karl

Forms

karl m (strong a-stem)^[1] Viking Age runic karl on the Swedish stones Ög 81 and U 659, genitive plural kaula on Sö 166.^[2] With the assimilation of rl the word is often written kall, a form Fritzner and Hægstad–Torp give as a spelling of karl.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Germanic *karlaz (“man”),^[5][6] which de Vries takes as the base form of the Norse word.^[6] The Swedish runic form ⟨karilʀ⟩ points instead to a variant *karilaz,^[6][7] the form Wiktionary traces back through Proto-Norse *ᚲᚨᚱᛁᛚᚨᛉ (*karilaʀ).^[1] Köbler sets up both forms.^[8][9]

The same noun is Old High German karal or karl (“man, husband”); an ablaut variant with ⟨e⟩ lies behind Old English ċeorl (“free man of the lowest class”), Middle Low German kerle and Old Frisian zerl (“servant”).^[6][7][5] Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon thinks the first meaning was probably “grown or elderly man”, and with de Vries and Orel compares Ancient Greek γέρων (gérōn, “old man”), from the root Proto-Indo-European *ǵerh₂- (“to ripen, grow old”).^[7][6][5][9] De Vries points out that the two base forms, with and without ⟨i⟩, match the pair behind jarl.^[6]

Old English took the Norse word over as carl.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The oldest dated record is on the Swedish runestone Ög 81, which Rundata places late in the tenth century: Góðr karl Gulli gat fimm sonu “Gulli, a good man, had five sons”.^[10][2] There and on U 659 the word means simply “man”.^[2] In the manuscripts ONP's first citation is from the Icelandic Elucidarius of about 1175, where it stands against “woman”: at sia unga menn meþ gomlom eþa karla meþ konom “to see young men with old ones, or men with women”.^[11]

Semantic evolution

ONP orders the senses from “man (as opposed to woman)” through “fellow”, “old man” and “husband” to “free man of low rank, peasant”.^[11] The last stands in the alliterating pairs karl ok konungr and karl ok kýr “farmer and cow”, and the laws speak of sharing out old men and women like other debts (skifta kǫrlum ok kerlingum).^[11][3] The word is common in the laws, and LMNL gives it the legal senses “householder”, “husband” and “head of the family”.^[11][12] Old couples addressed each other as karl and kerling.^[3] In poetry Óðinn is the karl af bergi “old man on the rock”, and the giant Hymir is called karl.^[13][14]

It lives on as Icelandic karl, Faroese kallur, Nynorsk kall and kar, and Swedish and Danish karl.^[7] Middle English carl is from Norse, beside native cherl from Old English ceorl;^[15] English carl was first a bondsman or man of low birth, about 1300.^[16]

Timeline

• 900s – góðr karl “a good man” on the Swedish runestone Ög 81, late in the century by Rundata's dating.^[10]
• 1150 – karla, karli, karlar in the Icelandic Homily Book, by IcePaHC's dating.^[17]
• 1175 – karla meþ konom “men with women” in the Elucidarius manuscript AM 674 a 4to.^[11]
• 1200–1225 – karl, karla in the manuscripts AM 619 4to and AM 677 4to.^[18][19]
• c. 1300 – English carl “bondsman, man of low birth”, from Norse.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. a man, as opposed to a woman; a male.^[11][20]
2. a fellow, chap.^[11]
3. an old man.^[11][20][21]
4. a husband.^[11][3]
5. a free man of low rank, a peasant or common man, a churl.^[11][20][21]

Word family

• húskarl
• karlmaðr
• karlmennska
• karlkyn
• karlafólk
• karlfǫt
• búkarl
• ellikarl
• hórkarl
• ferjukarl

Descendants

• Icelandic karl^[1]
• Faroese kallur^[1]
• Norwegian Nynorsk kall^[1]
• Swedish karl^[1]
• Danish karl^[7]
• Middle English carl (English carl)^[15][22][16]

Related words

• kerling
• karla
• jarl

Usage notes

Karl is also a man's name in Norway and Iceland, recorded in Iceland from the settlement period,^[23][24] and in the Eddic poem Rígsþula Karl is the ancestor of the free farmers.^[25]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Peterson, Lena (2006), Svenskt runordsregister, 3rd rev. ed., Runrön 2, Uppsala: Institutionen för nordiska språk
3. ^ a b c d Fritzner, Johan (1886–1896), Ordbog over det gamle norske Sprog, 2nd ed., Kristiania, p. s.v. karl
4. ^ Hægstad, Marius; Torp, Alf (1909), Gamalnorsk ordbok med nynorsk tyding, Kristiania: Det norske samlaget, p. 213
5. ^ a b c Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 210
6. ^ a b c d e f g de Vries, Jan (1977), Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 2nd ed., Leiden: Brill, p. 301
7. ^ a b c d e Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon (1989), Íslensk orðsifjabók, Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans, ordsifjabok.arnastofnun.is, p. s.v. karl
8. ^ Köbler, Gerhard, Altnordisches Wörterbuch, online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary database copy), p. s.v. karl
9. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
10. ^ a b Samnordisk runtextdatabas (Rundata 3.1), Uppsala universitet (inscriptions by signum), p. Ög 81
11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog / A Dictionary of Old Norse Prose, Copenhagen, onp.ku.dk (CC BY-SA 4.0), p. s.v. karl
12. ^ A Lexicon of Medieval Nordic Law, Digital Humanities Institute, University of Sheffield, p. s.v. karl
13. ^ Finnur Jónsson (1931), Lexicon Poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis, 2nd ed., Copenhagen: S. L. Møller, p. 334
14. ^ Gering, Hugo (1903), Vollständiges Wörterbuch zu den Liedern der Edda, Halle: Waisenhaus, p. col. 547
15. ^ a b Dance, Richard; Pons-Sanz, Sara; Schorn, Brittany, eds., The Gersum Project: The Scandinavian Influence on English Vocabulary, gersum.org
16. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
17. ^ Wallenberg, Joel C.; Ingason, Anton Karl; Sigurðsson, Einar Freyr; Rögnvaldsson, Eiríkur, Icelandic Parsed Historical Corpus, version 0.9
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. ^ a b c Zoëga, Geir T. (1910), A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. karl
21. ^ a b Baetke, Walter (1965–1968), Wörterbuch zur altnordischen Prosaliteratur, Berlin (digital ed. Greifswald 2006), p. 318
22. ^ Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
23. ^ Rygh, Oluf (1901), Gamle Personnavne i norske Stedsnavne, Kristiania, p. 171
24. ^ Lind, E. H. (1905–1915), Norsk-isländska dopnamn ock fingerade namn från medeltiden, Uppsala & Leipzig, p. col. 592
25. ^ Gering, Hugo (1903), Vollständiges Wörterbuch zu den Liedern der Edda, Halle: Waisenhaus, p. col. 1317