Talk:Duergar (folklore)
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I did not write the article, but the person who did used the source A Field Guide to Demons, Fairies, and Other Subversive Spirits by Carol K. Mack and Dinah Mack, who had their own citations at the end of the book. I'm disturbed by the fact that the story in the book is told pretty much verbatim with no citation, i.e. plagiarism.
What is the source for this? Duergar or dvergar is Old Norse for dwarfs/dwarves. --Salleman 23:43, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
- I have added a {{disputed}} tag. Please source. --Salleman 06:49, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Duergar: Comes from Norse or influenced by Norse?
I think we should say that the word 'duergar' comes from the Norse 'Dvergar' or may be influenced by it. Reason is that the first part of the word 'due' sounds more like the English 'dwar' (as in Dwarrow and Dwarf) and may as well be spelt 'Dwargar' or 'Dwerger' (infact, I have seen it spelt like this in Northumberland). The end part is the same 'gar' as the Norse version.
I am not saying that it doesn't come from 'dvergar', all I am saying is that it may actually be influenced as the common Old English (Middle English and Modern English) was similar anyway. Most words that were similar to Norse words ended up being influenced rather than replaced.
I also find it odd that the Yorkish don't have this form of 'Dwarf' in their dialect also... King Óðinn The Aesir 16:39, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
- Salleman is right: duergar is simply the Old Norse cognate (normalised spelling: dvergar) of Modern English dwarves/dwarfs. In manuscripts and early printed books, u and v were used interchangeably. I've just added some comments on the "talk" page to the article Dwarf which are relevant to this article and to Simonside Hills. In a nutshell, the form and spelling of duergar betray it as a modern day (19th or early 20th century) antiquarian application of the Old Norse word to beings in English folklore; if the word had been inherited from a Viking Age loan, it would have undergone the same sound changes as Old English dweorg, the ancestor of our dwarf and the obsolete dwarrrow, etc. Dependent Variable 23:19, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
Ah, but would it go through the same sound changes? Many Northumbrian Dialect words have not undergone the same changes as has in Standard English, it's one of the reasons some consider Northumbrian to be it's own language. Many dialect words are in fact similar to their Old English ancestors, and slightly removed from their Standard English counterpart. Take the Old English 'micel' which became the Middle English 'muchel' and the Standard English 'much', however survives in Northumbrian as 'muckle'. That fact that 'Duergar' is an anglicised form of an Old Norse plural for 'dwarves' (the singular 'dwarf' was 'dvergr') could just mean that the author wrote it in the same style as the Norse words. Actually as the wikipedian above states, it has been written not only as 'duergar' but also as 'dwergar' and though that could infact be used as an anglicisation of the Norse words, it is also closer to the the Middle English 'dweorh' (pronounced like 'dwairk' or 'dwairg') and the Middle English 'dwerg'. Sigurd Dragon Slayer (talk) 11:25, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
