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Latin Influence on the Norwegian Language 163
such as the verb vyriJugast corresponding to dignari and
the phrase uer uveriJugir for licet immeriti, which serve
to give the epistolary style such an air of humility, also
belong to the religious style.
There are examples of loan-translations to which
popular etymology has assigned a different meaning.
This is the case when, for example, the agrimonia of the
medical books has become agermdne in Danish, and
likewise when abrotanum is associated with the word
rot (radix). It can scarcely be doubted that Bishop
Hakon on one occasion, perhaps unconsciously, connects
guiJra;kinn with devotus. It is also Latin which to a
large extent explains the extensive use of tautologies,
particularly in the translated literature. For the tautologies
were, to quote the Danish professor Vilhelm
Andersen, "a suggestion to the reader that he should
accept a particular expression as a translation of the
foreign one". 3 This is also a well-known feature in the
literature of other countries. In his book Fra Cicero
til Copernicus Franz Blatt relates how Marius Mercator,
when he translated Nestorius's heretical sermons into
Latin in the middle of the fifth century, used to make
the translation as exact as possible by rendering a single
Greek word with two Latin synonyms. Examples from
the Norwegian epistolary literature are: til samtals ok
consilium, tilkallan ok krofw (= vocacio), i ollum sinum
greinum ok articulis, eina cedulam ceder rollo, ef so skal
kalla, as Bishop Hakon significantly expresses himself.
The tautologies were no doubt often a necessity in legal
writings when one wanted to be certain that the written
word gave full expression to what was meant. It is for
this reason that we find in receipts such modes of
expression as that the debtors are declared to be quittos
et absolutes which, rendered in Norwegian, becomes
kwitta ok lidugha. We can mention here the expression
alle og enhoer, which still exists in Norwegian, from the
Latin omnes et singuli or universi et singuli.
3 Dania I (rRgo-g2). 8g.