Talk:Árvakr and Alsviðr

Names

Simek writes Arvakr and Alsviðr, Lindow writes Árvak and Alsvin, and there are many other versions of the names. What do they base this on, and what should we go for? –Holt T•C 14:25, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Simek appears to prefer a normalized ON spelling but without diacritics, while Lindow appears to use diacritics without the nominative case markers. Per WP naming conventions on ON names, Árvakr and Alsviðr should be the forms used, I reckon.--Berig (talk) 15:09, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Alright, thanks for the info, Berig – I am not too familiar with this yet. However, why is it "Alsvin" in Lindow's? In the Scandinavian languages we also call Alsviðr Allsvinn (or similar). I am just wondering what manuscript(s) that version is based on. –Holt T•C 16:54, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I think Lindow probably bases his svinn form on other case declensions but the nominative, such as the accusative, the dative or the genitive cases. He may also base it on the fact that the phoneme combination -ðr is often an alternative form for a more inter-case consistent -nr. Compare Gunnr and Guðr (a Valkyrie) and Unnr and Uðr (a daughter of Aegir). In plain English, Alsvinnr is a predictable and more consistent alternative form of Alsviðr, and minus the nominative case marker, you get Alsvin. As a case in point, if you remove the case marker from ON maðr I'd expect to get man and not ^?mað.--Berig (talk) 17:51, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Berig is absolutely correct, one wouldn't be surprised to find an alternating Alsviðr/Alsvinnr for the nominative and then Alsvinn- for the oblique cases. As it happens it looks like this name is only preserved in the nominative and that it consistently has a fricative (for the Grímnismál stanza I checked Codex Regius and AM 748; for the Gylfaginning prose I checked R, W, and T - are those horses mentioned anywhere else?). Haukur (talk) 18:06, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks to you both! I've got a lot to learn here :) –Holt T•C 19:12, 15 September 2008 (UTC)