eiga

Forms

eiga (singular past indicative átti, plural past indicative áttu, past participle áttr) (present)^[1] Proto-Norse runic first person present aih on the Myklebostad stone.^[2][3] Viking Age runic third person plural aku and aiku, read eigu.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Germanic *aiganą (“to possess, have”),^[1][6] an old preterite-present verb.^[7][8] The runic present Proto-Norse ᚨᛁᚺ (aih, “I have”) is already found in Proto-Norse.^[3][2] Its cognates are Gothic 𐌰𐌹𐌲𐌰𐌽 (aigan), Old English āgan, Old Frisian āga, Old Saxon ēgan and Old High German eigan.^[6][9] Gothic keeps the old present 𐌰𐌹𐌷 (aih), beside Old English āh and Old High German ēh.^[9][10]

Outside Germanic, de Vries and Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon compare Sanskrit and Avestan words for “to own, be master of” and “lord, wealth”, and perhaps a Tocharian B verb meaning “to know”.^[3][10] Wiktionary traces the Germanic verb to Proto-Indo-European *h₂eh₂óyḱe, from *h₂eyḱ- (“ability, possession”);^[1] Köbler gives the root in Pokorny's form as “to have, own, be able”.^[6] Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon leaves open whether the root had a long or a short diphthong, and whether “own” grew out of “to rule over” or out of “to have taken”, the latter comparing Ancient Greek αἴνυμαι (aínumai, “to take”).^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Proto-Norse aih on the Myklebostad stone, which Rundata dates to 375/400–560/570 after Imer, is used in a claim to compensation from a named man.^[2] In Old Norse proper the first dated record is the Swedish inscription Hs 7, dated by Rundata to the 800s, where the rune text aku (eigu) says what the people are entitled to under their common law: svát ljóðir eigu at ljóðrétti.^[4] The first manuscript record ONP dates is from 1150, in the homily fragment Hóm237¹, already in the sense “ought to”: en alteres clǽþe merkia goþ verc es ꜵ́st eigo at fýlgia “and the altar's cloths signify good works, which ought to go with love”.^[11]

Semantic evolution

ONP puts the senses of possession first: owning goods, land or a kingdom, holding a chieftaincy, having rights to something or to its use, and having a spouse.^[11] From “to have” the verb came to mean “to be bound to, have to”, and with an infinitive or a past participle it also serves as an auxiliary.^[12][13] It is much used in the laws: ONP's genre table counts 304 citations in legal works where 133 would be expected.^[11]

The weak feminine noun eiga “ownership; property, landed property” is derived from the verb,^[10] and ONP first dates it in 1200.^[11] It is found in the phrases kasta eigu sinni á and leggja eigu sína á “to take into one's possession”.^[14][12] The present participle eigandi is used as a noun “owner”.^[15]

Cleasby and Vigfússon set the English word owe beside eiga and own beside eigna.^[16] Hellquist traces owe and ought to the Old English cognate.^[7] The verb lives on as Icelandic eiga, Swedish äga and Danish eje.^[10][7]

Timeline

• 375/400–560/570 – Proto-Norse aih “I have (a right)” on the Myklebostad stone, by Imer's dating.^[2]
• 800s – aku (eigu) “are entitled” on the Swedish inscription Hs 7.^[4]
• 900s – aiku (eigu) on the Swedish runestone Sö 176.^[5]
• 1150 – “ought to” in the homily fragment Hóm237¹.^[11]
• 1187 – the legal sense “to have a claim, be owed” in GulKr315f.^[11]
• 1200 – “to own” and “to have (a child)” in the homilies HómÍsl, and the noun eiga “property” in the same manuscript.^[11]

Meanings

Verb

1. to own, have or get as one's property.^[11][17]
2. to possess land or a kingdom; to hold a chieftaincy (goðorð).^[11]
3. to have a right to something, to its use or to an activity;^[11][12] (law) to have a claim on someone, to be owed something.^[11][12]
4. to have as wife or husband, to be married to, to marry.^[11][17]
5. to have (children, parents, friends).^[17][12]
6. to be bound to, to have to, ought to.^[11][17]
7. to hold (a meeting, an assembly).^[12]
8. as an auxiliary with a past participle, to have.^[12][13]

Word family

• eigandi
• eiguligr
• aleiga
• sameiga
• landeiga
• húseiga

Descendants

• Icelandic eiga^[1]
• Faroese eiga^[1]
• Norwegian Nynorsk eiga^[1]
• Old Swedish ǣgha^[1]
• Swedish äga^[1]
• Old Danish æghæ^[1]
• Danish eje^[1]

Related words

• eiginn
• eign
• ætt

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Samnordisk runtextdatabas (Rundata 3.1), Uppsala universitet (inscriptions by signum), p. N KJ77
3. ^ a b c de Vries, Jan (1977), Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 2nd ed., Leiden: Brill, p. 95
4. ^ a b c Samnordisk runtextdatabas (Rundata 3.1), Uppsala universitet (inscriptions by signum), p. Hs 7
5. ^ a b Samnordisk runtextdatabas (Rundata 3.1), Uppsala universitet (inscriptions by signum), p. Sö 176
6. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
7. ^ a b c Hellquist, Elof (1922), Svensk etymologisk ordbok, Lund, p. s.v. ega, äga
8. ^ Köbler, Gerhard, Altnordisches Wörterbuch, online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary database copy), p. s.v. eiga
9. ^ a b Lehmann, Winfred P. (1986), A Gothic Etymological Dictionary, based on the third edition of Vergleichendes Wörterbuch der gotischen Sprache by Sigmund Feist, Leiden: Brill, p. 42
10. ^ a b c d e Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon (1989), Íslensk orðsifjabók, Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans, ordsifjabok.arnastofnun.is, p. s.v. eiga
11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog / A Dictionary of Old Norse Prose, Copenhagen, onp.ku.dk (CC BY-SA 4.0), p. s.v. eiga
12. ^ a b c d e f g Baetke, Walter (1965–1968), Wörterbuch zur altnordischen Prosaliteratur, Berlin (digital ed. Greifswald 2006), p. 102
13. ^ a b Hægstad, Marius; Torp, Alf (1909), Gamalnorsk ordbok med nynorsk tyding, Kristiania: Det norske samlaget, p. 64
14. ^ Cleasby, Richard; Vigfússon, Guðbrandur (1874), An Icelandic-English Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 119
15. ^ Möbius, Theodor (1866), Altnordisches Glossar, Leipzig: Teubner, p. 71
16. ^ Cleasby, Richard; Vigfússon, Guðbrandur (1874), An Icelandic-English Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 118
17. ^ a b c d Zoëga, Geir T. (1910), A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. eiga