Old Norse" Vinland" means....??
Printed From: History Community ~ All Empires
Category: Regional History or Period History
Forum Name: Medieval Europe
Forum Discription: The Middle Ages: AD 500-1500
URL: http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=21338
Printed Date: 28-Apr-2024 at 16:27
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 9.56a - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: Old Norse" Vinland" means....??
Posted By: Sander
Subject: Old Norse" Vinland" means....??
Date Posted: 22-Aug-2007 at 06:41
|
I was wondering about this. The Norse were the first europeans to discover the Americas. The land was called Vinland . As known, this is often translated with wine- land or something else.
But how about this 'Vinland' is a "corruption' of and old Norse word that once indicated "found land'? After all, in most Germanic languages there cognates: Eng ( find, found etc) Dutch ( vind, vond ) German ( finde ,etc ).
Anybody familar with this?
|
Replies:
Posted By: Aelfgifu
Date Posted: 22-Aug-2007 at 11:49
It is an interesting theory. I have occasionally wondered about the name Wine-land, as Newfoundalnd is not the first place one thinks of when thinking of wine... (do grapes occur naturally in the Americas, by the way?) But then again, they named Greenland green, I suppose much is relative... 
But according to this Online dictionary: http://www.koeblergerhard.de/germanistischewoerterbuecher/altnordischeswoerterbuch/an-V.pdf - http://www.koeblergerhard.de/germanistischewoerterbuecher/altnordischeswoerterbuch/an-V.pdf (page 22)
The verb Vin can mean 'streben, wünschen, lieben, erreichen,gewinnen, siegen' aka, to aspire, wish, love, achive, win or conquer, as well as wine. So it could perhaps have alternative meanings aplenty: 'the won land', 'the beloved/loveable land', 'the wished for land', 'the achieved land', 'the conquered land'....
To find, in the other hand, seems to be 'visa', which I think is a different stem. ------------- 
Women hold their councils of war in kitchens: the knives are there, and the cups of coffee, and the towels to dry the tears. |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 22-Aug-2007 at 15:28
You are wrong. Sorry.
A little bit south of Newfoundland you can find native grapes.
Winegrapes are native to North America (not to the rest of the Americas)and have existed there since before men arrived. There are traditional wines made in the United States with Native grapes. Most of the wines of the world are made with Eurasian parrs, but at least in the U.S. there are still wines made with American parrs.
http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=21296 - http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=21296 ------------- |
Posted By: Aelfgifu
Date Posted: 22-Aug-2007 at 15:36
|
How can I possibly be wrong when I was asking, not telling? Did no one ever tell you no question is ever wrong? How about keeping your judgement down a bit, penguin. -------------
Women hold their councils of war in kitchens: the knives are there, and the cups of coffee, and the towels to dry the tears. |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 22-Aug-2007 at 18:44
Then I was wrong. I though you were telling
 Anyways, there were native americans grapewines in the path of the norses. ------------- |
Posted By: Sander
Date Posted: 22-Aug-2007 at 20:51
Nice info
 . So, no word starting with 'v- close to 'vin'' with the meaning close to 'find ', ' found ' .I just found out something, though ; 'to find' is finna. Not starting with 'v', but 'v ' and 'f 'are phonetically alike. Since names and toponyms often get corrupted in literature( after some time ), its worth to take a look at what can be done with this.
finna is 'to find' and land is 'land' . But what would be 'found land' in Old Norse then? |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 22-Aug-2007 at 20:59
That's remarkable, Sander.
It you theory is correct, then the land the Norse discovered was call by them exactly like is called now. Vinland by Norse and New Foundland today. ------------- |
Posted By: Joinville
Date Posted: 23-Aug-2007 at 02:32
|
One of the latest suggsted etymologies on "Vin" in "Vinland" refers it to "land for grazing", i.e. grassland, which supposedly tallies better with some of the environment the old Norse encountered. ------------- One must not insult the future. |
Posted By: JanusRook
Date Posted: 23-Aug-2007 at 05:37
Be careful in how you do this, it appears as if you are using English rules on word evolution for Norse vocabulary which is a very bad thing to do. I think that the name Vinland, cannot ever be known to us because even though wineberries are native to the area, why would a Norseman think of grapevines? They drank mead which was not made from grapes and grapes do not grow in the scandanavian climate. I think that it's just a footnote in one of the Saga's, I think the most important discover for the Vikings was Markland, since it did not contain the dreaded Skraelingar like Vinland did, and had many good trees to make boats, a resource the greenland colony lacked.
Um....actually New Foundland was an original concoction. When the English first arrived in America, they took a more northerly route to avoid the Spanish. Therefore the first land they saw, they named "new found land". (Okay I guess it wasn't original at all.) ------------- Economic Communist, Political Progressive, Social Conservative. Unless otherwise noted source is wiki. |
Posted By: Aelfgifu
Date Posted: 23-Aug-2007 at 14:48
|
On the wine issue: I took a peek at the map, and Newfoundland is at approx. the same (eehm... cant find the word... opposite of longitude...) 'height' as the middle of Europe. (England-Germany-Poland). Although grapes do grow in this climate (and it would be a land climate with warm summers, right? And in an age that had a milder climate than now), I do not think grapes from there would have made particularly good wine...
Scandinavians, by this time, were however well aware of the existance of wine. There was a lot of trade between Northern and Southern Europe by then, and wine was a well known commodity... (wine also tends to move with cristianisation, because it plays an important part in the service). And of course, the Scandinavians had a highway route to Byzantium... they were well known there.
But my personal gut feeling (not much to go on, but hey...) says the word Vinland as Wineland is certainly still open to re-interpretation. -------------
Women hold their councils of war in kitchens: the knives are there, and the cups of coffee, and the towels to dry the tears. |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 23-Aug-2007 at 15:14
|
grapes existed in North America. There are still wines made in the U.S. using native american varieties of grapes. This is an example of wines make with Native varieties. This comes from the "History of the Americas" section of this forum.
 Catawba wine
from Catawba This word originated in United States The tribe named the river, the river named the grape, and the grape named the wine. Or perhaps the tribe named the grape and the grape named the river. Whatever the sequence, the Indian tribe of South Carolina known as the Catawba are remembered in a grape and red wine now produced more in New York State and the Midwest than in South Carolina.
Present-day oenophiles are strangely silent on the merits of Catawba wine, but we are rescued by one of the great literary figures of the nineteenth century. In 1854, a gift from the vineyards of Nicholas Longworth of Cincinnati inspired Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to write the poem "Catawba Wine." We take this opportunity to include three of the eleven stanzas:
Catawba is still said to be the principal wine grape of Ohio. At an earlier time, back east, the Catawba were among the first Indians to become acquainted with English-speaking settlers. They maintained friendly relations with the newcomers, taking the colonists' side in the French and Indian Wars and the Revolutionary War, and have managed to keep something of their tribal identity to the present day. Their language belongs to the Siouan family because their remote ancestors came from Siouan territory in the Black Hills of the west. Catawba is still spoken by a handful of Catawba Indians at their 630-acre reservation near Rock Hill, South Carolina. From the Catawba language we also have yaupon (1709), a plant whose leaves make a bitter tea that is described as "emetic and purgative."
Concord Wine
 ------------- |
Posted By: Aelfgifu
Date Posted: 23-Aug-2007 at 15:56
|
Oh yes, but North Carolina and New York are a lot more southerly than Newfoundalnd. New York is at the same level at Italy. But are there any good wines from Canada?
Wine has been produced in Europe as far North as southern faced slopes in the middle of England. Perhaps it was possible to make wine in Newfoundland in this warn age, but I just doubt that that was the first thing these settlers remarked upon when landing there...
The Spaniards called the Americas the Land of Gold because there was so much gold there it amazed them. I think a band of explorers landing at Newfoundland too would more likely call it after a remarkeable feature rather than just any possible option. Unless wine was flowing in the rivers there, it would not be the most eyecatching thing there, would it? -------------
Women hold their councils of war in kitchens: the knives are there, and the cups of coffee, and the towels to dry the tears. |
Posted By: Seko
Date Posted: 23-Aug-2007 at 16:13
|
Looks like Viking settlement location mattered. Even in the warmer climate of one thousand years ago they never grew in Newfoundland or eastern Quebec. However, grapes do grow in the same sort of climate as butternut trees, and one of the most surprising discoveries at L'Anse aux Meadows were butternuts and pieces of carved butternut wood. Ocean currents could not have carried butternuts or driftwood from these areas to northern Newfoundland, and the nuts are too large to have been carried by birds. They must have been brought back to L'Anse aux Meadows by Vikings explorers, and those same explorers would have also encountered wild grapes. http://www.mnh.si.edu/vikings/voyage/subset/vinland/environment.html - http://www.mnh.si.edu/vikings/voyage/subset/vinland/environment.html
Twist on the word Vin.
Modern scholars are included to read 'Vinland' as grape land not only because grapes are found in southern portions of this regions but because some saga reference, like Flateyarbók, spell Vinland with a double i (Viinland), whereas pasture land in the Greenlanders' Old Norse would have been vinjaland or vinjarland. In fact, either 'wine land or pasture land' would have conveyed Vinland's bounty. Just as Erik the Red was able to recruit Icelanders to follow him to the 'green' land, Leif's naming of Markland and Vinland "for what they had to offer" would have encouraged others to explore and settle these new lands. ------------- |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 23-Aug-2007 at 16:39
|
Yeap!
Norse were experts in selling real state :)
Besides, anyone that can sale an iceberg as a "green" land is not very reliable. ------------- |
Posted By: Joinville
Date Posted: 24-Aug-2007 at 03:22
Hey! The guy who named "Iceland" was at least honest.  ------------- One must not insult the future. |
Posted By: Sander
Date Posted: 24-Aug-2007 at 03:45
Yes, interesting correspondence, especially because that settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows was there. But wether the name 'Newfoundland' is related to ' Vinland ' ( directly or indirectly) or not, we should check anyhow if Vinland could be a slightly corrupted form of 'found land 'or something. It s an additional theory to the others , ofcourse.
No, Old Norse words and grammar will be used to get that toponym.
Now, something interesting is going on. We know that finna is the Old Norse verb ( to) find but it keeps a mystery how to conjugate and combine it with land to get ' found land'. Anybody from Scandinavia, perhaps?
|
Posted By: Northman
Date Posted: 24-Aug-2007 at 20:08
|
Perhaps we will never know this for sure. However, I'm leaning towards the theory that they named it Vinland, not because they found wine (or even grapes) there, but because they found a more green and hospitable place than what they were used to, Iceland and Greenland.
I base the assumption primarily on two things.
1)
The Vikings knew about wine from their contacts in southern Europe, but I seriously doubt that they were invited to a wine-party by the natives of Lance aux Meadows. In case they found grapes, the word to use would be "Drue", not vin. Druer=grapes.
2)
Like stated by others, in old norse (and Icelandic), VIN means "oasis, patch of vegetation", http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/IcelOnline/IcelOnline.TEId-idx?type=entry&eid=VIN&q1=vin - check dictionary here.
But like first stated, I guess we will never know for sure.
------------- |
Posted By: Sander
Date Posted: 24-Aug-2007 at 23:17
|
It often said that Icelandic is ' close' to Old Norse.
The dictionary from Northman mentions that ' find' is finna, just as in Old Norse. Based on that dictionary, 'foundland' in Icelandic is fundaland ( I stand corrected here). IF it would have been similar in Old Norse , then a corruption to Vinland seems too much of a stretch.
|
Posted By: Hope
Date Posted: 28-Aug-2007 at 18:42
|
The Norse word "vin" means grassland or pasture, in Norway for instance, throughout our history we encounter names like Bjørgvin (an old name for Bergen) Hundvin and so forth.
It is also interesting to note - which Norwegian anthropologist Helge Ingstad pointed out during the excavation of the Newfoundland Norse settlement - that the area where this settlement was found, bears the name L'anse aux Meadows. However, this modern name originally derives from the French "L'anse aux meduses" meaning Jellyfish cove. So although Helge Ingstad made an important contribution to the expansion of knowledge about North American and Norse history, such name games may often lead astray.
Additionally, it should be mentioned that the connection between vin and wine comes from a saga passage where a man is said to have become drunk by eating wine grapes, which can't possibly be done. Consequently, the connection to wine and wine grapes is most likely false.
|
Posted By: Adalwolf
Date Posted: 28-Aug-2007 at 19:44
When the Norse first settled Greenland, part of it was indeed green. They were able to create large farms and sustain their population based off the agriculture and the raising of livestock. However eventually the climate became colder and it was harder to raise crops and livestock, so fishing became the main source of food. Overfishing occured and the entire colony collapsed. So, while Greenland isn't very green today, it was when it was named! ------------- Concrete is heavy; iron is hard--but the grass will prevail. Edward Abbey |
Posted By: Dawn
Date Posted: 30-Aug-2007 at 23:54
Yes there are good wines from Canada but not from the Rock. All that comes from there is cod fish, lots of cod fish -oh ya and oil workers heading to Alberta.
personnally I tend to think that the pasture explaination is more likely that wine or grapes- Newfoundland has some pretty extreme tempurature variations. It's latitude is somewhat deseptive, close to that of Paris in the south but because it is has no barriers to the Atlantic it gets more storms that anywhere else in the country making it less than ideal to grow grapes.
------------- |
Posted By: Styrbiorn
Date Posted: 04-Sep-2007 at 08:19
The verb is vinna, but you have to bend it to make sense. From the top of my head, won land would be "vunnith land". I doubt it has a connection.
It was and still is conjugated in terms of "fun-"*, so it's quite improbable there is a connection between Vinland and Foundland. There is no f to v change in Scandinavian either (not in the beginning of words at least). *I'm too tired to check up the correct old Norse conjugation, but modern Swedish is finna-fann-funnit, funnet (to find, found, have found, and found as as an adjective). This is an old verb, and the Old Norse conjugation surely followed the same pattern. "Finnland" would be grammatically senseless if you want to put the verb "to-find" in it (though it is the older spelling of Finland, which means something completely different). Newfoundland would have been Nyfundaland or literally Nyfunnithland. There were two old words that are theorized to be the origin of Vinland: vín [vee-n], which means wine (the drink, not the grapes, which is in Old Norse is druva), and vin, pasture/grazingland. There is also a masculine noun, vinr, meaning friend. |
Posted By: Sander
Date Posted: 05-Sep-2007 at 19:20
Agreed. Thanks for info
|