Noa-names are fascinating, the flipside to true names being taboo, because they would summon the thing.
Indo-european had a word for bear, but it's completely eradicated in germanic languages, and replaced with the noa-name: Bear. The brown one. The original rtko/arktos/ursus never made it.
Wolf works the same way in Swedish, the common word is "varg", which is a noa-name meaning cattle-killer. Ulv, derived from ulfr/wulf/vlk exists and means the same thing, but it's archaic.
"Ulv, derived from ulfr/wulf/vlk exists and means the same thing, but it's archaic."
Though it might be archaic in Swedish, but it is also the Norwegian word for wolf. I'd guess that it is really easy to adapt the archaic Swedish word if the person has lived or spent a lot of time in Norway.
Yes, most Swedes will understand "ulv" as well, but it's associated with stories for children from long ago, if that makes sense. It exists in expressions and derived words, so "werewolf" is "varulv", and "a wolf in sheep's clothing" is "en ulv i fårakläder", for example.
So the word is still there, it's not completely taboo like the original word for bear.
I’ve never heard of a noa-name, and my attempts to Google frustratingly return only meanings of the name Noa. Do you have any good starting points for me to learn about this? It’s so very up my alley, and I’d love to learn more.
'Noa' is a Polynesian term apparently; basically it's the opposite of 'taboo' (also Polynesian.)
It's not on the face of it a very confidence-inspiring source, but r/askhistorians is as good as Reddit gets, and the poster here wrote an actual book on the subject. Give it a read: https://thingsonreddit.com/things/13812/comments/
Indo-european had a word for bear, but it's completely eradicated in germanic languages, and replaced with the noa-name: Bear. The brown one. The original rtko/arktos/ursus never made it.
Wolf works the same way in Swedish, the common word is "varg", which is a noa-name meaning cattle-killer. Ulv, derived from ulfr/wulf/vlk exists and means the same thing, but it's archaic.