SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

I62 Saga-Book of the Viking Society
vmhughsan. In this case there was a corresponding
word in Norwegian.
This was, however, not always the case. If we take
another look at the religious terminology, we notice that
people had been successful quite early in norwegianising
prcepositus as pr6fastr and episcopus as byskup, of
course following models provided by Old English and
Old German. On the other hand there were other professions
which had less popular appeal and for which it
was not feIt to be so important to use norwegianised
forms. We have already mentioned executor and we
can add procurator and noiarius, which have both
remained in Norwegian without competition from other
words. We never got Norwegian names for sacrista,
ostiarius and uesiarius, since those of the population
whose only language was Norwegian needed no names
for these positions. This was also the case with the title
cellarius, which was very definitely Latin, whilst kellari,
remodelled to suit Norwegian usage, was a very early
loan-word used on every farm.
Loan-translations, of which there are many in Norwegian,
were used in those cases where the easiest choice,
the retention of the Latin word in its original form, was
not opted for. As we know, the names of the days of
the week are very old and often loan-translations. From
the religious sphere we can mention [estingarhiminr:
corresponding to firmamentum, fyrirheitsjQro to terra
promissa, hinn gamle uvinr to antiquus hosiis or antiquus
adoersarius, allsvaldande to omnipotens, samvitska to
conscientia. The fixed formulas in correspondence,
batenies litera: and clauste litera; are rendered by
obit bre] and lcest bref respectively. The dei gracia and
eadem gracia of the protocol correspond to mea gurJs
miskunn and mea samre miskunn, In the epistolary
literature we meet the amusing translation sambldstr for
conspiratio, and we find forsi6 and Itforsi6 for procidentia
and improvidentia. Norwegianised Latin expressions,