The article discusses the uncertainty around the etymology and origin of the Old Norse gammi m. ‘Saami hut; earthen hut’, as well as its modern Scandinavian cognates, e. g. Icel. gammi m. ‘earthen hut’, Norw. gamme m. ‘id.’, Swed. dial. (Elfd.) gamme m. ‘porch; manger, cow manger’, Da. gamme c. ‘animal stall, sheepfold, fence, fencing’. The Northern Germanic terms are traditionally explained as an Indo-European heritage. There are three different competing etymologies for the Scandinavian words in question. The first explanation, proposed by two Norwegian linguists Hjalmar Seierstedt Falk (1859–1928) and Alf Torp (1853–1916), connects the Old Norse term for ‘earthen hut’ with the Indo-European term for ‘earth’ (PIE.*dhĝhom-). The second etymology, given by the Swedish researcher Evald Lidén (1862–1939), relates it to Arm. gom ‘cowshed, stable, sheepfold, pigsty’. He suggested a new Indo-European nominal root *ghom- ‘animal stall’ on the basis of the alleged comparison of the Germanic and Armenian forms. Twenty years ago, the Danish linguist Birgit Anette Olsen (born 1952) reinterpreted Lidén’s proposal, deriving the GermanoArmenian lexemes from the Indo-European root *ghos- ‘to eat’ (cf. Old Indic ghas- ‘to eat’) and finally explaining the protoform *ghos-mo(n)- as a nomen loci denoting ‘eating place’. In our opinion, neither a derivation from PIE.*dhĝhom- ‘earth’, nor a comparison with Arm. gom ‘stable, stall, pigsty’ can be accepted for phonological, semantic, and cultural reasons. It is suggested that all the Scandinavian words should be treated as having been borrowed from North Saami gammi ‘earthen hut’. In fact, the aforementioned Nordic appellatives are completely isolated in the Germanic and Indo-European language world, whereas the Saami word in question has numerous cognates in the Finno-Ugric languages and derives from a Finno-Permic archetype *kȣmɜ ‘granary, pantry’, e. g. Fi. kumo ‘grain barn’, Ost. kȯ̆ m ‘granary, pantry’.
Kowalski A.P., Ryhlo M., Witczak T.K. IS OLD NORSE GAMMI AN INHERITED OR A BORROWED WORD?