Bornholm in old Scandinavian / Buyan Island

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pittmirg
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Bornholm in old Scandinavian / Buyan Island

Post by pittmirg »

It appears this board has quite a few North Germanic-speaking members so I'll give this a shot.

I'm currently researching some East Slavic ethnographic stuff and I'd find very helpful if I could figure out the etymology of certain mysterious names that show up in folk songs, tales and spells. Among them is the isle of Buyan which is located 'amidst the ocean' and harbors miscellaneous sacred and magical artefacts. Of course many people have wondered if Buyan reflects some actual thisworldly place (the folk narratives being quite vague about its location).

To business: was Bornholm by any chance called something like [burjand] or [burjend] in some medieval (North) Germanic dialect? With a little mangling or contamination, such a form could end up as Slavic Buyan.

Wikipedia mentions several old names: Borgundarholm in Old Norse, Borghand~Borghund in 'ancient Danish', Burgendaland, Burgundehulm, Borghandæholm (in I dunno what) and finally the Old English Burgenda land. But with a plosive [g] (if that's how they were pronounced) they seem too distant phonetically to be borrowed as Buyan. What's up with the second vowel variation u~a~e, is it vowel reduction, umlaut or what?
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Re: Bornholm in old Scandinavian / Buyan Island

Post by GrandPiano »

pittmirg wrote:Wikipedia mentions several old names: Borgundarholm in Old Norse, Borghand~Borghund in 'ancient Danish', Burgendaland, Burgundehulm, Borghandæholm (in I dunno what) and finally the Old English Burgenda land. But with a plosive [g] (if that's how they were pronounced) they seem too distant phonetically to be borrowed as Buyan. What's up with the second vowel variation u~a~e, is it vowel reduction, umlaut or what?
I dunno about the other languages, but Old English <g> was typically pronounced [j] when adjacent to front vowels, so I think <Burgenda land> was most likely pronounced [ˈburjendɑ lɑnd].
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Re: Bornholm in old Scandinavian / Buyan Island

Post by CMunk »

I have taken some courses in Danish Place Names, so I have looked up Bornholm in "Denmarks Place Names" (http://danmarksstednavne.navneforskning.ku.dk/ :dan:).

It seems there are no forms of the name written with a <j> or <y>. The closest I could find is one 13th century form fir borghvndar holmi, where the <gh> may correspond to something more /j/-like.

There are two main theories about the origin of the first part of the name. Either it is a female (possibly godess) name Borgund with a genitive -ar ending.Or it may be a place name in itself with the same form *Borgund + -ar. This would be identical in origin to the Norwegian place of the same name (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borgund,_Sogn_og_Fjordane).
pittmirg wrote:What's up with the second vowel variation u~a~e, is it vowel reduction, umlaut or what?
Vowel reduction. It seems -und is a common Nordic place name ending, and being an ending with no stress, it is very prone to vowel reduction. The origin of Zealand ( :dan: Sjælland) is Selund or sel "seal" + -und. At some point it must have been reanalyzed as "sea(l)" + "land", and that is where the vowel change comes from.
GrandPiano wrote:I dunno about the other languages, but Old English <g> was typically pronounced [j] when adjacent to front vowels, so I think <Burgenda land> was most likely pronounced [ˈburjendɑ lɑnd].
Danish is also happy to lenite g's postvocalically and before unstressed syllables into either [j] or [w], so your suggestion for pronunciation sounds very plausible.

The main difference I see between Buyan and Burgund is the <r>. In all other forms of the name the <r> is retained - even in the modern form of Bornholm. So if Buyan is to be called a translation of Bornholm, it is not one that pays very close attention to details in pronunciation. But if you can explain it in a Slavic context, maybe.

Are you looking into other similarities between Buyan and Bornholm? Bornholm is very well known for its rocky shores and cliffs, so maybe you should compare the descriptions of the nature of the island (if there are any).
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Re: Bornholm in old Scandinavian / Buyan Island

Post by Aevas »

Old Norse <g> typically represents [ɣ] in this position.
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Re: Bornholm in old Scandinavian / Buyan Island

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GrandPiano wrote:
pittmirg wrote:Wikipedia mentions several old names: Borgundarholm in Old Norse, Borghand~Borghund in 'ancient Danish', Burgendaland, Burgundehulm, Borghandæholm (in I dunno what) and finally the Old English Burgenda land. But with a plosive [g] (if that's how they were pronounced) they seem too distant phonetically to be borrowed as Buyan. What's up with the second vowel variation u~a~e, is it vowel reduction, umlaut or what?
I dunno about the other languages, but Old English <g> was typically pronounced [j] when adjacent to front vowels, so I think <Burgenda land> was most likely pronounced [ˈburjendɑ lɑnd].
This is tempting but Old English was spoken a tad too far away, so it wouldn't be very convincing to postulate a borrowing from it.
CMunk wrote:The main difference I see between Buyan and Burgund is the <r>. In all other forms of the name the <r> is retained - even in the modern form of Bornholm. So if Buyan is to be called a translation of Bornholm, it is not one that pays very close attention to details in pronunciation. But if you can explain it in a Slavic context, maybe.
Yeah, the r is tricky too. Maybe the source /r/ was different? But I doubt that, uvularization wasn't that early afaik. Another thing to consider is contamination, quite likely in an unintelligible foreign name. There is Common Sl. *bujati, with such meanings as 'rave', 'grow (profusely)', 'hover/float' in descendants.

In principle *bujanъ could be a native formation (there are words in a few Slavic langs that come down to such a proto-form with disparate meanings incl. a kind of dance, 'bully/ruffian' ,'stubborn ox', 'mud'). But I want to check out other possibilities that come to mind in order to avoid concocting a folk etymology.

Some people believe Buyan is derived from Ruyana (Slavic name for Rügen, with its famous Slavic temples) which is even less credible phonetically.
Are you looking into other similarities between Buyan and Bornholm? Bornholm is very well known for its rocky shores and cliffs, so maybe you should compare the descriptions of the nature of the island (if there are any).
The spells etc. are schematic with little realistic description (along the lines of: amidst the ocean, upon the isle of Buyan, there lies a white fiery stone (some additional descriptive elements may occur: a sewing maiden, or an oak*). Alternatively the island is used as a generic location for fairly tales. It's very mythological, like the ash Yggdrasil. So I have little hope of pinpointing it this way, although I'll continue looking into the matter.

Very occasionally there is further geographical specification which is contradictiory and probably secondary (Caspian Sea or White Sea or the Jordan...).

Thanks for the bits about the etymology of Borgund.

*Wikipedia claims there are oaks on Bornholm. I think its inclusion is due to the tree's venerability in folklore, though.
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Re: Bornholm in old Scandinavian / Buyan Island

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pittmirg wrote:
CMunk wrote:The main difference I see between Buyan and Burgund is the <r>. In all other forms of the name the <r> is retained - even in the modern form of Bornholm. So if Buyan is to be called a translation of Bornholm, it is not one that pays very close attention to details in pronunciation. But if you can explain it in a Slavic context, maybe.
Yeah, the r is tricky too. Maybe the source /r/ was different? But I doubt that, uvularization wasn't that early afaik.
Perhaps not, but as I've pointed out before, rhotics in modern Germanic are all over the place - to the extent that it warrants suspecting, IMO, that it wasn't just all alveolar trills a thousand years back, either. Something like, say, [ɹɣ] could presumably sound a bit like /j/ to a Slavic speaker, maybe?
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Re: Bornholm in old Scandinavian / Buyan Island

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Also pleophony? Does that fit?
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Re: Bornholm in old Scandinavian / Buyan Island

Post by qwed117 »

Even though Buy an appears to be a generic fairytale land, you should look into key characteristics of it, especially in older texts, as they are "closer" to its origin.
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Re: Bornholm in old Scandinavian / Buyan Island

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Creyeditor wrote:Also pleophony? Does that fit?
/rj/ would always be treated as a syllable onset and thus be immune to pleophony or metathesis, cf. *morjǫ 'I cause the death (of), I famish' → Russian морю, Polish morzę, not **морою, **mroję.
Xonen wrote: Something like, say, [ɹɣ] could presumably sound a bit like /j/ to a Slavic speaker, maybe?
[ɣ] was a variant (or the main realization) of /g/ over large swaths of Slavic lands from early on, though. Hence I don't think it would be that alien a sound. It'd be much more convincing if there was a Scandinavian dialect with [j] in this position (Danish likes to lenite indeed but it wouldn't lenite to [j] around a/u, would it? also after a consonant).
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Re: Bornholm in old Scandinavian / Buyan Island

Post by CMunk »

pittmirg wrote:
Xonen wrote:Something like, say, [ɹɣ] could presumably sound a bit like /j/ to a Slavic speaker, maybe?
[ɣ] was a variant (or the main realization) of /g/ over large swaths of Slavic lands from early on, though. Hence I don't think it would be that alien a sound. It'd be much more convincing if there was a Scandinavian dialect with [j] in this position (Danish likes to lenite indeed but it wouldn't lenite to [j] around a/u, would it? also after a consonant).
You're right. Danish usually lenites /g/ to [w] in back vowel environments, such as borg [ˈb̥ɒːˀw] "castle". But you must remember, that Bornholmian :dk-bo: is an east Danish dialect closely related to Scanian :se-sk2:. Here, the combination /rg/ is often pronounced [rj] (sometimes with a uvular r).

I even found this orthography for Scanian: http://www.maniskor.se/isbn9789197726511cropmarked.pdf :swe:

Especially this quote is interesting:
M. Lucazin wrote:〈rg〉 uttalas [ʁɪ̯], se även §4.6.1; i NÖ ibland metates [ɪ̯ʁ].

[...]

børga [bø̀ɪ̯ːʁa] el [bø̀ɐ̯ːɪ̯a] v1 'börja'
farg [faːɪ̯] s m 'färg'
farga [faːɪ̯a] v1 'färga'
færge [faːɪ̯ɛ] s f 'färja'
[...]
sørg [søɐ̯ːɪ̯ː] s f 'sorg'
But this may very well be a later development, that wouldn't have been in effect when the Slavs wrote about Buyan.
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Re: Bornholm in old Scandinavian / Buyan Island

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Well interestingly, I found a source that suggests that Bornholm is Buyan
http://denmark-travel.com/cities/island-bornholm
"The island of Bornholm is located in the Baltic Sea, just between Sweden and Poland. In ancient legends Bornholm supposedly was called for the island Buyan."
Most other sources assign Buyan to Rügen. It could placename movement, along the lines of Mälaren and Vanern.
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Re: Bornholm in old Scandinavian / Buyan Island

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qwed117 wrote:Well interestingly, I found a source that suggests that Bornholm is Buyan
http://denmark-travel.com/cities/island-bornholm
"The island of Bornholm is located in the Baltic Sea, just between Sweden and Poland. In ancient legends Bornholm supposedly was called for the island Buyan."
Most other sources assign Buyan to Rügen. It could placename movement, along the lines of Mälaren and Vanern.
Once I came across a Russian book that did just that and that's what got me thinking about a possible connection.
CMunk wrote:Especially this quote is interesting:
Beep beep beep, we have a winner :) Thanks. Well, if this is indeed old. Also more examples wouldn't hurt to rule out a sporadic analogy or something.

I was vaguely aware that Swedish has [rj] for "rg" word-finally but had no idea if this also happens in other positions anywhere in the area.

So now that there's some promise, I guess it would be good to look for stuff about historical sound changes in Swedish dialects and the like. I dunno if I'll get far with that where I live (and not knowing the languages in question) :P Does anyone know about such works that might be worth consulting?
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Re: Bornholm in old Scandinavian / Buyan Island

Post by Aevas »

I'm not sure why you've overlooked it, but as I said before, <g> in this position (i.e. after /r/) was realized as [ɣ]. The pronunciation [rj] is a later phenomenon¹, and should not be assumed as a 13th century pronunciation. F.ex. the 13th century Scanian Codex Runicus writes /rg/ ([rɣ]) as <rh>.

¹The change [ɣ] > [j] / (r,l)_ is not universal in Swedish either; Central and East Swedish dialects change(d) it to [rg] instead. Wessén (1957) dates these changes to the Early Modern Swedish period (1526–1750).
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Re: Bornholm in old Scandinavian / Buyan Island

Post by sestir »

Elias Wessén is trustworthy, and a solution should explain the -an- part of Buyan.

How about this common germanic word examplified with its OE form?
búian http://bosworth.ff.cuni.cz/005383
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