Ann Aenglikonagur þeddr

  • Thread starter Deleted member 105545
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Homer Simpson & the Brain

The Professor said:
Well, yes. The whole West thing got stuck in my head o_O.
I'll have to gander at the map later as too big to dl on the move!
Click to expand...

No problem. Also, I think I might have been a bit hasty in saying the Norse had no name for Great Britain as a whole. When you'll download the map, you'll notice the name "Bretland" hanging from Wales, but when I google-translated "Wales" into any of the Scandinavian languages there was no difference at all. It's probably pronounced differently in each tongue, but "Wales" being spelled the same in all of them is a strong clue the name's modern form might have started out as a Norse bastardization of the Old English "Wealas".

In other words, Bretland might actually be the Norse name of Britain.
 
The Professor

The Professor

Homer Simpson & the Brain said:
No problem. Also, I think I might have been a bit hasty in saying the Norse had no name for Great Britain as a whole. When you'll download the map, you'll notice the name "Bretland" hanging from Wales, but when I google-translated "Wales" into any of the Scandinavian languages there was no difference at all. It's probably pronounced differently in each tongue, but "Wales" being spelled the same in all of them is a strong clue the name's modern form might have started out as a Norse bastardization of the Old English "Wealas".

In other words, Bretland might actually be the Norse name of Britain.
Click to expand...
I suspect it's a bit of both. Originally Britain then narrowed down to the Britonic survivors before becoming Britain again as the AS/English Kings acquired the name to signify their dominion over the island (or at least the nonScottish bits).
 

Deleted member 105545

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s q u a t
 
Ivoshafen

Ivoshafen

Honestly, this thread is kinda inspiring me to try my hand at a altlang myself :p

Good work! Loving the maps!
Especially Slavenia
 
ruth

ruth

Homer Simpson & the Brain said:
No problem. Also, I think I might have been a bit hasty in saying the Norse had no name for Great Britain as a whole. When you'll download the map, you'll notice the name "Bretland" hanging from Wales, but when I google-translated "Wales" into any of the Scandinavian languages there was no difference at all. It's probably pronounced differently in each tongue, but "Wales" being spelled the same in all of them is a strong clue the name's modern form might have started out as a Norse bastardization of the Old English "Wealas".

In other words, Bretland might actually be the Norse name of Britain.
Click to expand...

The modern form of 'Wales' in modern Scandinavian languages is a loan from English, not an English loan from ON. 'Welsh' is cognate to ON valskr, which means 'Celtic/Roman/foreigner in general', but it originated independently from its own Old English root, with much the similar meaning. (Fun fact, the same root is the source of Wales, Wallachia, Wallonia, and Gaul.)

Imo the use of 'Bretland' easily expanded from its use in Wales to cover the entirety of the British Isles OTL, I see no compelling reason why it wouldn't happen again; this kind of metonymy is ubiquitous throughout history...

but if you want to really go off the wall, you could adopt a new name for the island from the root that yielded Albion, which would yield something like Álfaland, that is, well, "Elves' Land."
 

Deleted member 105545

ruth said:
The modern form of 'Wales' in modern Scandinavian languages is a loan from English, not an English loan from ON. 'Welsh' is cognate to ON valskr, which means 'Celtic/Roman/foreigner in general', but it originated independently from its own Old English root, with much the similar meaning. (Fun fact, the same root is the source of Wales, Wallachia, Wallonia, and Gaul.)

Imo the use of 'Bretland' easily expanded from its use in Wales to cover the entirety of the British Isles OTL, I see no compelling reason why it wouldn't happen again; this kind of metonymy is ubiquitous throughout history...

but if you want to really go off the wall, you could adopt a new name for the island from the root that yielded Albion, which would yield something like Álfaland, that is, well, "Elves' Land."
Click to expand...
Ooooooooooo, good idea
 

Homer Simpson & the Brain

ruth said:
The modern form of 'Wales' in modern Scandinavian languages is a loan from English, not an English loan from ON.
Click to expand...
Never said "Wales" a loanword from Old Norse to English, I simply thought it came about through Danish settlers trying to pronounce "Wealas" ending up saying "Wales", or something similar, instead because they were hindered by how they were used to pronounce "valskr".
 

Hominid

Homer Simpson & the Brain said:
Never said "Wales" a loanword from Old Norse to English, I simply thought it came about through Danish settlers trying to pronounce "Wealas" ending up saying "Wales", or something similar, instead because they were hindered by how they were used to pronounce "valskr".
Click to expand...

While English vowel changes are hard to figure out, it appears that "ea" did become "a" in certain circumstances. See weax becoming wax, heard becoming hard. This is especially common after a "w." I suppose it's possible that this could reflect Norse influence, but there's no reason to think that, since the modern Scandinavian words for Wales are simply loanwords from modern English AFAIK. Maybe an actual linguist or expert on Old English could give better insight.
 

Homer Simpson & the Brain

Hominid said:
While English vowel changes are hard to figure out, it appears that "ea" did become "a" in certain circumstances. See weax becoming wax, heard becoming hard. This is especially common after a "w." I suppose it's possible that this could reflect Norse influence, but there's no reason to think that, since the modern Scandinavian words for Wales are simply loanwords from modern English AFAIK. Maybe an actual linguist or expert on Old English could give better insight.
Click to expand...
I admit that my theory pretty much comes from typing "valskr" into the Danish slot on Google Translate and listening to how it got pronounced, so not exactly a solid base, but I didn't find anything more substantial either.
 
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