Suiones: Encyclopedia II - Suiones - Etymology

Suiones - Etymology

The form Suiones appears in the Roman author Tacitus's Germania. A closely similar form, Sweon(as), is found in Old English and in the work of Adam of Bremen, about the Hamburg-Bremen archbishops, they are denoted Sueones.

According to one theory (Schagerström 1931), the name is derived from Proto-Germanic *saiwi- meaning "lake" or "sea" resulting in *siwíoniz and later *swi-oniz meaning the "sea people". However, this root is not known to have produced any other derived names, and is considered unlikely.

Noréen (1920) proposed that Suiones is a Latin rendering of *Swihoniz, meaning "one's own (tribesmen)", derived from the same Indo-European root as the Latin suus (i.e. not from Latin but from the same reflexive pronominal root, a root also existing in Slavic languages). In modern Scandinavian, the same root appears in words such as svåger (brother-in-law) and svägerska (sister-in-law). The form *Swihoniz would in Wulfila's Gothic become *Swaíhans, which later would result in the form Suehans that Jordanes mentioned as the name of the Swedes in Getica. Consequently, the old North Germanic form would have been *SwehaniR which following the sound-changes in Old Norse resulted in Old West Norse Svíar and Old East Norse Swear. However, this root has not gained wide acceptance, which leads to the oldest theory of which the proposed root is widely accepted.

According to a third theory (v. Friesen 1915), it is not derived from the root *swih, but from the root *Swe and being originally an adjective, *Sweoniz, meaning "kindred". Then the Gothic form would have been *Swians and the H in Suehans a pleonasm. The Proto-Old Norse form would then have been *SweoniR which also would have resulted in the historically attested forms.

Although, scholars differ on the origins of the name, they agree that Suiones is the same name as Old Norse svíar and Old English Sweon(as). Even though the n has disappeared in the plural noun svear/svíar, it is still preserved in the old adjective which has become the noun designating modern Swedes: svensk.

The name became part of a compound, which in Old West Norse was Svíþjóð, (The Suione People), in Old East Norse Sweþiuð and in Old English Sweoðeod. This compound appears on runestones in the locatives i suiþiuþu (Aspa Löt, Sörmland), a suiþiuþu (Simris, Skåne) and a suaþiuþu (Tirsted, Lolland). The 13th century Danish source Scriptores rerum danicarum mention a place called litlæ swethiuthæ, which is probably the island Sverige (Sweden) near Stockholm.

The only Germanic nation having a similar naming was the Goths, who from the name *Gutans (cf. Suehans) created the form gut-þiuda.

The name Swethiuth and its different forms gave rise to the different Latin names for Sweden, Suethia, Suetia and Suecia as well as the modern English name for the country.

A second compound was Svíariki, or Sweorice in Anglo-Saxon, which meant "the realm of the Suiones". This is still the formal name for Sweden in Swedish, Svea rike and the origin of its current name Sverige.

See Sea-King.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Etymology", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki