svefn

Forms

svefn m (strong a-stem)^[1] Early Norwegian manuscripts also write søfn, sœmn and semn (dative semnenom), and a medieval Bergen rune stick has suæfn.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Germanic *swefnaz (“sleep”),^[1][5] the Proto-Germanic noun also continued in Old English swefn (“sleep; dream”) and Old Saxon sweƀan.^[5][6] It goes back to Proto-Indo-European *swépnos (“sleep”), an extension of *swep- (“to sleep”),^[1] the source also of Latin somnus, Ancient Greek ὕπνος (húpnos), Old Irish suan and Latvian sapnis (“dream”).^[1][7]

Kroonen notes that the Germanic word shows no effect of Kluge's law, which points to stress on the root as in Sanskrit; he compares Latin sopor (“deep sleep”) as a related formation.^[5] Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon suggests that the Indo-European forms grew out of an old heteroclitic paradigm with a nominative in *-ōr and an oblique stem *supn-.^[8] De Vries reports Benveniste's view that the root is an extension of an older root seen in Greek words for sleeping.^[7]

The noun is related to the verb sofa (“to sleep”).^[7][9] Hellquist holds that the East Norse forms, Old Swedish sømn and its relatives, are not a regular outcome of the Germanic stem but a reshaping of it.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

IcePaHC dates its first record to 1150, in the Icelandic Homily Book, where it means “sleep”;^[11] Larsson lists svefn, svefni and svefns from the same manuscript among the oldest Icelandic ones.^[12] The Norwegian Homily Book (AM 619 4to, 1200–1225) has the variants svefne, søfne and semnenom.^[2] A medieval rune stick from Bergen, which Menota dates within 1100–1500, opens Svefn bannar mér “sleep forbids me”, that is, “I cannot sleep”.^[13][4]

Semantic evolution

The second sense, “dream”, stands beside “sleep” in the poetry: Lexicon Poeticum gives segja slíkan svefn “tell such a dream” in Atlamál, and phrases such as e-m berr í svefn “something appears to one in sleep”.^[14] Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon notes that the word means “dream” in many Germanic and Indo-European languages, as Latin somnium does beside somnus.^[8] Fritzner points to a passage where svefn is used just like draumr “dream”.^[15] In Icelandic the sense “dream” is now obsolete.^[8]

In the language of war, Hertzberg records svefn as the name of a small troop that formed a fellowship on campaign and fought as a unit.^[16] The word continues as Icelandic svefn, Faroese svøvnur, Norwegian Nynorsk svevn, Swedish sömn and Danish søvn.^[7][8]

Timeline

• 1150 – svefn “sleep” in the Icelandic Homily Book, by IcePaHC's dating.^[11][12]
• 1200–1225 – svefne, søfne and semnenom in the Norwegian Homily Book.^[2]
• 1200–1225 – svefni and svemni in AM 677 4to.^[17]
• 1225–1250 – the East Norwegian form sœmn in the legendary saga of Saint Olaf.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. sleep;^[18][19] ganga til svefns “to go to bed”.^[18][19]
2. a dream;^[18][19] þér er svefns “you are dreaming”.^[18][19]
3. (military) a small troop that formed a fellowship on campaign.^[16]

Word family

• svefnbúr
• svefnhús
• svefnhǫfgi
• svefnfarar
• svefnlopt
• svefnórar
• svefnþorn
• svefngaman

Descendants

• Icelandic svefn^[1]
• Faroese svøvnur^[1]
• Norwegian Nynorsk svebn^[1]
• Old Swedish syfn^[1]
• Swedish sömn^[1]
• Old Danish syfn^[1]
• Danish søvn^[1]

Related words

• sofa
• sofna

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 Menota: Medieval Nordic Text Archive, menota.org (texts by shelfmark; CC BY-SA 4.0), p. AM 619 4to
3. ^ a b Menota: Medieval Nordic Text Archive, menota.org (texts by shelfmark; CC BY-SA 4.0), p. DG 8 II
4. ^ a b Samnordisk runtextdatabas (Rundata 3.1), Uppsala universitet (inscriptions by signum), p. N A104
5. ^ a b c Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 497
6. ^ Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, p. 334
7. ^ a b c d de Vries, Jan (1977), Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 2nd ed., Leiden: Brill, p. 566
8. ^ a b c d Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon (1989), Íslensk orðsifjabók, Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans, ordsifjabok.arnastofnun.is, p. s.v. svefn
9. ^ Köbler, Gerhard, Altnordisches Wörterbuch, online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary database copy), p. s.v. svefn
10. ^ Hellquist, Elof (1922), Svensk etymologisk ordbok, Lund, p. s.v. sömn
11. ^ a b Wallenberg, Joel C.; Ingason, Anton Karl; Sigurðsson, Einar Freyr; Rögnvaldsson, Eiríkur, Icelandic Parsed Historical Corpus, version 0.9
12. ^ a b Larsson, Ludvig (1891), Ordförrådet i de älsta islänska handskrifterna, Lund: Ph. Lindstedt, p. 319
13. ^ Menota: Medieval Nordic Text Archive, menota.org (texts by shelfmark; CC BY-SA 4.0), p. A 104
14. ^ Finnur Jónsson (1931), Lexicon Poeticum antiquæ linguæ septentrionalis, 2nd ed., Copenhagen: S. L. Møller, p. 550
15. ^ Fritzner, Johan (1886–1896), Ordbog over det gamle norske Sprog, 2nd ed., Kristiania, p. s.v. svefn
16. ^ a b Hertzberg, Ebbe (1895), Glossarium, in Norges gamle Love indtil 1387, vol. 5, Christiania, p. 619
17. ^ Menota: Medieval Nordic Text Archive, menota.org (texts by shelfmark; CC BY-SA 4.0), p. AM 677 4to
18. ^ a b c d Zoëga, Geir T. (1910), A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. svefn
19. ^ a b c d Cleasby, Richard; Vigfússon, Guðbrandur (1874), An Icelandic-English Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 606