byrð

Forms

byrð f (genitive byrðar), i-stem^[1][2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Germanic *burþiz (“birth”),^[3][1] a noun of the verb bera (“to bear, give birth”).^[4][5] Its nearest relatives are Old Swedish byrþ (“birth; burden”), Old Saxon giburd (“birth, descent”) and Middle High German giburt, and with a prefix Gothic 𐌲𐌰𐌱𐌰𐌿𐍂𐌸𐍃 (gabaurþs, “birth”).^[3][4][6] Köbler Germ traces the Proto-Germanic noun to Proto-Indo-European *bʰer- (“to carry”).^[7]

Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon compares burðr and thinks the word has probably undergone some foreign influence.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The only dated record in ONP is in Barlaams saga of 1275, of a woman's conduct befitting her royal birth: sœmelega metferð kononglegrar byrðar “the seemly bearing of royal birth”; two manuscripts read dyrðar and tignar instead.^[2]

Semantic evolution

ONP separates birth itself from birth as descent or rank; the second sense has most of its citations, and Fritzner's konunglig byrð “royal birth” is of this kind.^[2][8] Zoëga marks the word as rare, and in Icelandic it is obsolete.^[9][4]

Old Swedish byrþ covers birth, kinship and lineage and, in the laws, the land a person holds by birthright.^[10] Medieval inscriptions on Gotland date themselves by it: af Guðs byrð “since God's birth”, in the year 1449 on G 99.^[11]

Timeline

• 1275 – kononglegrar byrðar “of royal birth” in Barlaams saga.^[2]
• 1449 – guz · by^rþ “God's birth” on the Gotland stone G 99.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. birth.^[2][9]
2. birth as ancestry or rank, descent.^[2][8][12]

Word family

• barnbyrð

Related words

• bera
• burðr

References

1. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard, Altnordisches Wörterbuch, online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary database copy), p. s.v. byrð
2. ^ a b c d e f Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog / A Dictionary of Old Norse Prose, Copenhagen, onp.ku.dk (CC BY-SA 4.0), p. s.v. byrð
3. ^ a b de Vries, Jan (1977), Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 2nd ed., Leiden: Brill, p. 67
4. ^ a b c d Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon (1989), Íslensk orðsifjabók, Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans, ordsifjabok.arnastofnun.is, p. s.v. byrð
5. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
6. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Altsächsisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. giburd
7. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. *burþi-
8. ^ a b Fritzner, Johan (1886–1896), Ordbog over det gamle norske Sprog, 2nd ed., Kristiania, p. s.v. byrð
9. ^ a b Zoëga, Geir T. (1910), A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. byrð
10. ^ A Lexicon of Medieval Nordic Law, Digital Humanities Institute, University of Sheffield, p. s.v. byrþ
11. ^ a b Samnordisk runtextdatabas (Rundata 3.1), Uppsala universitet (inscriptions by signum), p. G 99
12. ^ Baetke, Walter (1965–1968), Wörterbuch zur altnordischen Prosaliteratur, Berlin (digital ed. Greifswald 2006), p. 79