Kinky JM: Niggardly Swedish???

[Ingemar Johansson <hebanon...>]

Hi Cristian.

Actually Simon is right. The English niggard(-ly) can be traced back to Old
Nordic (not especially to Swedish, but to any of a number of Viking
dialects). The old root is "nig", meaning "stingy" -- or "snaal" in Swedish
(I skip the umlauts). We have the word in modern Swedish to (although not
so frequent) as the adjective "njugg". However we have no corresponding
noun (like the English noun "niggard"); here modern Swedish would use
"snaaljaap" or something similar. So, there is -- as Simon states -- no
racial connetion here.

Best,
Ingemar J.



----------
> Från: Christian Hansson <christian (at) semikolon(dot)o(dot)se>
> Till: World music from a Jewish slant. <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>
> Ämne: RE: Kinky JM: Niggardly Swedish???
> Datum:  den 30 januari 1999 20:53
> 
> 
> >As far as the example of the word "niggardly", the word does not have
ANY
> >racial connection at all, It is (so I was informed) of Swedish origin.
> 
> Simon, in this case you must have been misinformed. Swedish being my
mother
> tongue, I can tell there is no such word in Swedish. It dosn't even make
> sense to me in English.
> 
> Christian Hansson
> 
> 

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