What city is called Kænugarður in Icelandic, and why this name?

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What city is called Kænugarður in Icelandic, and why this name?

Question #119121. Asked by author.

Related Trivia Topics: Geography

looney_tunes

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looney_tunes

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Kiev. But I can't find an English-language explanation of the reason for the name, and can't understand what I can locate.

http://is.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%ADev

Dec 05 2010, 4:39 AM

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Answer 1

It will probably come from one of the legendary founders of the city - Kyi

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyi,_Schek_and_Khoryv The Icelandic name will translate to Kyi's enclosure (garðu as in Ásgarðr, the early form of Asgard). There has been a vowel shift somewhere along the line, æ being a shorter vowel than the double i in Кий, but it looks likely to me.

Answer 2

author
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author
23 year member
2834 replies

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Well, the term is high Icelandic, and I'm not sure if it's in normal use anymore.

http://is.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%ADev

Dec 05 2010, 6:02 PM

Answer 3

It was the Vikings who called Kiev by this name. You can read about it in the "Flateyjarbok". I'm not sure about the mening of the word. "Garður" is city, for sure. But I'm not sure about "Kænu". It might refer to a boat type called "Kæna"?

http://www.archive.org/stream/flateyjarbokens02ungegoog/flateyjarbokens02ungegoog_djvu.txt

Answer 4

I think it's a small sailing boat, called "Kahn" in German.
Kænugarðar was the capital of the old Garðar empire colonized by the Vikings in Russia/Ukraine. (In Norwegian called Gardarike).

KÆNA, u, f. [Germ. kahn], a kind of boat, Edda (Gl.): a nickname, Fms., freq. in mod. usage. Kænu-garðar, m. pl. a part of ancient Garðar (q. v.), Fb. iii.

http://norse.ulver.com/dct/cleasby/k.html

Answer 5

author
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author
23 year member
2834 replies

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I think the English name for this boat is an ark (river boat).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ark_%28river_boat%29

Dec 05 2010, 6:31 PM

Answer 6

author
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author
23 year member
2834 replies

Answer has 1 vote.

Or maybe it's called a wherry?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wherry

Dec 05 2010, 6:36 PM

Answer 7

From looney's link "Kíev, eða Kænugarður" - eða meaning or. I agree that your boat looks better linguistically, but what would the the genitive of the Viking form of Kyi be? (I have a limited ability in reading Icelandic, and rely on position and context. Going the other way is harder...)

What city is called Kænugarður in Icelandic, and why this name?

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