Talk:Sowilō (rune)

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Question regarding accuracy edit

Latest comment: 13 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Regarding the discussion of Old English, and English etymology, I have some questions regarding accuracy. The Old English rune name "sigel" is conventionally understood as meaning "seal" in Modern English and not "sun." In addition, the Old English cognate for "sowilo" is conventionally understood to be "sawel" which means "soul" and not "sun" in Modern English. Finally, I recall that there is a view that the sense of the Modern English "soul" may provide a dimension of Proto-Germanic meaning that is missing from the translation "sun." -- Bob —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.156.104.54 (talk) 15:30, 11 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

OED gives the OE for "seal" as siol-, seol-, the OE for "soul" as sawol, sawel, sawl.

As the article explains, the PIE word for "Sun" happened to be a heteroclitic -l/n- stem and early Germanic inherited both -n- and -l- forms. English "Sun" like German "Sonne" continues the -n- form. The -l- form is extinct in West Germanic, but survives in North Germanic sol-. I have added a few references. The "Sun" reading is clearly the standard one. There seem to be some alternative views, but google snippet view prevents me from citing any. If you are aware of such a suggestion, feel free to add the relevant citation. --dab (𒁳) 11:47, 6 September 2010 (UTC)Reply

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