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Memento-Epstein t1_j3blten wrote

Reply to comment by Very-Fishy in Archaeologists Unearth Viking Hall in Denmark by tangledwebgenealogy

I am no etymologist, but I will throw up a couple loose threads that might be relevant.

"Hov" in Norwegian, is a word used in the viking age for a place of worship. Torshov = Place for worship of Thor. Gudehov = Place for worship of the gods, etc.

There is also something called Hovefestivalen in modern times. The festival in Hove, a popular music festival in Norway.

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HuudaHarkiten t1_j3boyc0 wrote

I'll throw some more random word stuffs here

"a wolf" in Finnish is "susi", but "to howl" is called "ulvoa."

"Hovi" means "(a kings) court", these days a bunch of restaurants/etc are calling themselfs "_____hovi", for example theres a gas station called Pirkanhovi, the court of Pirkka lol.

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roffadude t1_j3g2am8 wrote

Finnish is not related to Danish so that’s really unlikely. Finnish is related to only one European language.

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HuudaHarkiten t1_j3g9qjv wrote

> Finnish is not related to Danish so that’s really unlikely.

I wasnt implying it was. We have a lot of loan words.

> Finnish is related to only one European language.

Two, actually. Estonian is related closely, Hungarian not that closely.

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Memento-Epstein t1_j3lvu45 wrote

Isn't Saami also distantly related? By related I mean all languages in the Finno-ugiric language group, which I believe includes the aforementioned languages, plus probably some more I don't know.

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HuudaHarkiten t1_j3lwijn wrote

Oh deary me, how did that drop out from my head. You are correct, Sámi is related but more distantly.

Estonian, Finnish and Hungarian are Finno-Ugric languages while Sámi is a Finno-permic language. Finno-permic is a split from Finno-Ugric. There are more languages in the Finno-permic group as well.

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Memento-Epstein t1_j3lvq5q wrote

I get your point, but there was much interaction between the swedish vikings and the Finnish peoples. Besides, loan words through trade is common, as well as political terms if an area has been colonized (and I believe there were some viking settlements in Finland). Consider only of how much of the English language comes from norse words, latin or french.

I can definitely imagine that a hov for worship becomes an important gathering place for settlers or colonialists, and as such, that big men or kings would base their power from there, perhaps leading to some development of the word into being related to courts. I don't know. My knowledge of how etymology works comes from youtube channels and amateur word studies in Biblical Hebrew and Greek. :P

But the contact between vikings and baltic lands, Finland etc. is often overlooked.

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Very-Fishy t1_j3c3cg2 wrote

That is indeed one of the possibilities:

"Hove. Old Swedish form of Hófi, name of uncertain meaning. Theories include:

  1. Old Norse hof = 'temple'

  2. Short form of HOLM-combinations where the last element starts with a V"

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MoodProsessor t1_j3dn7eg wrote

Hove Festival went to sleep mid 2010s, but was massive for a while. Beautiful location on an island, with large, round boulders scattered on the oceanfront, formed during the last ice age. It has gained status as a national park now.

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Memento-Epstein t1_j3lxips wrote

Nice! I assume all sorts of revelries have happened there over the years. The gods would be proud. :P

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CheeseandChili t1_j3elrvv wrote

Funny, 'hof' is also the dutch word for court (like the kings court) and garden (typically luxurious ornamental gardens). And plural its 'hoven'. Hoven is quite common in dutch last names, like Van Vollenhoven.

Probably one of the many words we learned from our viking friends that came to visit the Netherlands so often.

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Memento-Epstein t1_j3lx1cs wrote

Yup. "Have" (two syllables; ha-ve) is a fancy word for garden in Norway. Today however, everyone other than the elderly in the fancy parts of Oslo says "hage".

I believe the Norwegian have and the dutch hof is related.

Frisia especially (maybe the rest of the country as well?) were originally populated by pre-viking age scandinavians (germanics? norsemen? I don't know what the distinctions are sadly), who clearly brought their language with them, in the same sense that even the saxons that populated England in the viking age could with relative ease understand norse and vice versa. Which I assume was useful in later trade and settlements.

So, my logic goes that if germanic spread from saxony to England, it is no far stretch to assume that norse words also took the relative short jump down the coast to the trading areas of Frisia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfGRuWTV_rg&t=

I recently watched this series, and Frisia was heavily settled by scandinavic peoples at a certain point.

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Kiwsi t1_j3cthws wrote

Nowadays icelandic is Hof.

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