Re: Reingard
in reply to a message by thegriffon
Ah, I see you are thinking of a cognate of the High German Word Gerte "crop (whip)" as a potential source of gard. At least in High German, this IS feminine.I think it is a cognate of English garden, High German Garten in the sense "protected place". The latter word is masculine in High German. I see this leaves something to argue about the names' gender.
This message was edited 9/16/2024, 12:46 AM
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No I think Gerte crop is a source of semantic contamination. In English this is yard, which is both a rod, a unit of measure (from the root of Gerte) and an enclosure. The enclosure is normally m., but Gothic has a feminine compound cognate with cynegierd (royalcourt). Yard also has a sense of area of enclosed land (f.), but since enclosed land is normally m. it is linked perhaps incorrectly to the root of Gerte as if it is area enclosed by so many rods.