Talk:dyngja
ok, so the meaning dunghill -> heap -> shield volcano is clear. Cognate to English dung.
The "lady's bower" meaning in Old Icelandic is taken from Zoega. I doubt it has the same etymology. Perhaps it is cognate with Old English / Old Saxon dung "cover, enclosed space, cellar" (whence dungeon)? --92.104.241.201 11:25, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
- Dungeon is from the Old French donjon, or I believe so. But I'd imagine that's of Germanic origin, I can't think of a Classical Latin word it could come from. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:34, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
Yes, donjon is of Germanic origin. The Latin bit was just to add the -o:n- suffix.
- The -on suffix might actually not be Latin at all, as the Old Frankish word would have been *dungjon in the oblique and plural cases: cases which later formed the stems of French words. Compare garçon from *warkjon < *warkjo/wrakjo. This is the Old Germanic n-stem/weak declension. Leasnam 15:52, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
Ok, it seems we have two meanings of the early Germanic word dung, as listed in tung#Old High German
- 1. a barn covered with dung
- 2. an underground cellar
"dung" is just something used to "cover" stuff. You may use manure to "cover" the field, or to "cover" your barn for insulation, and hence the meaning splits into "dunghill" and "well-insulated room". The second meaning develops into (a) cellar in German, (b) prison in English and (c) "lady's bower" in Iceland, where insulation means comfort and luxury.
Strictly speaking, then, the two meanings share a single etymology, but the meanings diverged in prehistoric (Migration period) times. --92.104.241.201 11:50, 11 May 2010 (UTC)