ala

Forms

ala (singular present indicative elr, singular past indicative ól, plural past indicative ólu, past participle alinn) (strong)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Germanic *alaną (“to nourish, grow”),^[1][2] a strong verb of the sixth class.^[3] The same verb is Gothic 𐌰𐌻𐌰𐌽 (alan, “to grow up, be nourished”) and Old English alan (“to nourish, produce”).^[2][4][5]

Outside Germanic it matches Latin alō (“to nourish”) and Old Irish alim (“I nourish”);^[2][6][7] Wiktionary and Köbler trace it to Proto-Indo-European *h₂el- (“to grow, nourish”).^[1][5] Gothic also had a weak verb “to fatten”, whose participle matches the first part of Old Norse compounds such as alisvín (“fattened pig”).^[8][9]

Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon and de Vries group with it aldr (“age, life”), ǫld (“age, people”), elli (“old age”) and elska (“to love”).^[7][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first dated record is in the Elucidarius of AM 674 a 4to, dated 1175 by ONP, in the passive “be born”: Huerso mondo menn aukasc eþa alasc í paradiso “how would people have multiplied or been born in paradise”.^[10] The sense “give food and shelter” follows in a Norwegian church-law fragment of 1187, and “give birth to” in the Icelandic Homily Book of 1200.^[10]

Semantic evolution

The verb covers the whole of bringing a living being into the world and keeping it: of the father “to beget”, of the mother “to give birth to”, then “to bring up, rear” children and animals and “to feed, maintain” guests or dependants.^[10][11][12] Cleasby and Vigfússon note that it is mostly said of the mother and rarely of the father alone.^[11] The laws use it for the duty of feeding and housing dependants and guests, and ONP finds it far more often in legal works than expected.^[13][14][10] The phrase alnir ok óbornir “born and unborn” meant present and future generations.^[12][10] Figurative uses include ala aldr “to spend one's life” and ala sút “to grieve”.^[12][15]

It survives as Icelandic ala and Swedish ala; in Danish it gave way to avle, though older Danish had ales “to be born”.^[7][8]

Timeline

• 1175 – alasc “be born” in the Elucidarius of AM 674 a 4to.^[10]
• 1187 – “give food and shelter” in a fragment of the Gulaþing church law.^[10]
• 1200 – “give birth to” in the Icelandic Homily Book.^[10]
• 1200–1225 – alask, ól, alnir in AM 677 4to.^[16]
• 1248–1332 – alinn on the Norwegian runic stick N 606.^[17]

Meanings

Verb

1. to beget, engender (of the father, or of both parents).^[10][12]
2. to give birth to, bear; passive alask to be born.^[10][11]
3. to rear, bring up (children).^[12][18]
4. to breed, rear, feed (animals).^[10]
5. to give food and shelter to, sustain;^[10][13] (law) to board, house.^[10][13]
6. to maintain.^[10]
7. (figurative) to nurse, harbour (a feeling); ala aldr to spend one's days.^[12][19]

Word family

• alað
• aldin
• aldini
• alstr
• alisvín
• aligás

Descendants

• Icelandic ala^[1]
• Faroese ala^[1]
• Norwegian Nynorsk ala^[1]
• Norwegian Bokmål ale^[1]
• Old Swedish ala^[1]
• Swedish ala^[1]
• Old Danish alæ^[1]

Related words

• aldri
• aldrigi
• aldr
• aldinn
• alinn
• ǫld
• elja
• elli
• elska

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 12
3. ^ Köbler, Gerhard, Altnordisches Wörterbuch, online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary database copy), p. s.v. ala
4. ^ Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 3
5. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
6. ^ a b de Vries, Jan (1977), Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 2nd ed., Leiden: Brill, p. 4
7. ^ a b c Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon (1989), Íslensk orðsifjabók, Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans, ordsifjabok.arnastofnun.is, p. s.v. ala
8. ^ a b Falk, Hjalmar; Torp, Alf (1910–1911), Norwegisch-dänisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg, p. s.v. ale
9. ^ Torp, Alf (1909), Wortschatz der germanischen Spracheinheit (Fick, Vergleichendes Wörterbuch der indogermanischen Sprachen, 4th ed., vol. 3), Göttingen, p. 20
10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog / A Dictionary of Old Norse Prose, Copenhagen, onp.ku.dk (CC BY-SA 4.0), p. s.v. ala
11. ^ a b c Cleasby, Richard; Vigfússon, Guðbrandur (1874), An Icelandic-English Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 11
12. ^ a b c d e f Zoëga, Geir T. (1910), A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. ala
13. ^ a b c A Lexicon of Medieval Nordic Law, Digital Humanities Institute, University of Sheffield, p. s.v. ala
14. ^ Hertzberg, Ebbe (1895), Glossarium, in Norges gamle Love indtil 1387, vol. 5, Christiania
15. ^ Hægstad, Marius; Torp, Alf (1909), Gamalnorsk ordbok med nynorsk tyding, Kristiania: Det norske samlaget, p. 7
16. ^ Menota: Medieval Nordic Text Archive, menota.org (texts by shelfmark; CC BY-SA 4.0), p. AM 677 4to
17. ^ Menota: Medieval Nordic Text Archive, menota.org (texts by shelfmark; CC BY-SA 4.0), p. N 606
18. ^ Baetke, Walter (1965–1968), Wörterbuch zur altnordischen Prosaliteratur, Berlin (digital ed. Greifswald 2006), p. 15
19. ^ 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. ala