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”Irland it mikla” does not realy look like Old Norse to me. I thought the Old Norse word for ”the” was ”hin”. Anyone who happend ti know?

2007-01-03 Lena Synnerholm, Mästa, Sweden.

I think it looks Irish to me, not Germanic and certainly not Old Norse Rabakam 08:55, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

“Irland” is the Swedish word for Ireland so that word is definitely Germanic. However, the island might not necessarily be called so in Old Norse. The word for Ireland in Celtic languages is probably similar to the Irish name Éire. “Mikla” IS the Old Norse word for “great” or “big” such as in “Miklagård”. It means “the big city” and was the Old Norse name for present-day Istanbul. It was the only the word “it” which sounded wrong to me.

2007-01-29 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.

Nova Scotia

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2007-04-27 Dave Ross, Fairbanks Alaska: Why could this not even be Nova Scotia? There has always been a history of Gaelic-speakers (mostly Erse, of course) on the Island, and is close to the possible Vinland?


I don't think Irlanders reached North America before the Icelanders. Even if they did they would not have been able to etablish a long-lived colony. The Icelandic colony of Vinland was abadored after only ten years because they could not defend it against the local tribespeoples. You are probably expolating to far.

2008-10-04 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.

Fringes?

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In the main quote, it mentions the people of Great Ireland "Wore fringes." Does this mean they wore their clothes with fringed seams, or that their hair was in bangs? What meaning would make more sense in the period of the translation, and more importantly, what was the Old Norse word in the original quote, and what meaning would that word have had? Cynthia-Coriníon 23:10, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

People vs. Man

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I understand this change was reverted previously, so I want to justify putting it back in there. I contacted a professor of Old Norse and they pointed me to a work where the 'people' translation is described. Here is the section quoted:

Rendered literally, element by element, the name can be understood as 'the land of white men' or more broadly 'land of the white people', for the ON noun maðr (pl. menn) 'man' is often gender neutral.

— Jonas Wellendorf, The Stranger-King in Hvítramannalannd (2022), Viking and Medieval Scandinavia 18, pp. 213-214

Considering this and the citation included, I think it's reasonable to add. I left the original bolded in because it seems more frequent in the literature.Arjie (talk) 22:38, 17 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]