Crimean Gothic

Fragment of a discussion from User talk:Rua
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There is Old Norse sultr, Icelandic sultur (starvation) and Old English swylt (death); both seem to be zero-grade. Do we know enough about Crimean Gothic phonology to tell whether schwalth is o-grade (< *swaltaz) or whether -wa < *-u-? If the latter, it could be the same as the Old Norse word.

Krun (talk)11:19, 6 March 2013

I think sult is the West Norse form, Modern Swedish has svält. It's also possible that it's not a direct descendant of the original nominal form, but and independent creation from the verb, I guess. Thank you for your reply, anyway.

Wakuran (talk)01:06, 8 March 2013
Edited by 2 users.
Last edit: 11:29, 23 March 2021

Wow, so Swedish svält (starvation) <> English svelt (skinny)? The svelt entry is missing an etym...

Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig01:54, 8 March 2013
 

@Eiríkr: I would assume English svelt is just another spelling of svelte, which seems to have a different origin.

@Wakuran: Modern Swedish does have svält (Old Swedish svælter), which is indeed probably influenced by the verb form svälta (Old Swedish svælta); but older Swedish also has sylt (Old Swedish sulter, sylt and sylter) and Danish has sult. I have now discovered, however, that Swedish also has an obsolete svalt (Old Swedish svalter), which does seem to be < *swaltaz.

Krun (talk)10:09, 8 March 2013