af

Forms

af preposition with dative; adverb^[1][2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Germanic *ab (“away from, off”),^[3] the source also of Gothic 𐌰𐍆 (af), Old English æf and of, Old Saxon af and Old High German aba.^[4][5][6] Outside Germanic it matches Latin ab (“from”) and Ancient Greek ἀπό (apó, “from, away”),^[4][7] from Proto-Indo-European *h₂epó.^[3][8]

Falk and Torp set beside it a variant ending in ⟨-u⟩, with a Greek dialect parallel, which they see in the Norse prefix au- of auvirði (“a worthless person”).^[9][6] De Vries and Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon group with it afar, aptr, eptir and ǫfugr.^[4][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Rundata's reading of the Ødemotland inscription from Norway, dated 460/470–560/570 by Imer, takes ab in aure ab ykwinu as this preposition, in a much disputed interpretation.^[10] Peterson records the preposition on Viking Age Swedish runestones as af and afu.^[11] ONP's first dated citation is of 1150, in an Icelandic homily fragment, with the causal sense: Af þvi scolom vér offt calla engla goþs til fulltíngs oss “for that reason we should often call on God's angels to help us”.^[12]

Semantic evolution

Fritzner describes af as expressing removal from the surface of a thing, standing to ór as á stands to í.^[13] From “off, from” it came to mark sequence (land af landi “from land to land”), material, the agent or instrument, and cause, “because of”.^[1][12][14] It also meant “about, concerning”.^[15]

It continues as Icelandic af, Swedish av and Danish af.^[7][8][9] In Swedish the old basic sense “from” has largely passed to från, and the sense “about” has died out.^[8]

Timeline

• 460/470–560/570 – Proto-Norse ab on the Ødemotland inscription, if it is this word.^[10]
• 1150 – Af þvi “for that reason” in a homily fragment.^[12]
• 1150 – af in the First Grammatical Treatise, by IcePaHC's dating.^[16]
• 1170–1198 – af and of in the runic text B 535.^[17]
• 1192 – af þui “because”.^[12]
• 1200 – the instrumental sense “by” in the Icelandic Homily Book.^[12]

Meanings

Preposition

1. with the dative: from, away from, off.^[12][1]
2. from … to, in succession (hverr af öðrum “one after another”).^[12][1]
3. (of material) out of, of.^[14]
4. (of agent or instrument) by, by way of, with.^[12][15]
5. because of, on account of (af því “therefore, because”).^[12][18]
6. about, concerning.^[15]

Adverb

1. off, away.^[2][11]

Descendants

• Icelandic af^[3]
• Faroese av^[3]
• Norwegian Nynorsk av^[3]
• Norwegian Bokmål av^[3]
• Norn av^[3]
• Old Swedish af^[3]
• Swedish av^[3]
• Danish af^[3]

Related words

• afar
• aptr
• eptir
• ǫfugr
• auvirði

References

1. ^ a b c d Zoëga, Geir T. (1910), A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. af
2. ^ a b Gering, Hugo (1903), Vollständiges Wörterbuch zu den Liedern der Edda, Halle: Waisenhaus, p. col. 13
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
4. ^ a b c de Vries, Jan (1977), Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 2nd ed., Leiden: Brill, p. 2
5. ^ Lloyd, Albert L.; Springer, Otto; Lühr, Rosemarie, et al. (1988–), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; online ewa.saw-leipzig.de, p. I, 5
6. ^ a b Torp, Alf (1909), Wortschatz der germanischen Spracheinheit (Fick, Vergleichendes Wörterbuch der indogermanischen Sprachen, 4th ed., vol. 3), Göttingen, p. 15
7. ^ a b c Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon (1989), Íslensk orðsifjabók, Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans, ordsifjabok.arnastofnun.is, p. s.v. af
8. ^ a b c Hellquist, Elof (1922), Svensk etymologisk ordbok, Lund, p. s.v. av
9. ^ a b Falk, Hjalmar; Torp, Alf (1910–1911), Norwegisch-dänisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg, p. s.v. af
10. ^ a b Samnordisk runtextdatabas (Rundata 3.1), Uppsala universitet (inscriptions by signum), p. N KJ29B
11. ^ a b Peterson, Lena (2006), Svenskt runordsregister, 3rd rev. ed., Runrön 2, Uppsala: Institutionen för nordiska språk
12. ^ a b c d e f g h i Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog / A Dictionary of Old Norse Prose, Copenhagen, onp.ku.dk (CC BY-SA 4.0), p. s.v. af
13. ^ Fritzner, Johan (1886–1896), Ordbog over det gamle norske Sprog, 2nd ed., Kristiania, p. s.v. af
14. ^ a b Sveinbjörn Egilsson (1860), Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis, Hafniæ: Societas regia antiquariorum septentrionalium, p. 3
15. ^ a b c Faulkes, Anthony (2011), A New Introduction to Old Norse III: Glossary and Index of Names, 4th ed., London: Viking Society for Northern Research, p. s.v. af
16. ^ Wallenberg, Joel C.; Ingason, Anton Karl; Sigurðsson, Einar Freyr; Rögnvaldsson, Eiríkur, Icelandic Parsed Historical Corpus, version 0.9
17. ^ Menota: Medieval Nordic Text Archive, menota.org (texts by shelfmark; CC BY-SA 4.0), p. B 535
18. ^ Foote, P. G.; Quirk, R., eds. (1957), Gunnlaugs saga ormstungu, London: Nelson / Viking Society (glossary), p. 88