Some words

[Ingemar Nordgren]

Hi,

I dare say nothing more serious but I can conclude that in Swedish  spring is 'vår' pronounced like the Icelandic 'vor'. Autumn is 'höst' having the same sense as harwest/Herbst - to gather together the harwest was called to 'hösta' in older times. I am as well sceptical to 'asans' and think it should be something like 'sommar´as in other Gmc. languages.

Best
Ingemar  

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, Grsartor at ... wrote:
>
> Hailai,
>  
 
 "Asans" is attested for summer, but it translates Greek 
> words  that seem to have a sense of "harvest": theros and therismos. I do not 
> know  whether for the Greeks the harvest was regarded as part of summer; but 
> if so,  perhaps Wulfila would have chosen some other word if he had not been 
> influenced  by the language he was translating.
>  
> As for the other seasons, I do not know whether there was much uniformity  
> among the Germanic peoples in their names for spring and autumn, since it is 
>  said they divided the year into only two seasons, winter and summer. The 
> German  Lenz (cognate with English Lent) is said to derive from len(gi)zin, 
> from  *langat-tin, which had the meaning "having long days". Icelandic "vor" 
> looks  like Latin "ver", but whether they are related I do not know.
>  
> The word German and English share for "autumn" is Herbst/harvest. How this  
> is related to Icelandic "haust", if at all, I do not know.


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