# Icelandic: með boga og örvar



## Alxmrphi

> Samson er 13 ára strákur sem finnst stærðfræði skemmtileg. Hann er slyngur með boga og örvar og hefur hæft rottur, mýs, fugla og slöngu. Hann fer í sunnudagaskóla og ætlar að kvænast þegar hann verður stór.


I'm having a bit of trouble....

Samson is a 13 year old boy who likes maths. He is clever with arches / arcs and arrows(?) and has hæft rats, mice, birds and snakes. He goes to Sunday school and is going to get married when he is older.

The *með boga og örvar* is confusing me, I don't think it's right but I don't know where to find an alternative. 
Also, *hæft* is from *hæfa* isn't it? Which means to *hit / fit / suit*, none of these make sense when referenced to animals so I think there is another meaning.

If anyone can help me I'd appreciate it
Thanks.
Alex


----------



## hanne

[insert standard disclaimer here]



Alxmrphi said:


> The *með boga og örvar* is confusing me, I don't think it's right but I don't know where to find an alternative.


"Bow and arrows" would have been my guess as well . (what's the difference between bow and arch?)



Alxmrphi said:


> Also, *hæft* is from *hæfa* isn't it? Which means to *hit / fit / suit*, none of these make sense when referenced to animals so I think there is another meaning.


If we're dealing with bow and arrows, then I'd say *hit* makes pretty good sense referring to animals


----------



## Alxmrphi

Ahhhhhh now you put it like that it does make sense.. (_it took me a few seconds to understand the [standard disclaimer] haha!_)
Ok *bow and arrows* sort of makes sense, an 'arch' is a description of something like a bridge, or a big part of an edifice, something like that, and it makes sense with hæfa, the animals, through it seems a little strange.

I think my instinct to translate slyngur with 'clever' rather than 'good' affected the way I saw the '_með boga og örvar_' part.
The 'arch' thing makes sense now, but in English it's always 'bow and arrow' - any other collocation would sound odd in my opinion.


----------



## BatMaster

Alxmrphi said:


> Ok *bow and arrows* sort of makes sense, an 'arch' is a description of something like a bridge, or a big part of an edifice, something like that, and it makes sense with hæfa, the animals, through it seems a little strange.



I think, at least among Western European languages, English is unusual in having separate words for 'bow' (weapon) and 'arch'.

For example:
French, Portuguese, and Italian all use 'arc(o)' to refer to both concepts as does  German with 'Bogen'.


----------



## Alxmrphi

Hmm I never thought about that!
You're right though, in Italian it's *arco e frecce*. So maybe 'arch' isn't actually wholly that out of place, thanks for pointing that out.

It's easier to corroborate a guess with Romance languages on Google, but with Icelandic, you'd have to search for all the possibilities of the declensions to properly see if something works, (it seems to here).

Thanks guys for the input.


----------



## jpallan

Alxmrphi said:


> maybe 'arch' isn't actually wholly that out of place



I find this interesting because the sport/skill in English is called archery — where did we get "bow" from, I wonder?


----------



## hanne

Scandinavian? The vikings?


----------



## Alxmrphi

Yeah I think hanne is right, and I've just fully understood the comment, we have a "bow and arrow" for the sport 'archery' - and in the Romance languages the word for bow looks like 'arch'.

In comparative linguistics (the little I know about it) I've seen loads of examples of the core words being Germanic (either Scandinavian or Old English) and the name of it (the fancy one) being linked to Romance languages (I bet through French's influence on English)... 

I am pretty sure 'bow' is Germanic though, I have just done a search and found that 'boga' means 'bow' and is from Old English (though I bet Scandinavian had the same word origin).
And an etymological search on 'archery' links it to Old French (_archerie_) so it looks like my assumption was right.
Now the only thing I want to know is, what was it called before we assumed the word 'archery' into English, I'm not really sure how to find that out.........


----------



## BatMaster

Alxmrphi said:


> Now the only thing I want to know is, what was it called before we assumed the word 'archery' into English, I'm not really sure how to find that out.........



Access to a good Old English dictionary would probably clarify it, but based on my good knowledge of German and sketchy knowledge of other Germanic languages, it was probably a compound made up of Old English words for the noun 'bow' and the verb 'to fire/shoot'.

In German, archery is Bogenschießen, literally bow-shooting.  (Schießen is a verb meaning to fire/shoot.)  I think a similar construction is used in Dutch and Danish.  I'm not sure about Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish, Faroese, etc... but I wouldn't be surprised if they are all similar.

Like you mentioned, Alx, English has a rich vocabulary where two words from different sources (e.g. Anglo-saxon or Norman French) that meant the same thing were both assimilated into the language.  Over time different situations arose - either one word killed the other off or both stayed alive, either as synonyms or in the case of bow/arch divided what was originally one lexical concept into two.


----------



## Tazzler

Alxmrphi said:


> I'm having a bit of trouble....
> 
> Samson is a 13 year old boy who likes maths. He is clever with arches / arcs and arrows(?) and has hæft rats, mice, birds and snakes. He goes to Sunday school and is going to get married when he is older.


 
Wouldn't that be _a snake_?


----------



## Alxmrphi

Tazzler said:


> Wouldn't that be _a snake_?



The word 'snake' in Icelandic is 'slanga' (neuter)
Neuter words like this form the plural (in the nominative and accusative) by changing the '-a' to a '-u' and doing it's "-u umlaut rule" (changing 'a's to 'ö's)

Eitt slanga - One snake
Tvö slöngu - Two snakes
Mörg slöngu - Many snakes


----------

