land

Forms

land n (genitive lands, plural lǫnd) (strong a-stem)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Germanic *landą (“land”),^[1][2] a noun common to the Germanic languages: Gothic 𐌻𐌰𐌽𐌳 (land), Old English land, Old Frisian lond, Old Saxon land and Old High German lant.^[2][3] In ablaut with it stands Swedish dialectal linda (“fallow field”).^[4][5] Outside Germanic the nearest forms are Old Irish land (“open space”), Old Prussian lindan (“valley”) and Proto-Slavic *lędo (“waste ground”).^[2][6] Pokorny sets up a root Proto-Indo-European *lendʰ- (“heath, open land”) for them,^[1][7] but Lehmann notes that its cognates are found only in Celtic, Baltic and Slavic.^[8] Falk and Torp leave the Irish word as a likely relative.^[9]

The older sense is debated: de Vries, following Trier, starts from “a fenced piece of land”, pointing to place-names in “-land” beside ones in “-lundr” in Norway;^[4] Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon calls any further connection uncertain and mentions a possible link with lend (“loin”) and lundr (“grove”).^[6] It was borrowed as Finnish lannas (“shore”).^[4][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A Proto-Norse form may stand on the Eggja stone, which Rundata dates to 650–700 by Grønvik: its runes lat are normalised as land there, and Lehmann reports Krause's reading “land of warriors”.^[10][8] The first certain record in Old Norse is the Norwegian runestone N 29 of the later 11th century, raised by Finnr and Skopti þá er þeir skiptu lǫndum sínum, “when they divided their land between them”.^[11][12]

Semantic evolution

ONP's senses run from land as against sea, the shore and the bank of a river, through mainland, countryside as against town, ground and soil, to an estate, often in the plural lǫnd, and a realm or district.^[13] The two largest groups in ONP are the estate and the realm.^[13] Phrases of seafaring are common: taka land “to make land”, láta undan landi “to put out to sea”, lands eða lagar “on land or sea”;^[13][14] in the settlement of Iceland nema land meant “to take land as a settler”.^[15] In the laws the word is used of landed property, of the countryside as against a market town, and of a province with its assembly.^[16][17]

The word continues as Icelandic land, Faroese land, Norwegian Nynorsk land, Swedish land and Danish land.^[4][6]

Timeline

• 650–700 – Proto-Norse lat, read as land, on the Eggja stone, by Grønvik's dating.^[10]
• 1050–1100 – lantom “landed property” on the Norwegian runestone N 29.^[12][11]
• 1150 – lǫndum, lands and landi in the First Grammatical Treatise, by IcePaHC's dating.^[18]
• 1177 – i steinþorsstaþa land “into the land of Steinþórsstaðir”, the earliest dated record in ONP.^[13]
• 1187 – a lanðe voro “in our country” in a fragment of the Christian law of the Gulaþing.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. land as opposed to sea; the coast.^[13][19]
2. the bank of a river, bay or fjord.^[13][19]
3. the mainland, as opposed to an island.^[13]
4. the countryside, as opposed to a town.^[13][20]
5. ground, terrain, soil.^[13][20]
6. a tract of land; an island.^[13]
7. an estate, landed property, often in the plural lǫnd.^[13][19]
8. a country, realm or district.^[13][19]
9. the people of a country.^[13][16]

Word family

• landi
• lenda
• austrland
• eyland
• eyðiland
• búland
• eignarland
• fjallland

Descendants

• Icelandic land^[1]
• Faroese land^[1]
• Norn land^[1]
• Norwegian Nynorsk land^[1]
• Old Swedish land^[1]
• Swedish land^[1]
• Old Danish land^[1]
• Danish land^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 235
3. ^ a b Feist, Sigmund (1939), Vergleichendes Wörterbuch der gotischen Sprache, 3rd ed., Leiden: Brill, p. 193
4. ^ a b c d de Vries, Jan (1977), Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 2nd ed., Leiden: Brill, p. 345
5. ^ Torp, Alf (1909), Wortschatz der germanischen Spracheinheit (Fick, Vergleichendes Wörterbuch der indogermanischen Sprachen, 4th ed., vol. 3), Göttingen, p. 362
6. ^ a b c Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon (1989), Íslensk orðsifjabók, Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans, ordsifjabok.arnastofnun.is, p. s.v. land
7. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
8. ^ 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. 254
9. ^ Falk, Hjalmar; Torp, Alf (1910–1911), Norwegisch-dänisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg, p. s.v. land
10. ^ a b Samnordisk runtextdatabas (Rundata 3.1), Uppsala universitet (inscriptions by signum), p. N KJ101
11. ^ a b Samnordisk runtextdatabas (Rundata 3.1), Uppsala universitet (inscriptions by signum), p. N 29
12. ^ a b Menota: Medieval Nordic Text Archive, menota.org (texts by shelfmark; CC BY-SA 4.0), p. N 29
13. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog / A Dictionary of Old Norse Prose, Copenhagen, onp.ku.dk (CC BY-SA 4.0), p. s.v. land
14. ^ Fritzner, Johan (1886–1896), Ordbog over det gamle norske Sprog, 2nd ed., Kristiania, p. s.v. land
15. ^ Cleasby, Richard; Vigfússon, Guðbrandur (1874), An Icelandic-English Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 370
16. ^ a b A Lexicon of Medieval Nordic Law, Digital Humanities Institute, University of Sheffield, p. s.v. land
17. ^ Hertzberg, Ebbe (1895), Glossarium, in Norges gamle Love indtil 1387, vol. 5, Christiania, p. 377
18. ^ Wallenberg, Joel C.; Ingason, Anton Karl; Sigurðsson, Einar Freyr; Rögnvaldsson, Eiríkur, Icelandic Parsed Historical Corpus, version 0.9
19. ^ a b c d Zoëga, Geir T. (1910), A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. land
20. ^ a b Hægstad, Marius; Torp, Alf (1909), Gamalnorsk ordbok med nynorsk tyding, Kristiania: Det norske samlaget, p. 242