cheri. Of course one can use ást instead of kærleikur when speaking of love, but all things in kær- retain that air of courtliness and chivalry from medieval French Romance, something altogether missing from the hearty ást.
What about blessa (ON bleza)? Greetings and benedictions become a mite more difficult without the verb to bless. Are we really meant to say hello by expressing the wish that our interlocutors be sprinkled with water (as I vaguely recall being done in the sort of Viking-heavy fantasy novels in which Þórr and Óðinn are invoked in every other line of overwrought dialogue)? The 'heathen baptism' (ausa barn vatni) may not have have existed, and if it did, it too may have been a borrowing in in imitation of Christian baptism. Hardly the way to promote this dýrslega hreint tungumál, Háfrónska, I think.
Neither am I convinced that replacing vertu/komdu blessaður with vertu ausinn would not result in misunderstandings stemming from the other senses of ausa, which include to make water and to lash out with the hind hooves. Does this not open the door for what ought to be a friendly greeting being confused with a sentiment more akin to may you be dribbled by a donkey? Hardly conducive to peace at the Alþingi or in social interactions almennt.
Furthermore, shall we take Timbur-Helgi's lead and replace foreign personal names with clever nativist constructions? Timbur-Helgi (timber-saint) for Joseph or Jósef is certainly clever, but Jósef does not loom so overlarge in Icelandic cultural history. What about the Irish names? Should they be retired from service as well? Think carefully, for this would mean losing Kormákr and losing Njáll. What would we then call that greatest of the íslendingasögur, Brennu-Njáls saga?
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I'm not entirely sure that purifying a language is a benefit to it.
Loan-words are a record of history, of ancient associations, and beautify the landscape like the Sapporo bell in Portland's park. Even when the associations are less friendly, as they often are, they record the sweep of history with the faithfulness of sedimentary layers in rock. The striations that show cataclysms enrich our understanding just as much as the ones that show fertile growth. And they happened, which we can't undo by reconstruction.
Further, loan-words spark interest, catching the ear like sea-glass catches the eye, on a beach that would otherwise be uniformly sand. They add texture and variety.
And they strengthen the language, by introducing new ways of understanding a concept. Much as a hybrid rose, or dog, or person, is hardier than one which is purebred, so I believe must be true of language. What it loses in purity it makes up for in adaptability. To be sure, there are some who believe that pure-bred people are, for some mystical reason, superior ... but we all know what a morass that leads to. It's just not social.
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