Readers of Exlibris will have inferred, from recent disjointed and poorly
worded postings touching on the words Iceland, Ireland, island, and islet,
that the dog days, "noted from ancient times as the hottest and most
unwholesome time of the year" (OED), truly are upon us. I hope the
following words, written on a hot day and admittedly trivial, will at least
suggest to readers that, despite the Exlibran assertions quoted below,
there is such a thing as philological scholarship which, used competently,
is a powerful tool for studying the past.
I comment on four recent statements:
1. [P. Knobel]: "there is no entry ["]Ireland" in the complete OED ‹which
is amazing but understandable given the treatment of the Irish by the
English, though Irish gets in . . ."
2. [P. Knobel]: "See the entry for "island" in the OED (the com[p]lete
edition) defined as "a piece of land com[p]letely surrounded by water". It
clearly links this word to the modern "Iceland" through old Norse. I am not
convinced that "Ireland" IN A PRELITERATE AGE could not be the same word."
3. [P. Henningsen]: "the etymological work in the OED is largely based upon
nineteenth-century scholarship or folk speculation that has been
superseded. The OED may be the greatest dictionary ever compiled, but it is
still riven with inaccuracies … Merriam-Webster gives a convincing
etymology for "island" that admits no debt to the ON 'is'."
4. [P. Henningsen]: ". . . Thus, surprisingly, "isle" and "island" are
etymologically distinct. Anyway, neither has anything to do with the ON
"is," pace OED."
Both writers have gotten themselves confused in a way difficult to
understand if they actually consulted OED. Guenter Kroll has already
clarified most of this, by the way; this is only written as reinforcement.
In summary: (1) OED derives Iceland from Old Norse Island, the elements
being iss [=ice] + land. (2) It derives island, originally spelt iland,
from Old Norse / Old Frisian eyland / eiland, the elements being ey [=isle]
+ land. (3) It derives isle, originally spelt ile, from Old French ile. Re
the latter word, OED notes: "In 15th century French often spelt isle (a
Latinized artificial spelling of the Renascence)"; and OED further
indicates that both current spellings, isle and island, have the intrusive
"s" under the same influence.
Knobel claims that OED "clearly links" the word "island" to the word
"Iceland". Henningsen's "pace OED" similarly suggests that he thinks OED
relates Old Norse "is(s)" [=ice] to the words isle and island; or if that
was not his belief, the meaning of "pace OED" becomes mysterious. Neither
writer's statement is correct. Anyone can verify this simply by reading
OED's etymological remarks on the words Iceland, island, and isle. As for
Knobel's idea that somehow the first elements of Ireland and Iceland are
related -- tell us another. The line of reasoning seems to be: "if I think
it's a possibility, then it becomes a possibility." This will not lead to
success in any line of endeavor.
Two further points made by Knobel and Henningsen deserve a closer look.
First: Knobel finds it is "amazing" that OED has no entry for Ireland, but
sees this as "understandable given the treatment of the Irish by the
English." Readers may indeed sense an apparent paradox in OED: why does
Iceland have an entry, but not Ireland? Could this be anti-Irish prejudice
at work? A few minutes of browsing in OED gives a useful context. OED has,
for instance, entries for Iceland (and Icelandic), Russia (and Russian).
But it does not have entries for France, Germany, Ireland, or Italy, though
it does have Irish, French, German, and Italian. If the explanation is not
simply anti-Irish, but an even more wide-ranging prejudice, we might at
least wonder: so why did OED even bother to allow Iceland in?
There is a better explanation, which is indicated, if not with total
clarity, in James Murray's OED preface, where he draws a distinction
between dictionaries and encyclopaedias. The former explains words, the
latter things. He writes: "We do not look in a Cyclopaedia for … anon,
perhaps, or buy; we do not expect, in an English Dictionary, … mention of
Abyssinia . . ." We might, of course, reply to Murray that names of
countries and cities are indeed words, with their particular histories.
Thus, in principle, an English dictionary would not be wrong if it included
and explained how English has or had such vernacular words as Leghorn for
Livorno, and Spires for Speyer; and an Italian dictionary could trace the
history of its word Parigi for Paris; and a German dictionary its words
Luettich for Liege and Venedig for Venezia; and so on. Dictionaries could,
but generally they don't. The treatment of place names falls outside the
scope of most dictionaries in most languages. Knobel need not fear a
special English prejudice against the Irish.
Why then does OED have entries for Iceland and Russia? The entries
themselves pretty much explain this: both words are used attributively in
English. Thus, on the one hand, we have "French kiss" and "French letter",
not "France kiss" and "France letter". Therefore, France does not get an
OED entry. On the other hand, we have or had "Iceland spar" and "Russia
leather" rather than "Icelandic spar", "Russian leather." It is on this
basis that Iceland and Russia have made their way into the OED. The
distinction is a fine one, and I do not in fact understand why, on this
basis, OED created an entry for England.
Second: Henningsen asserts that OED's etymologies are "largely based upon
nineteenth-century scholarship or folk speculation that has been
superseded," and recommends, for the words island and isle, the most recent
Merriam-Webster dictionary. This is a misplaced warning. By definition, the
19th-century parts of OED are based on 19th-century scholarship. (The words
island and isle are right on the cusp: their fascicle is late in vol. 5,
with publication date 1901.) But 19th-century does not mean dark ages: this
was an age of groundbreaking philological scholarship in many countries and
many languages. Among the various European dictionary projects of that age
the OED, under such exceptional scholars as James Murray, Henry Bradley,
and shortly to arrive, W. A. Craigie, was the great leader. If Henningsen
compares carefully the etymological remarks for island and isle in OED
(1901) and Merriam-Webster (1981) he will see that Merriam-Webster agrees
with OED, because it is ultimately derived from it.
The second assertion, that some of OED's etymologies are "folk
speculation", is unsupported. If there are examples of this in OED, please
identify at least one. I can in principle imagine that Murray and Bradley
may occasionally have cited, as curiosities, folk etymologies and pointed
out their deficiencies. I cannot imagine their placing any faith in them.
However, we must recall that it is not impossible for a "folk" or popular
etymology to be correct. Thus, re Iceland, the 12th century historian Saxo
Grammaticus could not avoid knowing that Iceland/Island meant "land of
ice." In the preface to his Gesta Danorum, which many readers will know as
a Hamlet-story source, he refers to Iceland as the "insula quae Glacialis
dicitur" -- the island that is called Icy.
Finally: because of their general exclusion from language dictionaries, it
is surprisingly difficult to find histories of place names within
particular languages. There are, nonetheless, a great many scattered
sources. Readers may like to be reminded of one recent guidebook which is
filled with information and references on both place names and personal
names: Ernst Eichler, ed.: Namenforschung (Berlin & New York: de Gruyter,
1995-1996, 3 v.). It contains, for example, a chapter on name studies in
Iceland. I would be interested to hear if readers know of a good historical
dictionary of place names in English. This is / would be a different thing
from a dictionary of English (i.e., in England) place-names, for which many
readers will know, for example, Eilert Ekwall's Concise Oxford Dictionary
of English Place-Names. This perhaps hypothetical reference work would
include the examples given above, Leghorn and Spires; and also, of course,
Paris, where the spelling does not change, but the pronunciation does. (OED
has an entry for Paris because of such attributive uses as Paris green, and
Paris ball as obs. for tennis ball; but though it gives the native English
pronunciation for this place, there is no phonological explanation.
Similarly, it has an entry for Leghorn because of chickens and hats, etc.,
but without tracing the history by which Livorno became, for English
speakers, Leghorn.)
I have one such wide-ranging work for place names in German: Wilhelm
Sturmfels & Heinz Bischof, Unsere Ortsnamen im ABC erklaert (1961). It
explicitly covers both German and "foreign" place-names, and is very useful
indeed. If there is a more comprehensive German dictionary-form study on
this topic, or if readers know other similar dictionaries in other European
languages, I would be grateful to hear of them. For a brief guide on this
topic, German speakers will surely enjoy the engaging book in the Sammlung
Goeschen series by Rudolf Kleinpaul (1845-1918), Die Ortsnamen im
Deutschen. Kleinpaul carried his considerable learning very lightly. Among
his many other writings (including 2 other works on names in the Goeschen
series) was a monograph on tipping -- Trinkgeld -- in Italy (1898), and,
appropriate to this season, Wie heiszt der Hund? -- What do You Call Your
Dog? (1899).
Paul Needham / Scheide Librarian / Scheide Library /Princeton University
Library / One Washington Road / Princeton, N.J 08544-2098 / email:
needham@princeton.edu TEL: 609-258-3241 FAX: 609-258-2324