[Ansteorra] Pronunciation was Re: "Ansteorran: of or pertaining to the Kingdom of Ansteorra"

[Richard Culver]

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From: HerrDetlef <herrdetlef at gmail.com>


[Wihtric]  I realize it is a cognate and can serve as indefinite and as a number.  However looked at in context, it seem clear to me that as it is compounded, the sole intention is to imply being "alone, without others."

I didn't locate the construction "an steorra' or the words "sterra" or
"stiorra" in the ASX. To be fair, there were several editions, and I'm sure
I haven't exhausted every edition in its entirety.

[Wihtric]  I would not expect to see "an steorra" in any corpus, unless then at that point meaning just "a star".  Stiorra is indeed listed by Bosworth (minus Toller is his 1881 edition of _A Compendious Anglo-Saxon and English Dictionary_, pg. 211, first column), as a variant of steorra and also King Alfred uses "se stiorra" in the 29th Meter of Boethius, " ...Ne huru se stiorra gestigan wile westdæl wolcna, þone wise men Ursa nemnað; ealle stiorran sigað æfter sunnan samod mid rodere under eorðan grund...", lines 12-16. (Godden, Malcolm and Susan Irvine eds., _Boethius: An Edition of the Old English Versions of Beothius's De Consolatione Philosophiae_, Vol. 1, Oxford UP, 2009.)

In "The Wanderer," I found the word "eardstapa" in the sixth line, but I
didn't see the word "anstapa". What line is that?

[Wihtric]  I boffed that.  It is in The Panther, line 15.

When it comes to stress, I have never heard anybody pronounce the name of
the kingdom as "an-STAY-o-rah", but as "an-stay-O-rah", or even
"an-sta-YO-rah". "an-STAY-o-rah" would come closer to traditional OE
pronunciation rules. Stressing the "e" rather than the "o" approximates the
diphthong sound closer than stressing the "o" does.

Who says "an-STAY-o-rah"? I want to meet whoever this is and shake his/her
hand.

[Wihtric]  I should make a small correction as I was too focused on my hypothesis, but more correctly I hear an-STEE-or-ah, though if it changes it changes to STAY in that syllable up here in Central all the time.  Still, if a compound word, the "an-" should receive equal stress to "-steor-", creating AN-STEOR-ra, nicht war?

Gódspéde!
Wihtric hlafard
Lord Wihtric,

What exactly is "this regard" that you are talking about? Old English "an"
is cognate with ModHG "ein", which doubles as the indefinite singular
article and as the number one.