Loanwords and Native Words in Old and Middle Icelandic: A Study in the History and Dynamics of the Icelandic Medieval Lexicon from the Twelfth Century to 1550 by Matteo Tarsi (review)

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• Loanwords and Native Words in Old and Middle Icelandic: A Study in the History and Dynamics of the Icelandic Medieval Lexicon from the Twelfth Century to 1550 by Matteo Tarsi
• Roderick McDonald

Tarsi, Matteo, Loanwords and Native Words in Old and Middle Icelandic: A Study in the History and Dynamics of the Icelandic Medieval Lexicon from the Twelfth Century to 1550 ( Studies in Viking and Medieval Scandinavia, 4), Turnhout, Brepols, 2022; hardback; pp. 332, 1 b/w, 5 colour illustrations, 36 b/w tables; R.R.P. €85.00; ISBN 9782503598154.

Matteo Tarsi delivers a thorough and well-wrought linguistic examination of word pairs in Old and Middle Icelandic: word pairs that are comprised of a native Icelandic term and a foreign-derived loanword, where both words have closely related semantics, and where they both appear in close company within the same manuscript. The explicit purpose of this study is to enhance our understanding of the dynamics of the interplay between loanwords and native words in premodern Icelandic, and the part these word pairs play in expanding linguistic creativity in a period before the modern hegemony of linguistic purism, which can be tied to the work of Bishop Guðbrandur Þórlaksson and his publication of the first Icelandic Bible in the late sixteenth century. Tarsi is interested in finding out why the linguistic evidence reveals such multiple terms for the same or similar objects. He analyses word pairs found across a representative selection of manuscripts dating from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries and across ten different generic typologies: religious texts, law texts, treatises, historiography, hagiography, and five different categories of saga (Íslendingasögur, kings' sagas, translated and indigenous chivalric sagas, and legendary sagas). Each of these different text types is dealt with in a separate chapter, except for the last three of the five saga categories, analyses of which are incorporated into one chapter, due to their typological affinity. The analyses are thorough and detailed. Representative manuscripts are selected under each text type category, where possible over a temporal range from the twelfth through to the sixteenth centuries, although in some categories this range is limited. For example, available manuscripts for religious texts range from the early twelfth to the sixteenth, whereas manuscripts for the chivalric and legendary sagas range from the thirteenth to the fifteenth, while the three selected historiographical texts are restricted to the twelfth and thirteenth. The six sagas examined in the chapter devoted to Íslendingasögur date from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and yet these are nevertheless categorised as early (first half of the thirteenth century), classical (second half of the thirteenth century), and late (the fourteenth century).

The scope of Tarsi's project is impressive, cataloguing lexical material from forty sample texts, some of which are by no means short, and has been undertaken primarily with published editions, with reference to manuscripts when necessary. A total of 267 synonymous word pairs classified across 41 different semantic fields [End Page 337] are examined. A description of all of the words and their occurrences is included in the volume, but sadly, the URL given in the text for the detailed appendices containing 'complete overviews' was not functional when tried. Each identified word pair is discussed, and the words are assessed as to both their origin and status in usage. Loanwords examined come from a wide variety of source languages, including Old and Middle English, Old Saxon/Middle Low German, Latin, Greek, Old French, Old Irish, Old Frisian, and Slavic. Tarsi explains that there are a variety of means by which a word might be borrowed, including 'necessity borrowings' and 'prestige borrowings'. For example, the loanword might arise due to trade with the Hanseatic League, with the appearance of an object for which there is no direct equivalent in the borrowing language; it might be borrowed due to the influence and administration of the Christian church; or it might be associated with the rise in chivalric and courtly culture and ideals, as represented through courtly and didactic literature. Also explained is the fact that there is a variety of reasons for the appearance of these words explicitly in pairs in the texts examined: most...