| Title: | Old English ‘meresteall’ and Old Swedish ‘*marstall’. A Northwest Germanic Compound and Place Name Element? |
| Author: | Staffan Fridell |
| Publication: | Proceedings of the 23rd International Congress of Onomastic Sciences |
| ISBN: | 978-1-55014-521-2 |
| Editors: | Wolfgang Ahrens, Sheila Embleton, André Lapierre |
| Publisher: | York University |
| Place: | Toronto, Canada |
| Year: | 2009 |
| Abstract: | In the province of Uppland in Sweden there is a village called Marstalla, written in marstaldum, in marstal 1312. The first element has been interpreted as mar ‘marsh, lake’ or *mar ‘horse’. In the latter case the second element is explained as *stadhul ‘enclosure’ or ‘dwelling-place’, i.e., a compound *marstadhul ‘enclosure or pasture for horses’. In the same province there is a large meadow area called Marstallen. This name has been interpreted accordingly. Old English meresteall means ‘a pool of stagnant water’. It has been argued that the etymological meaning of meresteall would be ‘a place where a pool is liable to form in wet seasons’. The sense ‘standing water’ is well documented for the words evolving from Old Germanic *mari-. It is a striking fact that the two localities Marstalla and Marstallen corresponds remarkably well with the meaning of Old English meresteall. In both cases there are rivers that flood seasonally, creating large areas of standing water. I therefore conclude that the names are formed from an Old Swedish *marstall, formally and semantically identical with Old English meresteall. Most probably it is actually the same word, a Northwest Germanic *maristallaz. |
| Language: | English |
| Links: |  pdf  html |
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