Talk:Names of the British Isles/Archive 8

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Archive 8

Icelandic name: Vestrlönd

Hello @The Banner, in your undoing of this change, you have restored some inaccurate material which misrepresents the source cited. The anonymous user (153.92.136.90 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)) appears to have been correct. The source cited does not say anything like what is being claimed. The entry for "Vest-maðr" in Cleasby & Vigfusson's An Icelandic-English Dictionary [1] does not say "a person from the Gaelic areas of Britain and Ireland (Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man)" as the article presently claims. It simply says: "Vest-maðr, m. a man from the West, κατ. ἐξ. one from the British Isles, esp. the Irish", going on to explain that the Vestmannaeyjar (islands off Iceland), according to the Landnámabók, take their name from this word ("whence Vestmanna-eyjar, the Isles of the Westmen, i.e. of the Irish who were slain there"). Similarly "Vestr-lönd" in Cleasby & Vigfusson says only "Vestr-lönd, m. pl. the Western lands, of the British Isles and goes on to cite examples in which the British Isles are referred to, followed by a singular instance "of Western Africa", and then the explanation that in the singular, vestr-lönd can refer specifically to western Iceland. ("2. sing., Vestrland, Western Iceland"). There is no hint of "a person from the Gaelic areas" or of the name being restricted to "Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man".

In fact, other entries on the same page indicate that this is certainly not so. For example, vestr-vegir, m. pl. ‘the western ways,’ the West, of the British Isles which is the counterpart of a world divided into "Eastway", "Southway", "Norway", etc. ("opp. to Austr-vegr, Suðr-vegr, Norðr-vegr, qq. v."). Then, "vestr-viking, f. a freebooting expedition to the West, i.e. to the British Isles (Normandy, etc.)" and "vestr-för and vestr-ferð, f. a journey to the west and 2. esp. a journey to the British Isles with Vestrfarar-visur, f. pl. a name of a poem by Sighvat, verses on a journey to England and Normandy". Moreover, there is definition II.2 under "VESTR" which states "2. westwards, towards the British Isles, a standing phrase (cp. the use of Hesperia in Lat.) ; … to sail westwards over the sea, … west to the Orkneys (Shetland), … I journeyed westward over the sea, Höfuðl. i ; in which last passage it is even used of a voyage from Iceland to England". Under "vestan" is found "the phrase, vestan um haf, ‘from west over the sea,’ i.e. from the Western Islands, a special phrase for the British Isles across the North Sea, … or simply vestan, at hann var vestan kominn, viz. from Britain, … even used of a voyage from thence to Iceland,". From the last two comments, it is obvious that the authors are not talking about the west as a cardinal direction, but The West being a specific place (the British Isles) that it was possible to arrive at or from by travelling either westwards or eastwards. The fact that England might be referred to as part of these islands shows very clearly the the term was never limited to "Gaelic areas of Britain and Ireland (Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man)".

Elsewhere in the book, under "FARA", we read "fara vestr um haf, to fare westward over the sea, i.e. to the British Isles". Under the heading "austr-lönd" it mentions "Vestrlönd, the British Islands, Normandy, Bretagne"; similarly under "austr-vegr" it says "fara í Austrveg is a standing phrase for trading or piratical expeditions in the Baltic, opp. to viking or vestr-viking, which only refer to expeditions to the British Islands, Normandy, Brittany, etc.". Again, under "aust-rœnn" is the note "The name denotes the inhabitants of the Scandinavian continent as opp. to the British Islands and Iceland." All this should put it beyond doubt that the Old Norse construed the British Isles (and sometimes all the lands of the English Channel) as a whole, distinct from other parts of their world.

If this were not enough, A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic by Geir T. Zoëga [2] also defines "Vestrlönd" as "1) the British Isles; 2) the Occident." and also says "Possible runic inscription in Younger Futhark:ᚢᛁᛋᛏᚱᛚᚢᚾᛏ".

Furthermore, the 1972 University of Manitoba Icelandic Studies translation of the Landnámabók translates the verb vestr-viking as "go on a viking expedition to the British Isles", in addition to having anecdotes like "Olaf went on a viking expedition to the British Isles, conquered Dublin in Ireland and the region round about, and made himself king over it" (Old Norse: Óleifr enn hvíti herjaði í vestrvíking ok vann Dyflinni á Írlandi ok Dyflinnarskíði ok gerðisk þar konungr yfir) and "he [Ketil Gufa] had been on viking expeditions in the British Isles and brought Irish slaves from there" (Old Norse: hann hafði verit í vestrvíking ok haft (ór) vestrvíking þræla írska). (I have taken the Old Icelandic text from part I of Jakob Benediktsson's edition in the Íslenzk fornrit, dated 1986.)

Both Zoëga's Concise Dictionary and Cleasby & Vigfusson are quite old, and in both cases deal with Old Icelandic (i.e. Old Norse), not modern Icelandic language. So here too, the anonymous user is probably correct in saying the usage is archaic. For what it is worth, the Icelandic Wikipedia's article on the British Isles is called Icelandic: Bretlandseyjar, lit. 'Britland islands'. In light of this, I think a rectification is in order. The IP user should probably be thanked and encouraged to use their rare abilities in Icelandic for the good, and not dismissed out of hand. The wisest fool in Christendom (talk) 17:39, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

I have rewritten the relevant section to remove the unsubstantiated material. The wisest fool in Christendom (talk) 17:58, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

WP:TLDR. The Banner talk 14:32, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

The Banner OK I'll sumamarize: you were wrong to "revert" and wrong to call the change "unsourced" (if you had read the source, you would have known. I have rectified your error and the errors that the IP editor was trying to fix. The wisest fool in Christendom (talk) 18:40, 10 October 2023 (UTC)