På Facebook tillhör jag en grupp som heter Germanic languages. Nyligen skrev jag ett inlägg om glosorna fönster och vindöga. Publicerar inlägget på min egen blogg, enär fler ska få möjlighet att se detta. Texten är på engelska av naturliga skäl.
The Swedish word for window is fönster. In that we differ from the other Scandinavian languages.
Fönster is actually older in Swedish than I had anticipated. It entered Old Swedish via the Low German vinster, which in turn stems from Latin fenestra. This is probably due to the contacts with the Roman empire.
The Latin fenestra is nowadays fenêtre in French and finestra in Italian.
Spanish , however, use the word ventana, meaning wind.
Portuguese differ also. They use the words janela and vitrine. Don't know the origin of the first one.
Fönster became the established word due to a large influx of German immigrants in the Middle ages. At a time, Swedish actually faced the danger to become nothing more than a German dialect! Didn't happen though.
The German Fenster is fénstner in Yidish. Plattdeutsch has two words, Finster and Ruut. Same goes for Afrikaans and Dutch. They say venster and raam. Fenster, Finstner, fénstner and venster are the same word.
As with Gustaf Tamm I would prefer to use vindöga. However, most Swedes have never heard this word nor do they understand its meaning. Sad to say.
Vindöga stems from Old Norse vindauga. Vindr wind plus auga eye.
From this word English has window.
From English Tok Pisin has windo
As far as Scots go, I only know of Doric (Aberdeen) windae, windy and winnock. Danish and Norwegian vindue. The difference in spelling is but pronunciation.
Faroese has two words, vindeyga (vindöga) and gluggi. The word gluggi is used in Icelandic as well.
Gluggi is the same word as glugg in Swedish. Means small opening. The word stems from Old Swedish and Icelandic gluggr. This word is closely related to Swedish glo - to stare.
Glo originally meant glow. Hence it is a common word in Germanic languages. Glo, English glow and German glühen.
Should anyone want to know, the Icelandic word for glugg is rauf.
The word vindöga is also in Gaelic uinneag. From the Viking era.
As far as Irish fuinneog is concerned I am a tad uncertain, but probably from vindöga as well. Welsh ffenest looks like its from Latin. I may be wrong though
