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Re: Hird - was Re: concerning installation of hurd;request from Norway


From: Niels Möller
Subject: Re: Hird - was Re: concerning installation of hurd;request from Norway
Date: 15 Oct 2002 08:43:54 +0200
User-agent: Gnus/5.09 (Gnus v5.9.0) Emacs/21.2

tb@becket.net (Thomas Bushnell, BSG) writes:

> I would expect (without proof) that the Norweigian "hird" does have
> some etymological connection with English "herd".

The word exists in Swedish to, although probably less common than in
Norwegian (the Quisling association was also new to me, but Swedish
world war II history is also quite different from the Norwegian).

My popular ethymological handbook (Våra Ord, Norstedts) says that
"hird" means body guard. It comes from old English "hir[e]d", via
Icelandic literature and old Swedish "hirþ", where it meant body guard
or other court folks. Also the same word as German "Heirat", wedding.

So it's probably unrelated to "herd". On the one hand we have a small
group of quiet proud men, on the other a large group of four-foot
animals ;-)

/Niels




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