kartr

Forms

kartr m (genitive karts, plural kartar)^[1][2] Spellings in the record: kart, cart, karta, karter and kartur.^[3][4]

Etymology

Its origin is disputed. Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon thinks it perhaps borrowed from Old English cræt (“cart, chariot”), a word he derives from a Germanic stem *kret- “to plait, twist”, related to Old English cradol (“cradle”) and Middle Low German krett (“wagon basket”), and so to karmr and to Proto-Indo-European *ger- (“to bend, turn, plait”).^[5] Fischer also takes it through Old English, but from Old Irish cret (“body of a cart”), following Bugge.^[6] Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon doubts that either the Norse or the Old English word comes from Irish.^[5]

De Vries treats it as a native word: a form of the root *ger- “to turn, wind” with a dental suffix, beside the Old English and Middle Low German words and Old High German kratto (“basket”), with Baltic words for “ring”, and with the sense “wagon” grown out of the plaited wagon body.^[7][5] Torp sets it, with a query, beside the Old English word for “cradle” and the Old High German word for “basket”,^[8] and Köbler lists it under Proto-Germanic *kradulaz (“cradle”).^[9][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

It is first recorded in the Norse Alexanders saga, in AM 519 a 4to, which Menota dates 1270–1290 and ONP 1280: er nv settr í einn hervelegan cart. oc hevir eige valld a sialvum ser “is now put in a wretched cart and has no power over himself”, of a king who had lately ridden in a gilded chariot.^[4][3][2] Fischer also counts it among the loanwords of the Eddic poem Rígsþula, where Cleasby and Vigfússon cite karta at görva “to make carts”.^[11][12]

Semantic evolution

Fritzner glosses it as a working wagon for loads, and ONP as a two-wheeled cart.^[2][3] It stayed a rare word, with four dated citations in ONP, from romances, a charter and a historical work.^[3] It is obsolete in Icelandic,^[5] and Nynorsk has kart.^[7] Etymonline takes English cart (c. 1200) from Old Norse or another Scandinavian source, while Björkman, as de Vries reports, thought a Norse origin of the Middle English word very uncertain.^[13][7]

Timeline

• 1270–1290 – kart in the Alexanders saga of AM 519 a 4to.^[4][3]
• 1355 – kartr in a second manuscript of the same saga.^[3]
• 1462 – the latest dated record in ONP.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. a cart, a two-wheeled wagon for work and loads.^[1][3][2]

Descendants

• Icelandic kartur^[5]

Related words

• karmr

References

1. ^ a b Zoëga, Geir T. (1910), A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. kartr
2. ^ a b c d Fritzner, Johan (1886–1896), Ordbog over det gamle norske Sprog, 2nd ed., Kristiania, p. s.v. kartr
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog / A Dictionary of Old Norse Prose, Copenhagen, onp.ku.dk (CC BY-SA 4.0), p. s.v. kartr
4. ^ a b c Menota: Medieval Nordic Text Archive, menota.org (texts by shelfmark; CC BY-SA 4.0), p. AM 519 a 4to
5. ^ a b c d e Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon (1989), Íslensk orðsifjabók, Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans, ordsifjabok.arnastofnun.is, p. s.v. kartur
6. ^ Fischer, Frank (1909), Die Lehnwörter des Altwestnordischen, Palaestra 85, Berlin, p. 19
7. ^ a b c de Vries, Jan (1977), Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 2nd ed., Leiden: Brill, p. 302
8. ^ Torp, Alf (1909), Wortschatz der germanischen Spracheinheit (Fick, Vergleichendes Wörterbuch der indogermanischen Sprachen, 4th ed., vol. 3), Göttingen, p. 51
9. ^ Köbler, Gerhard, Altnordisches Wörterbuch, online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary database copy), p. s.v. kartr
10. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
11. ^ Fischer, Frank (1909), Die Lehnwörter des Altwestnordischen, Palaestra 85, Berlin, p. 183
12. ^ Cleasby, Richard; Vigfússon, Guðbrandur (1874), An Icelandic-English Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 332
13. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com