Home THE OE. PARADISE LOST: NEORXNAWANG.
Article
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

THE OE. PARADISE LOST: NEORXNAWANG.

Published/Copyright: November 27, 2009
Become an author with De Gruyter Brill

THE OE. PARADISE LOST: NEORXNAWANO.Some years age I published1) a paper in which I triedto explain OE. neorxnaioang s consisting of (o)n + eorcna+ wang = "the glittering, holy plain". Earlier severalscholars had tried to solve the etymological problem byperfectly applied sound laws on imaginary OE. or, generally,Indo-European words with the result that there was alwaysa discrepancy between the perfect etymology s to soundhistory and the sense of OE. neorxnawang, i. e. Paradise.The sense given by those scholars was always along the "inabysso" line, more or less related to Deathland, the Under-world, and such like, while the clear-cut sense of the OE.word is Paradise, the Christian paradise. As to the meaningof this heavenly abode see my paper p. 251 ff., with referencesto encyclopedias and the Scriptures, i. e. "glittering, holyplain", "a plain strewn with 'pearls and precious stones'."That my explanation more faithfully covers the semanticaspect of neorxnawang has not been challenged.Krogmann2), however, has categorically declared thatmy etymology is "lautlich unm glich". This seems to merather exaggerated, since the difficulty with it lies in thefield of wordformation (see my paper, p. 262).3)l) Bd. 55,250. a) Anglia 56, 42.8) Krogmann, who is also responsible for a most learned and —fanciful etymology (Anglia 53,337), is referred to Bengt Hesselman,Fran Marathon t l Langheden (Stockholm 1935) pp. 104-13; on pp. 110-11Hesselman suggests an etymology of the lake-name of Erken (Uppland,Sweden) s containing the same element OE. eorcan-, OSc. *iarkn. Hesays expressly that it would bepossibleto suppose a stem-form withoutthe derivative n, thus OSw. *iark, since n is suffixal in the adj. *erknaand is a typical derivative consonant for a group of adjectives denotingcolours. Here belong Lat. canus 'grey' from *casnus, Greek ηερκνός'motley', Icel. frann 'glittering' from *frahna, OSw., MnSw. brun, etc.
Online erschienen: 2009-11-27
Erschienen im Druck: 1936

Niemeyer

Downloaded on 23.9.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/angl.1936.1936.60.374/html?srsltid=AfmBOoqmDY1R1yykBdfrGM9nhuruhz6896qyyfx7y7Gb6g-RZ431LH_n
Scroll to top button