banga

Forms

banga^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Germanic *bangōną (“to pound, beat”),^[1] a cognate of Old High German bangōn (“to beat”).^[2][1] De Vries compares Faroese banga, Old Swedish banga (“to beat”), English bang and the Low German bangen (“to knock, beat”), with the ablaut forms Old Swedish bunga (“drum”) and Middle High German bungen (“to drum”).^[3][4]

Its further origin is unclear.^[4] A connection with Proto-Indo-European *bʰeng- (“to break”) is possible, but de Vries thinks the many forms inside Germanic point rather to a sound word;^[3] Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon reports this view, the root Proto-Indo-European *bʰen- of bani, and imitation as the three proposals.^[4] Wiktionary gives Proto-Indo-European *bʰen- (“to beat, injure”) and calls the word ultimately onomatopoeic.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first dated record is in Barlaams saga, in ONP's citation from 1275 (Menota dates the manuscript Holm perg 6 fol to 1250–1300), where idol-makers are said to work their gods with blows: oc skaro. bulaðu. oc bangaðo. tælgðu. oc hiuggu “and carved, … and hammered, whittled and hewed”.^[5][6]

Semantic evolution

ONP has a single sense, “hammer, knock”, mostly of knocking at a door, and finds it chiefly in religious works.^[5] The phrase banga dyrr or banga á dyrr means “to knock at the door”;^[7][8] a legend of about 1350 says of a knocker Þersi bangar svá öruggliga, at hann þikkiz fyrir víst erendi eiga “this one knocks so boldly that he thinks he surely has business there”.^[5]

It survives as Icelandic banga “to knock”, with a later sense “to cobble together” (banga saman).^[9] Etymonline calls English bang (1540s) either imitative or from a Scandinavian source akin to banga,^[10] and Hellquist treats Swedish banka as more likely an independent sound word than a derivative of the verb.^[11]

Timeline

• 1275 – bangaðo “hammered” in Barlaams saga.^[5][6]
• 1350 – bangar “knocks (at the door)” in the legends of the Æventýri.^[5]
• 1357 – in the D version of Guðmundar saga biskups.^[5]
• 1540s – English bang “to strike hard”, perhaps from a Scandinavian source.^[10]

Meanings

Verb

1. to hammer, knock, especially at a door.^[5][7][8]

Descendants

• Icelandic banga^[1]
• Faroese banga^[1]

Related words

• bangsi
• bǫngull

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
3. ^ a b de Vries, Jan (1977), Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 2nd ed., Leiden: Brill, p. 25
4. ^ a b c Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon (1989), Íslensk orðsifjabók, Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans, ordsifjabok.arnastofnun.is, p. s.v. bang
5. ^ a b c d e f g Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog / A Dictionary of Old Norse Prose, Copenhagen, onp.ku.dk (CC BY-SA 4.0), p. s.v. banga
6. ^ a b Menota: Medieval Nordic Text Archive, menota.org (texts by shelfmark; CC BY-SA 4.0), p. Holm perg 6 fol
7. ^ a b Zoëga, Geir T. (1910), A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. banga
8. ^ a b Fritzner, Johan (1886–1896), Ordbog over det gamle norske Sprog, 2nd ed., Kristiania, p. s.v. banga
9. ^ Sigfús Blöndal (1920–1924), Islandsk-dansk ordbog, Reykjavík, p. 60
10. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
11. ^ Hellquist, Elof (1922), Svensk etymologisk ordbok, Lund, p. s.v. banka