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L
ARS
-G
UNNAR
L
ARSSON
170
ferent meanings: 1. ‘what’, 2. ‘calf (of the leg)’, 3. ‘ford’, 4. ‘bet, wager’, and
5. ‘seine’. This homonymy never causes any problems in communication.
However, when ON.
Þórr
is rendered as SaaS.
hovre
(
n
)- instead of an ex-
pected *
fuorra
, there is an obvious risk of a disturbing homonymy. There is
another Scandinavian loanword that is wide-spread in Saami languages;
namely, OSw.
hōra
, isl.
hóra
etc. < germanskt *
hōrōn
(Hellqvist 1948 s.v.
hor
) meaning ‘whore’ (the English word also belongs here, of course). This
word can be found in Saami from North Saami, Nesseby
fuörra
‘Hure’, Sui-
javaara, Könkämä
huorra
(LW s.v.; the transcription here somewhat simpli-
fied) as well as in the Saami languages further to the south: SaaL.
huorrā
‘liederliches Weibsbild, »Hure«’ (HG s.v.), SaaU.
fuarra
‘Hure’. Lagercrantz
connects this word with SaaS.
fuärrà
‘ein Fluch: Teufel’, that he has taken
down in Snåsa and Vefsen. Hasselbrink (SLW s.v.) gives the form
fuärraa
with the same meaning also from Meraker, Offerdal, Anarisfjällen, Under-
såker and Røros. The semantic change ‘whore’ > ‘devil’ does not require any
detailed comments, it is enough to compare with the corresponding word in
Hungarian: Hung.
kurva
‘whore’;
kurva hideg van!
‘it’s bloody cold’ (MÉSz.
s.v.; my translation into English).
The wide distribution of this loanword in Saami indicates an early bor-
rowing. As could be expected, this old loanword has participated in the
change
huo-
>
fuo-
in South and Ume Saami. There are, however, a couple of
instances in these languages with an initial
h-
: SaaS. Vfs.
howrà
‘whore’
(LW s.v. transcription somewhat simplified) and SaaU. ST
hourā-ol
o
mài
‘whorish man’ (Moosberg ST s.v.). Here it must be observed that these
words are obviously local and late. Their form seems to be almost identical
with the Swedish word, where a slightly diphthongised pronunciation of
closed long vowels is typical. Furthermore, in South Saami the change in
meaning – SaaS.
fuärraa
‘devil’ – in the old borrowing opened up for a new
borrowing with the meaning ‘whore’. In Ume Saami, where
fuarra
has re-
tained its original meaning, this later borrowing is only known in a com-
pound with another meaning. Lagercrantz word from Vefsen,
howrà
, could
be regarded as a quotation loan.
Against this background it seems very probable that the irregular repre-
sentation of Scandinavian
þ-
in SaaS.
Hovre(n)-
can be explained by a wish
to avoid homonymy. It would be highly inappropriate to give the name
*Fuärragaellies,
‘the old whore-man’, to a god who was worshipped and
feared (Rydving 2010: 94).
The distribution of the words support this reasoning: the loanword for
‘whore’ can be found over a wide Saami area, from Nesseby down to Røros.