I Write about Reindeer, and Gaze at Northern Skies

[starfishstar]

Those of you who also follow rt_morelove might now understand why I've spent most of my spare time lately googling information about reindeer and random locations in Norway – because I'm writing an adaptation of The Snow Queen!

Yes, after giving over 2 or 3 months of my life to stage managing a play version of The Snow Queen, I'm now also writing a version of it... I actually think I'd enjoy someday writing an entirely "original" adaptation (for example like Anne Ursu's Breadcrumbs) – it's such an endlessly fun story to play with; it's usually kept as a children's story more or less in line with the original, but I think it would be interesting to give it adult characters, and maybe two female protagonists instead of a girl and a boy – f/f romance maybe? Anyway, who knows, someday I may also write a full-length original novel version, but first, right now, I needed something to write for rt_morelove and stumbled on this idea of doing a Snow Queen fusion (Harry Potter characters and universe + Snow Queen plot) and it's SUPER FUN to write. Whee!

So, yeah, I spend lots of my time lately looking at pictures like this:


(Photo from Wikipedia.)

That's the town of Honningsvåg, very near to the very, very northern tip of Norway. I was gazing soulfully at this picture at work the other day, and showed it to my colleague when he happened to pass by my desk, and thus learned an interesting difference between the two of us: When I look at this picture, I think, WANT, whereas his response was, "If that's the sky that's coming at me, I think I'll run the other way."

Anyway: looking at pictures of far northern landscapes = always the best, writing a fusion of Harry Potter and The Snow Queen = SO FUN, and best of all having this project (and a deadline attached to it) has kicked me back into writing regularly for the first time in ages. As a direct result of all this writing-ness, today, too, I finally got unstuck on another fic that's been sitting here for ages: It's going to be four chapters total, and I've been stalled on the very last (but crucial) bit of Chapter 3 for months. Tonight, just now, I figured out and wrote that last bit, and finished the chapter. Wheeeeee!

I didn't do NaNoWriMo in November, partly because I didn't have time and partly because the friends here in town who'd wanted to do it together ended up not doing it. Then I didn't do NaNoWriMo in January for the same reasons (still didn't really have enough time, and the group of friends who'd said they didn't have time in November but would totally do it in January...didn't end up doing it in January). But partway through this Snow Queen/Snow Wolf writing process, during a week when I was pushing myself to write at least 1000 words each day to keep up toward the rt_morelove deadline, I decided to aim for a "mini" NaNo this month, see if I can get my writing by the end of January to average out, at the very minimum, to 500 words/day. Doing well so far! (Average of over 600 words/day, and that's only because I didn't really start writing in earnest until partway through the month.)

Writing mojo reclaimed, or at least once again visible to the naked eye, after a long disappearing act.

Comments

[starfishstar]

No, that's great, I always appreciate your Scandinavian languages expertise!

Hjörtur was indeed the very first name in my notes when I started researching possible names for this character... I needed a female name, though, and didn't find anything comparable. I see (looking back at my notes now) that I even noted down the patronymic, which apparently would be Hjartardóttir, for the possibility of maybe using that... But really, I wanted her to have her own name, and not just a daughter-of name, which was why I went looking for other names that would at least get close-ish in meaning. (There isn't anything somewhat like Hjörtur/Hjørtur but female, is there?? I haven't found anything so far.)

[nerakrose]

Excellent!

Hmm, there is Hind (female deer), but I didn't think to suggest it because I didn't think it was actually used as a name. but i just checked on the national registry (mannanafnaskrá) and found out that it is registered as a name, and then i checked on íslendingabók to see how many carry that name. it's apparently a rare name - only ten women carry it, and out of those ten, only one has it as her first (and only) name. the others have it as their second name. (i then naturally found out that one of those is a close cousin... XD)

[starfishstar]

Oh, fascinating that there are such direct parallels! (B/c "hart" and "hind" are male and female deer in English, too... Immediately puts me in mind of the silly rhymes in Shakespeare's "As You Like It": "If a hart do lack a hind/Let him seek out Rosalind"...)

I feel hesitant to use Hind as a name, though, I guess because once you get into the realm of *such* a rare name that it's literally just one person's given name, it's a bit like you're naming a character after that real, living person, and that's kind of uncool... Also, "hind" in English could easily be taken as another word for your rear end. ;-)

A little more poking around, though, brought me across the name Hinda, which according to Norske Navn is a Norwegian female name that 30 people in Norway have. Any thoughts about that? Does it sound like a likely/plausible name to you (as in, plausibly like a name that one might actually come across)? For that matter, does Dyrfinna work for you? Hm, I'm going to have to ask huldrejenta all this too, seeing as she's actually Norwegian. I'm trying not to bombard her with TOO many Norwegian questions as I'm writing this story, but this one seems relevant. :-)

[nerakrose]

I completely understand! i'd have no such compunctions though (and neither did JKR; Lupin is a very real surname in the UK...where it's carried by only 13 (living) people. presumably they are all related to each other.)

I don't know about Hinda, honestly - it doesn't actually strike me as Scandinavian. I don't know where it comes from (haven't been able to find a source) and all six people in denmark who carry it, are born within the past twenty years. :/ that doesn't really bode well - if it'd been scandinavian, there'd be records of it prior to the 90s.

hm, in re: dýrfinna and other variations (dýrleif, dýrbjörg, dýrley, dýrunn) they don't actually have anything to do with deer or animals. dýr can also mean expensive or valuable, and the icelandic word for saint is dýrlingur. it might be related to the word dýrð (glory, splendour, magnificence). these words generally mean 'valuable + whatever the latter part means'.
(almost the same is the case in danish: dyr = animal, dådyr/rådyr = deer, dyr = expensive)
so if you want the deer or animal connection it might be better to go for something more literal! i can give you a list of animal-related names if you want? it probably won't be 100% exhaustive, but at least i can promise they're real.

and new names can of course be created by putting a word with a female name ending (-dís, -björg, -unn, -mey, etc.) consider all these variations of bear + female name ending: Bjarndís, Bjarney, Bjarnfríður, Bjarngerður, Bjarnheiður, Bjarnhildur, Bjarnlaug, Bjarnrún, Bjarnveig, Bjarnþóra, Bjarnþrúður - and there's of course the name Birna, which literally means bear (female form of björn).
Hind for example is not a name that has (to my knowledge) been paired with a female name ending, but i don't see why not. Hindrún for example would translate to 'hidden/secret hind', Hindfríður to 'beautiful hind' and Hindveig to 'strong/powerful hind'. (Hindveig should also work in Norwegian/Danish (not sure about Swedish)!) it won't work with all endings and not all animal names can be made into human names - there's no hard and fast rule as far as i know, so better consult with an icelander! XD i can tell instantly if a name is Off.

and yes of course - i'm happy to help with a translation of anything you need :D

[starfishstar]

OOH, yes, I like that idea - "Hind" + feminine name ending. I like the idea of it being an invented name and yet plausible within the linguistic rules of Scandinavian (well, or at least Icelandic...) name formation. (And erg, that's annoying, the Nordic names database I was using *said* the "Dýr-" prefix definitely meant deer/animal, as well as dear/precious, and came from a proto-Norse root meaning deer/animal. Is that definitely untrue?)

Okay, let's see, thinking through some possibilities, actually Hindrún is pretty much perfect, because this character IS a secret deer - she's an Animagus. That sounds Icelandic and not Norwegian, though, so I'll have to think about whether I'm okay with that for this character... Gudrun is a Norwegian name, though, along with lots of other -run names, so maybe I can get away with Hindrun (no accent on the u). I'd also consider Hindveig (powerful deer!), Hindey (...is it actually "island deer," or is it something else?), Hinddís (deer goddess/woman?), if any of those sound plausible to you. Anything with an eth in it, unfortunately, is far too Icelandic. ;-) (Ooh, yes, it looks like there are lots of -veig and -dis names in Norwegian, too. Hurrah for linguistic conservation! Those names are so familiar to me from Icelandic, but I didn't realize how many of them are preserved across the other languages as well.)

Okay, my other question: So, what I'm writing is a fusion with H. C. Andersen's The Snow Queen, but adapted as The Snow Wolf (because Remus, because werewolf!); and I thought it would be fun for the Snow Wolf to mention all the names he goes by in many languages of the region, but again, of course only if I'm not going to get them wrong. Here's what I've got so far, and maybe you can correct/add/delete as needed? (For reference this is him, referring to himself, so it's a proper name / sort of a title, both. So I'm not quite sure yet whether I want to include definite articles or not.)

Danish: the original title of "The Snow Queen", is Sneedronningen, thus by extrapolation "the snow wolf" would probably be Sneeulv? except probably also with an article? (Sneeulven?)

Icelandic: "The Snow Queen" is apparently translated as Snædrottningin, thus the snow wolf --> Snæúlfur? (With article, not that it's really necessary, snæúlfurinn)

Norwegian: Snøulv / Snøulven?

Finnish: Lumisusi?? (That's from Google Translate, feel free to laugh at me.)

My guess for Russian: снежный волк (snezhniy volk) (not that I expect that to be within your expertise!)

I would also LOVE, LOVE to have it in one or more Sami languages, but I feel like that's one of those things I shouldn't even touch unless I can definitely get it right. So if maybe you know...

Also Greenlandic would be amazing!

[nerakrose]

no, it's not untrue. it's a similar case to peningur (and fé), which means both livestock and money. the original meaning of the word is livestock and before money was a thing, riches were measured by livestock. later, when money became a thing and words were needed for all these shiny gold coins, they used the word they already had as a shorthand for wealth. (you don't even have to go far back to find peningur = wealth but it still meaning wealth as in livestock. in the sagas if it says 'hann átti pening miklan' or something along those lines, it does mean literally 'he owns a lot of livestock and therefore he is rich'). it's more about semantic shifts. dýr does come from a root meaning animal much like peningur originally meant livestock and not money. (deer in icelandic are, specifically, hjartardýr. dýr seems to have predominantly been a general animal word that only later (and in english specifically) took on a specific deer meaning. looking at the proto-germanic root it meant 'animal' and the proto-indoeuropean before that, 'living thing'.) so it *is* possible that originally the names had the meaning of animal as well - they just don't today, and none of the name meaning sources i have access to ascribe that meaning to it, even as an archaic thing. imo i think it's more likely that these names were created on the basis of the later 'valuable' meaning and not the earlier animal meaning, precisely because hind & hjörtur already exist as both animal and people names, and icelandic names tend to be very specific. (and also because christianity.) for example there aren't any names that just mean 'tree' but there are specific tree names that are given names, such as Hlynur and Ösp. this is the case in iceland at least! the situation might be different in norwegian. just because a semantic shift happened in icelandic, it doesn't mean the same shift happened in norwegian. :) language evolution in the nordic region was MESSY, and while icelandic (and danish) kept the proto-germanic meaning of dýr as animal while also tacking on the new meaning of valuable/expensive, things may well have developed differently in norway. old norse wasn't uniform across the nordic region either and is really more of a shorthand for the stage that came after proto-norse (or runic-norse) and before it branched out into old danish/swedish/norwegian/danish/faroese languages. (btw, the oldest recorded instance of dýrfinna is from 1025! i can't find where exactly, but by nature it must've been one of the sagas.) it's a little late for runic inscriptions, though anything's possible...

you should be able to use -run without the accent. :) Hindey would mean 'deer island'. it's still valid as a human name, but would look more appropriate on a map. (sóley, on the other hand, works both ways, but that's also a common name. as well as a name of a flower! for something so rare as hindey, the first association people would have would be with a place named after deer, and not a person.) Hinddís doesn't work, sorry :'D it sounds too awkward :'D (it's the double d that does it.) ask huldrejenta if it would be accepted in norwegian though, with the -dis ending? they might have a different outlook. just because it doesn't look great in icelandic doesn't mean it can't be great in norwegian. :) (case in point: in Danish Gudrun is an "old lady" name, not very popular, a very awkward thing to name your kid these days. in Iceland however, it's a very common name across generations and nobody would wink an eye at meeting a newborn with that name.)

[nerakrose]

Ohh! interesting :D I love the idea of a snow wolf. :D

ok so first, Snee is German ;) it's just sne in Danish. (i know that the original title of the fairytale is Sneedronningen, but, uh, it's not correct. it may have been back when it was written (thing is Old, spelling conventions have changed since then), may also have been that HCA just misspelled the thing.) sneulven would be the name. Danish generally likes to put definite articles on names that are words/professions. he would refer to himself that way 'they call me the snow wolf - sneulven' would be accurate. i think in danish a character with that name wouldn't state it as their name, they would use the verb 'at være' (to be) instead of the verb 'at hedde' (to be called). 'jeg er sneulven' and not 'jeg hedder sneulv'. you could use 'mit navn er sneulv/en' and then either way, you'd still have the definite article. (for the record, 'jeg hedder sneulv' is suuuuper awkward and it's 100% because this is a fairy tale/mythical creature. they never introduce themselves that way in danish, mostly because mythical creatures rarely have actual names, but rather are a thing. if it's his actual real name, he could still say it like that, but (again, in a Danish context) if he's got any situational awareness he wouldn't say 'jeg hedder sneulv' because it's kind of. not very dramatic, very down to earth, could even be construed as childish. it's too simple, is what i'm saying - for someone who's got status (like the snow queen) he'd refer to the name as something other people bestowed upon him (=respect) or state the name in definite form because it makes him an entity rather than a person, and those are to be respected and/or feared. use this information however you will :D)


hmm, for icelandic you could go with either snjóúlfur or snæúlfur (a name that occurs in...the skaldic edda i think, i don't remember exactly). snæ- is slightly more archaic than snjó- i think. both are fine grammatically and all, but snæúlfur is more "established" as is. no definite article on this one!

lumisusi is indeed correct. :) sounds a bit funny, but then again werewolf is ihmissusi, so it's not like finns wouldn't recognise it.

i know absolutely nothing about russian or greenlandic, sorry :'D i also know very little about saami, and wouldn't be comfortable trying to piece something together. i could maybe do lulesaami as that's the saami language i'm most familiar with, but i can't guarantee that it's correct. i mean for starters, lulesaami has a billion different words for snow and i don't know which one to pick as each would give the snow wolf a very specific meaning, you know? like would you want a word that means "hard, as in the top layer has melted from the sun and re-frozen" or "new snow in a light layer that reveals tracks after animals, specifically reindeer" or maybe "thin layer of frost in autumn" ?? the word for wolf in lulesaami is stálppe. using a word that means "snow that has fallen in cold weather and that results in 'tungt føre' (difficult road/driving conditions because of a thick layer of snow)", you could have sahkikstálppe, assuming that's the correct way to make compound words in lulesaami... (the nominative form is sagij, and my lulesaami dictionary app informs me that the genitive stem is sahkik- and i assume there's some consonant gradation going on there, but - pardon my french - fuck me if i know. :p) you'd be better off finding a saami person willing to help out, but i'm not sure where you'd find one!

(sorry this got so long orz)

[starfishstar]

​Oh, of course, yes, that makes so much sense - I even knew that about how words for livestock got extended to use for currency as well (noticed that in the first Halldór Laxness book I read, how everything gets compared to how much of a cow it's worth...and I think one of our teachers last summer talked about that, too). I hadn't thought to make that connection here, but of course that explains why "dýr" would have both those meanings...cool!

Yeah, English does seem to be the weird outlier with the word "deer" meaning one specific animal - in German, too, it stayed general ("Tier" = "animal").

Sneedronningen/Snedronningen - aha, that makes sense. I'd seen it spelled both ways in Danish, which was confusing, so I traced it back and found that the original was spelled "ee" and so I went with that - but that makes sense that that's an archaic spelling, which has since changed, which is why I was seeing it both ways!

The German would actually be "Schnee" - Die Schneekönigin, I suppose, though I've never thought about this story in German!

And double cool, my instinct was indeed to use the article in Danish but not in Icelandic, so, yay. :-)

As for use of articles and whether it's a name or a title... At least how I've got it written right now (this is all very new and rough draft), it's actually kind of the opposite: not him saying "this is my name," but saying "I am ancient and powerful and whatever you choose to call me, does it really matter? I'm more powerful than any name you choose to attach to me." So definitely what you said about using the article and considering it a title, not a name, applies. But also maybe moot in this case because he's not using it as a name anyway. But *also* definitely I will bear your advice in mind - especially what you said about using the verb for I AM rather than I'm CALLED. (In fact...I may have to remake the part I described above, based on how much I like that - the idea of him saying, I'm not CALLED the Snow Wolf, I AM the Snow Wolf.)

For Icelandic, I thought of snjó/r first, but then saw that "Snedronningen" gets translated as "Snædrottningin," so figured that might be more archaic/fairy-tale-ish, which it sounds like you're saying is the case. Also, all that Old Norse names research told me there's a King Snær in Norse Mythology who's the personification of snow, so that fits too, as a reference for "snær" in the context of stories and legends. :-)

Finnish: ha, google translate was correct for once! And for Finnish, of all things. That's kind of hilarious.

Russian: I've got another friend I can ask about that. Weirdly, for that one I think my own translation might actually be okay, since the words are simple and I actually do remember a bit of grammar. But we'll see if I'm right about that...

Greenlandic was a very long shot, that's fine! And for Saami languages, yeah, I wouldn't want to do it unless I was absolutely sure I had it correct. And given that this is basically just a tiny throw-away bit I'm doing pretty much for my own amusement, it's probably okay if it's not totally comprehensive. (Though Saami languages would of course be some of the *most* relevant to this part of the world!) I love that about all the different words for different types of snow. So cool.

THANK YOU for all of this, so helpful, and so interesting to me, too!

[nerakrose]

ahhh yeah, i forgot german does the sch thing. it sounds the same to me as just a regular s, so i always misspell it :D

oh, interesting about this king snær. i'm not sure i've heard of him! but he might be the same person as vetrarkonungurinn, who i definitely have heard of? i remember reading stories about him when i was a kid, and i think maybe there was an animated movie (or i dreamed it, which is also v possible).

you're very welcome! i love talking languages like this - it's been as much fun for me. :)

[starfishstar]

Also, nerak_rose, any chance I could ask you a small translation question? Just a phrase I'd like to have in several Scandinavian languages for this story, but of course only want to use if I can actually get it right!