Sunday, January 6, 2013

Evidence for the validity of the use of -blý (lead) as the final part in Icelandic native names of transplumbic elements

The only way to produce native names for transplumbic elements is the use of blý (lead), the heaviest element for which an uncompounded word existed in the Old Icelandic: maríublý (MARILEAD (compare "marigold", polonium), blyfti (blý + loft -lyfti), þórblý (thorium), úteyjablý (uranium) heljarblý (plutonium), nýheimsblý (americium), lafransblý (lawrencium).The following examples show the validity of this approach:

1) The last colour situated near the lower end of the visible spectrum that has an uncompounded name belonging to Icelandic core-vocabulary is blár (blue). The names of the colours or radiation beyond blue were designated by compounds with "blár": dimmfjólublár (indígó) - fjólublár (violet) - útfjólublár or útblár (ultraviolet).

2) Another example of this terminological extrapolation can be found in the formation of modern names of large numerals.  The largest numbers in antiquity, designated by uncompounded names were mille (thousand) in Latin and myriados (ten thousand) in Greek. Terms for larger numbers, magnitudes of thousand were construted from the word "mille": million - bILLion, trILLion, QuadILLion Analoguous to these examples, native Icelandic names of transplumbic elements could be coined by using "blý" (lead) as the final element: maríublý (MARILEAD (like marigold), polonium), þórblý (thorium), heljarblý (hell-lead, plutonium), nýheimsblý (new-world's lead, americium), lafransblý (lawrence's lead, lawrencium)

3) Even in geographical names there's an example to be found: e.g. the name "the Indies" were derived from the Indus River and were applied by the ancient Greeks to most of the regions of Asia that lay further to the east than Persia. The term "Indies" was first used by European geographers to identify geographic regions not only the Indian Subcontinent, but also the islands beyond, although geopgraphically Indonesia has little to with the Indian subcontinent. This is again an example of using the historical name of an outermost region on the map in order to designate later discovered regions even further away. Indland (India) - Indókína (Indochine) - Indonesia (Indónesía, Indeyjar)

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