#24: Rafmagn

Today's word describes something that people use all the time-- not just in Iceland, but in most parts of the world. It's rafmagn, which literally means "amber power." But you may know it better as electricty.

"Amber power" may seem like an odd way to describe electricity, but the English word "electricity" means the same exact thing. It comes from the neo-Latin word electricus ("amber-like"), which itself was derived from the Ancient Greek word for amber, ἤλεκτρον (electron). This is because the concept of electricity was first discovered circa 600 BC by the Ancient Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus, who noticed that rubbing animal fur against amber rods would cause them to attract certain objects like feathers and hair. Thales mistook this for a form of magnetism, but it was actually one of the first experiments to demonstrate what we know today as static electricity. Thus, when William Gilbert revisited these ideas some two millennia later and realized that Thales' phenomenon was distinct from magnetism, he coined the word electricus to describe this "amber effect." The resulting English word "electricty" was subsequently adopted by numerous other languages in Europe, among which are all of the Romance languages (cf. Italian elettricità, Portuguese eletricidade, etc.), many Slavic languages (cf. Russian электричество ["elektríčestvo"], Polish elektryczność), and many Germanic languages (cf. German Elektrizität, Dutch  elektriciteit, and Danish elektricitet). Icelandic, however, decided to use a calque instead and used its native word for amber (raf) and its word for power (magn) to make rafmagn. Among the Nordic languages, only Faroese did something similar (its word is ravmagn).

Since Iceland is a highly developed nation, rafmagn is a word that is part of everyone's daily vocabulary. Its genitive form, rafmagns, is also very common in compound words; a few examples include rafmagnstæki (electrical appliance), rafmagnsgítar (electric guitar), and rafmagnsverkfræði (electrical engineering). It's sometimes also shortened to raf- in compounds, as can be seen in rafvirki (electrician), rafleiðsla (electrical cable), and many others.

I propose a new compound word: máttarrafmagn ("Force Lightning").

WORD SUMMARY:

rafmagn, -s (n): electricty

Posted in: Compound Words, Nouns