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In:From West to North Frisia: A Journey along the North Sea Coast
Edited by Alastair Walker, Eric Hoekstra, Goffe Jensma, Wendy Vanselow, Willem Visser and Christoph Winter
[NOWELE Supplement Series 33] 2022
► pp. 370–383

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Two notes on the Old Frisian Version of ‘The Fifteen Days before Doomsday’

Days Ten and Fourteen

 | University College London
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Published online: 10 March 2022
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https://doi.org/10.1075/nss.33.20sti
Abstract
It is suggested that the text of Day 10 of the Old Frisian Version of ‘The Fifteen Days before Doomsday’ be understood not as saying the world reverts to its state before the Creator made it, but when He made it. This entails a reinterpretation of the form er in the clause in question. In Day 14, the word dāthon ‘dead ones’ is problematic, because the medial consonantism -th- is not immediately reconcilable with the accepted interpretation as the substantivized adjective dād (we expect medial -d-). A solution is provided by the extinct modern East Frisian dialect of the island of Wangerooge (which is closely related to the Riostring dialect of the Old Frisian text). It attests the lexeme dooeTH (m.) ‘der Todte, die Leiche’. Assuming such a form existed already in Old Frisian solves the problem.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Day Ten: Before the Beginning?
    • 2.1The context
    • 2.2Objection to the traditional analysis
    • 2.3Suggested reinterpretation
    • 2.4Remark on the syntax
    • 2.5Emendation may not be necessary
  • 3.Day Fourteen: Death and Dentals
    • 3.1The ‘traditional’ reading of Day Fourteen
    • 3.2Buma’s improved analysis
    • 3.3The revised interpretation creates a linguistic problem
    • 3.4Resolution of the difficulty by means of modern dialects
    • 3.5Origin of the lexeme dāth ‘dead person’
    • 3.6Distinction of dental spirant and stop in Old Frisian
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (47)
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