[ANSTHRLD] Question on my King's College class for the heralds...

Kathleen O'Brien kobrien at texas.net
Tue Jun 8 23:03:48 PDT 2004


>Mari offered several good suggestions for structuring my Old Norse Names 
>class for King's College
>
>Starting from her suggestions, I've put together a draft outline and I 
>thought I'd see what folks think and if there are other suggestions on what 
>I should cover...


I can only say "Wow!"  This is a _fantastic_ outline.

Here are a few off-the-top-of-my-head comments.  I don't know how useful
they'll be since my brain has been eaten by overtime lately, but here they
are.


>NAMES AND NAME-GIVING IN THE VIKING AGE

>II.   Sources

>      B. Placename evidence
>         1. What type of personal name evidence is available via placenames
>         2. Caveats - uncertainness in backformation from placenames

Do you want this here or after C & D below?  More submitters, and folks in
general, tend to drift to the types of records you note in C and D.  So, I
didn't know if you wanted to mention those before placename evidence.


>      C. Medieval histories and chronicles

>      D. Sagas

>VI.   Construction of Bynames
>      A. Types of byname by frequency

>      C. Why "Dances-With-Wolves" type bynames are inappropriate

*giggle*  I love it!


>      D. Why bynames don't encapsulate a person's entire persona story and 
>life history
>
>      E. Capitalization and positions of bynames in a name phrase

Someone will ask, so here's the locations they can look it up in...  The
data for the lowercase/uppercase descriptive byname discussion was
presented for commentary in the 04/2002 LoAR cover letter and the ruling
was in the 10/2002 LoAR cover letter.


>      F. Two bynames in one name

I have the message you sent me with the data you dug up for use of two
descriptive bynames in one name.  Let me know if you'd like me to send it
to you.  The registerability ruling appears in the 05/2002 LoAR under
Acceptances, Outlands, in the discussion for the acceptance of the name
<Þórdís gjallandi eyverska>.

Also, somewhere you may want to add a point about how/when you have to
modify masculine forms of descriptive bynames to get feminine forms.


>VII.  A Brief Look at Diminuitives and Pet Names
>      A. Old Norse names often form diminuitives based on one element
>      B. Diminuitives appear to have moved into name stocks as personal 
>names over time
>
>VIII. Constructing an Old Norse Name for Registration with the SCA CoH
>      A. RFS I-VI and some issues often encountered with Old Norse Names
>         1. RFS III - COMPATIBLE NAMING STYLE AND GRAMMAR
>            a. What the Norse did in adopting foreign names

Foreign names used by Norse, right?  Not Norse names used by other cultures
- that's something different, and maybe outside the scope of your class.


>            b. Compatible with the culture of a *single time and place*.
>            c. Two name components for registration

Mixing languages.  Registerable in certain cases, but not authentic.  The
handful of examples we have of Norsemen being referenced in both Norse and
Gaelic documents is a good example.  The name may have mixed elements from
different cultures, but it was written all in one language.

Don't know if you want to put this section here or somwhere else.  


>IX.   Documenting an Old Norse Name for Registration with the SCA CoH

Do you want to note the few mistakes you've found in Geirr Bassi?  Aren't
there two or three now?

Mari





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