Talk:Skagerrak
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[edit] two r's in Skagerrak
Can someone please explain the difference or what is right (and why) between skagerrak and skagerak (one or two r's) Gorm 15:44, 25 Nov 2003 (UTC)
- Hi Gorm, it seems late for a reply now, but skagen-rak assimilates to 2 r's.Dave 20:28, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
[edit] dpv and the rubble
Hello dpv. I just encountered you in Skagen. Harasser, hey? Very funny. I bet you are Danish. As you seem engaged in legitimate editing I assume you are not a vandal. Well, I'm leaving it because I have no good reason to dispute it. What occurs to me though is that your derivation is Skagen-centered. A resident of Skagen might see it that way but what would a mariner care for that? Also your derivation smacks of social struggle from the nobleman's point of view but most sailors I doubt were noble and in any case the harassed if they were noble would want to deny any such thing. They liked to stick their heads in the sand (most of them). So, I would say, it is not a strong derivation but perhaps should not be excluded on that account.
I suppose you might argue that because Denmark ruled Scandinavia for so long the word ought to be Danish. As a point of information, do you know anything about the history of the word? When first used and how, etc.? It seems as though there ought to be an etymological dictionary of Danish place names. That doesn't guarantee their etymologies are going to be any better, but somebody ought to do more research to see if more light is available.Dave 20:28, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Original research
Skagerrak is an assimilation of Skagen-rak, named after Skagen, the northernmost tip of Jutland. There is no evidence of the name in ancient sources.
Rak is identical to Swedish rak (pronounced rawk), "straight"; i.e., Skagerrak is a stretch of straight sailing in the vicinity of Skagen. The ultimate source is the Proto-Indo-European root *reg-, "straight". If the Danish word rak ("rabble, riff-raff") is used, Skagerrak could be interpreted as "the harasser of Skagen", referring to the changeable maritime weather conditions.
I don't mean to be trolling here but using words like "could be" without sources makes me think this is original research more than anything else. Also
Kattegat is ancient, preceding the north Germanic languages as the source of Latin Codanus, which appears to have meant the combined waterways of Skagerrak and Kattegat. Kattegat, however, is obscene and therefore taboo in polite society. Skagerrak must be a substitution at some time after the dissimilation of north Germanic.
Is Kattegat obscene? News to me and I am Danish and originally from Jutland! Please provide sources or I will rephrase it myself to something more appropriate.
I am tagging the name section as original research. MartinDK 17:31, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
- Both Store Danske Encyklopædi and Politikens Nudansk Ordbog have a more serious interpretation, so I've replaced this section with something referenced. I've done the same at the article about Kattegat. Valentinian (talk) / (contribs) 21:30, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
