LL-L "Lexicon" 2007.10.24 (06) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L  -  24 October 2007 - Volume 06
Song Contest: lowlands-l.net/contest/ (- 31 Dec. 2007)
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From: Heiko Evermann <heiko.evermann at gmx.de>
Subject: LL-L missing word

Hi everyone,

Wat is en Siedlung, op Platt so as t.B. in
1) "Bet El (hebräisch: בית אל) ist eine jüdische Siedlung im Westjordanland"
2) "The Eastern Settlement (Old Norse: Eystribygð, Icelandic: Eystribyggð)
was the larger of the two areas of Greenland settled in approximately 984 AD
by Norse farmers from Iceland"?

I have searched my dictionaries without success. I have not even been able
to
verify the existance of the root word "siedeln" in modern Low Saxon.

Any good suggestions?

Heiko Evermann

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From: R. F. Hahn < sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Lexicon

Moin, Heiko!

I have seen siedeln 'to settle' and Siedlung 'settlement' used as German
loans, but I'm not too happy with borrowing such basic words. I feels
grating to me.

Old Saxon has sedlio ~ setlio and ênsedlio ~ ênsetlio for 'settler', but no
word for 'to settle' seems to be extant. (I posit it as *sedlian ~
*setlianwhich would have developed into modern *
setteln ~ seddeln.) An exact equivalent of German Siedlung can not be
attested in Old Saxon, or in Old German for that matter (so Siedlung must be
a more recent invention, and most Northern Low Saxon dialects have lost
older -ing and tend to use nominal infinitive -(e)n instead). The same goes
for English; it did not choose pure Germanic *settling but partly French
settlement, which goes back to the mid-17th century.

As for your dilemma, I would simply paraphrase, which is the most natural
way anyway. (Coming up with word-for-word equivalents tends to lead you into
trouble.)

Dutch has woonplaats as one word for 'settlement'. LS (nee) Wahnsteed'
(Wohnste,
etc.) or (nee) Dörp seem fine to me, especially in the given contexts. Also,
I have seen jöödsche Dörpen (literally "Jewish villages") used in the
context of Palestine. You could always add nee (or nie(g)) 'new' or nee (~
nie) upstellt (lit. "newly placed/put-up") to make it clearer if there's any
danger of ambiguity. I think this would work in both contexts: Palestine and
Greenland.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
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