*lagu

Reconstruction

Ringe and Taylor reconstruct *lagu for Proto-West Germanic,^[1] and Wiktionary has the same form.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Germanic *laguz (“water, sea”),^[1] which Ringe and Taylor set up for Proto-Northwest Germanic on the evidence of Old Norse lǫgr, Kroonen cites by its stem *lagu-, and Orel writes *laʒuz.^[1][3][4] In Old English the *a was first fronted, *lægu, and then retracted before the u of the next syllable, as in the other u-stems, giving lagu.^[1]

Morphology

A masculine u-stem.^[5][6][3]

Evidence

Only Old English and Old Saxon record the word.^[7][8] Old English has lagu "sea, water, flood",^[5] and Old Saxon has lagu once, as the name of a rune in the Abecedarium Nordmannicum of 829–849,^[7][9] besides the Heliand compounds lagustrōm "flood of water" and lagulīthand "seafarer".^[10][11] Ringe and Taylor compare Old Saxon lagustrōm with Old English lagustrēam.^[1] Old Frisian, Old Dutch and Old High German have no record of it: Köbler sets up only an unattested Old High German *lagu after the Old Saxon word,^[8] and Wiktionary reconstructs Old Frisian *lage.^[2]

The oldest record may be the man's name ⟨laguþewa⟩ on the shield-handle mount of Illerup III in Jutland, which Düwel, Nedoma and Oehrl date to around or shortly after 200.^[12] They interpret it as a West Germanic name Laguþewa in the nominative singular, whose first element belongs with Old Saxon lagu- and Old English lagu.^[13] Looijenga also reads a personal name with a first element ⟨lagu-⟩ "sea, water", and rejects a connection with the word for "law" because of the composition vowel -u-.^[14] In the inscription of Pforzen I, Seebold reads two runes as concept runes for *lagu- "water, sea, lake" and *tīwa- "god", a compound "lake-god".^[15]

Meanings

1. water, sea^[1][2]

Kroonen glosses the Old English and Old Saxon words as "lake".^[3]

Reflexes

• Old English: lagu (“sea, water, flood”)^[5]
• Old Saxon: lagu (“sea, lake; name of a rune”)^[7][9]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Ringe, Don; Taylor, Ann (2014), The Development of Old English, A Linguistic History of English II, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 191
2. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. *lagu
3. ^ a b c Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 322
4. ^ Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 231
5. ^ a b c Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. s.v. lagu
6. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altenglisches Wörterbuch, 4th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. lagu
7. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altsächsisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. lagu
8. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. *lagu?
9. ^ a b Tiefenbach, Heinrich (2010), Altsächsisches Handwörterbuch / A Concise Old Saxon Dictionary, Berlin / New York: De Gruyter, p. s.v. lagu
10. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altsächsisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. lagustrôm
11. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altsächsisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. lagulīthand
12. ^ Düwel, Klaus; Nedoma, Robert; Oehrl, Sigmund (2020), Die südgermanischen Runeninschriften, 2 vols, Ergänzungsbände zum Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde 119, Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter
13. ^ Düwel, Klaus; Nedoma, Robert; Oehrl, Sigmund (2020), Die südgermanischen Runeninschriften, 2 vols, Ergänzungsbände zum Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde 119, Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. SG-36
14. ^ Looijenga, Tineke (2003), Texts and Contexts of the Oldest Runic Inscriptions, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. Illerup III
15. ^ Düwel, Klaus; Nedoma, Robert; Oehrl, Sigmund (2020), Die südgermanischen Runeninschriften, 2 vols, Ergänzungsbände zum Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde 119, Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. SG-97