fjall

Forms

fjall n (genitive fjalls, plural fjǫll) (strong a-stem)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Germanic *fel(e)sa- (“mountain”), as Kroonen reconstructs it from the Norse forms, with the /s/ assimilated to the /l/ and the /e/ broken to /ja/.^[2] Köbler, de Vries, Torp and Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon write the Germanic form *felza-.^(Köbler AN|s.v. fjall (1))^[3][4][5] Noreen counts it among the doublets with and without breaking, beside fell (“mountain”), and among the rarer cases of assimilation to /ll/.^[6][7]

The West Germanic words for rock are related: Old Saxon felis, Old High German felis and Middle High German vels, whence German Fels.^[2] Kroonen notes that they may also go back to *falisaz, the form supported by Old French falise and French falaise (“cliff”), a Frankish loan;^[2][1] Wiktionary takes the Norse word from that form.^[2][1]

Outside Germanic Kroonen compares Old Irish ail (“boulder, rock”) and Ancient Greek πέλλα (pélla, “stone”), a word in Hesychius;^[2] de Vries, Torp and Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon add Sanskrit पाषाण (pāṣāṇa, “stone”).^[3][4][5] The root is uncertain: Torp and Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon think of Proto-Indo-European *(s)pel- (“to split”), so that the first sense would have been “stone, flat rock” rather than “height”,^[4][5] Wiktionary gives *pels-,^[1] and de Vries reports Dauzat's view that it is a pre-Indo-European word for mountain.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest dated record is in the text ONP cites as Eluc674, dated 1175, in a comparison of height: .xv. foþmom hęra an fioll “fifteen fathoms higher than the mountains”.^[8] The Icelandic Homily Book, dated 1200 in ONP, uses it of the Last Judgement: þa muno breɴa fioll en hǽsto “then the highest mountains will burn”.^[8]

Semantic evolution

ONP's main sense is “mountain”, also used collectively for mountain country, and it has a single record of the sense “foundation”.^[8] The plural is used of a mountain with several peaks, as in the name Eyjafjǫll.^[9] Alliterating pairs are frequent: fjall ok fjara “mountain and shore”, fjǫll ok firnindi “mountains and wastes”, fjall eða fjǫrðr.^[8][9] Legal works use it about twice as often as ONP's genre average would lead one to expect,^[8] for instance in the formula frá fjalli ok til fjǫru “from the mountain to the shore”.^[10] In skaldic kennings it stands for the arms on which hawks sit, hauka fjǫll, and for the head, skarar fjall.^[11][12][13]

It continues as Icelandic fjall, Faroese fjall, Norwegian Nynorsk fjell, Swedish fjäll and Danish fjeld.^[5] English fell “hill” is a loan from Norse,^[14][15] recorded in Middle English as fell.^[16] In Manx and Scottish Gaelic it lives on in place-names of Norse origin.^[3][17]

Timeline

• 1175 – fioll “mountains” in Eluc674.^[8]
• 1200 – fioll en hǽsto “the highest mountains” in the Icelandic Homily Book, by ONP's dating.^[8]
• 1200–1225 – fiall, fialle and fioll in AM 619 4to, and fjall and fjǫllum in AM 677 4to.^[18][19]

Meanings

Noun

1. a mountain, fell; collectively, mountain country, highland.^[8][20][21]
2. a foundation (a single record).^[8]

Word family

• fjǫllóttr
• háfjall
• hamrafjall
• stórfjall
• eyðifjall
• skýfjall
• fjallshlíð
• fjallaendi
• fjallaklofi

Descendants

• Danish fjeld^[1]
• Faroese fjall^[1]
• Icelandic fjall^[1]
• Norwegian Nynorsk fjell^[1]
• Old Swedish fiæl^[1]
• Swedish fjäll^[1]
• Norwegian Bokmål fjell^[1]
• Norn *fiel^[1]
• Middle English fell (→ English fell)^[1]

Related words

• fell

Usage notes

A rare second word fjall “skin, hide”, related to fell (“skin”) and Latin pellis, occurs mainly in compounds such as berfjall (“bearskin”).^[5][9][22]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 134
3. ^ a b c d de Vries, Jan (1977), Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 2nd ed., Leiden: Brill, p. 123
4. ^ a b c Torp, Alf (1909), Wortschatz der germanischen Spracheinheit (Fick, Vergleichendes Wörterbuch der indogermanischen Sprachen, 4th ed., vol. 3), Göttingen, p. 237
5. ^ a b c d e Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon (1989), Íslensk orðsifjabók, Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans, ordsifjabok.arnastofnun.is, p. s.v. fjall
6. ^ Noreen, Adolf (1923), Altisländische und altnorwegische Grammatik, 4th ed., Halle, p. § 91
7. ^ Noreen, Adolf (1923), Altisländische und altnorwegische Grammatik, 4th ed., Halle, p. § 277
8. ^ 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. fjall
9. ^ a b c Cleasby, Richard; Vigfússon, Guðbrandur (1874), An Icelandic-English Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 156
10. ^ Hertzberg, Ebbe (1895), Glossarium, in Norges gamle Love indtil 1387, vol. 5, Christiania, p. 192
11. ^ Sveinbjörn Egilsson (1860), Lexicon poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis, Hafniæ: Societas regia antiquariorum septentrionalium, p. 174
12. ^ Meissner, Rudolf (1921), Die Kenningar der Skalden, Bonn & Leipzig, p. 127
13. ^ Meissner, Rudolf (1921), Die Kenningar der Skalden, Bonn & Leipzig, p. 141
14. ^ Falk, Hjalmar; Torp, Alf (1910–1911), Norwegisch-dänisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg, p. s.v. fjeld
15. ^ Hellquist, Elof (1922), Svensk etymologisk ordbok, Lund, p. s.v. fjäll
16. ^ Björkman, Erik (1900–1902), Scandinavian Loan-Words in Middle English, 2 vols, Halle: Niemeyer (Studien zur englischen Philologie 7, 11), p. 170
17. ^ Cox, Richard A. V. (2024–2026), Old Norse Loan-Words in Scottish Gaelic, Clann Tuirc, richardavcox.scot/ONlwSG, p. s.v. -bhal
18. ^ Menota: Medieval Nordic Text Archive, menota.org (texts by shelfmark; CC BY-SA 4.0), p. AM 619 4to
19. ^ Menota: Medieval Nordic Text Archive, menota.org (texts by shelfmark; CC BY-SA 4.0), p. AM 677 4to
20. ^ Zoëga, Geir T. (1910), A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. fjall
21. ^ Baetke, Walter (1965–1968), Wörterbuch zur altnordischen Prosaliteratur, Berlin (digital ed. Greifswald 2006), p. 140
22. ^ Falk, Hjalmar (1919), Altwestnordische Kleiderkunde, Kristiania, p. 73