KenningA kenning (Icelandic: ) is a figure of speech, a figuratively phrased compound term that is used in place of a simple single-word noun. For instance, the Old English kenning 'whale's road' (hron rade) means 'sea', as does swanrād ('swan's road'). A kenning has two parts: a base-word (also known as a head-word) and a determinant. So in whale's road, road is the base-word, and whale's is the determinant.Old EnglishOld English (Englisc or Ænglisc, pronounced or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest attested form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th century, and the first Old English literature dates from the mid-7th century.
Icelandic languageIcelandic or Icelandish ( , ; endonym: íslenska, pronounced, íslensk tunga) is a North Germanic language from the Indo-European language family spoken by about 390,000 people, the vast majority of whom live in Iceland, where it is the national language. Since it is a West Scandinavian language, it is most closely related to Faroese, western Norwegian dialects, and the extinct languageNorn.
Germanic languagesBranch of the Indo-European language familyThe Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-Europeanlanguage family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, Northern America, Oceania, and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, English, is also the world's most widely spoken language with an estimated 2 billion speakers.
List of names of OdinOdin (Old Norse: Óðinn) is a widely revered god in Norse mythology and Germanic paganism. The god is referred to by numerous names and kenningar, particularly in the Old Norse record. ListIn Old English, Odin was known as Wōden; in Old Saxon, as Wōdan; and in Old High German, as Wuotan or Wōtan.Rudolf MeissnerGeorg Paul Rudolf Meissner or Meißner or Meiszner (14 September 1863 – 14 July 1941) was a German philologist who specialized in Germanic studies.
Danish languageDanish (endonym: danskpronounced, dansk sprog) is a North Germanic language from the Indo-European language family spoken by about 5.5 million people, principally in and around Denmark. Communities of Danish speakers are also found in Greenland, the Faroe Islands, Iceland and the northern German region of Southern Schleswig, where it has minority language status.
CircumlocutionCircumlocution (also called circumduction, circumvolution, periphrasis, kenning, or ambage) is the use of an unnecessarily large number of words to express an idea. It is sometimes necessary in communication (for example, to work around lexical gaps that might otherwise lead to untranslatability), but it can also be undesirable (when an uncommon or easily misunderstood figure of speech is used).OdinWidely revered deity in Germanic mythologyOdin, in his guise as a wanderer, as imagined by Georg von Rosen (1886)Odin (; from Old Norse: Óðinn) is a widely revered god in Norse mythology and Germanic paganism. Most surviving information on Odin comes from Norse mythology, but he figures prominently in the recorded history of Northern Europe.
SkáldskaparmálSkáldskaparmál (Old Norse: 'Poetic Diction' or 'The Language of Poetry'; Old Norse pronunciation: [ˈskaldskaparˌmɒːl]; Icelandic pronunciation: [ˈskaultˌskaːparˌmauːl̥]) is the second part of the Prose Edda, compiled by Snorri Sturluson. It consists of a dialogue between Ægir, the divine personification of the sea, and Bragi, the god of poetry, in which both stories of the Æsir and discourse on the nature of poetry are intertwined.NounIn grammar, a noun is a word that denotes a concrete or abstract entity, like living creatures, places, actions, events, qualities, states of existence, and ideas. To summarize this, nouns signify an object or idea. A noun may serve as an object or subject within a phrase, clause, or sentence. In linguistics, nouns constitute a lexical category (part of speech) defined according to how its members combine with members of other lexical categories.
Snorri SturlusonSnorri Sturluson (Old Norse:; Icelandic:; 1179 – 23 September 1241) was an Icelandic historian, poet, knight, and politician. He was elected twice as lawspeaker of the Icelandic parliament, the Althing.*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.