v1.0
Published 01/10/24
calmanta adj. [ˈkʰɑɫ̪͡ɑməᵰ̪d̪̥ə] ‘stout, brave’. Mackay (1897, 96) compares SG (Sutherland) calamand ‘stout’ with Ice. halmand ‘idem’; McDonald (2009, 360) considers the loan uncertain. However, Ice. halmand appears to be a ghost word (?through miscopying): at any rate, it seems not to occur in either Old Norse or Old Icelandic (NO; Cleasby 1874; Zoëga 1910); ?cf. ON karlmannligr adj. ‘manly, bold’ (NO), OIce. karlmann-ligr ‘idem’ (Cleasby; Zoëga), with karlmann, the stem form of karlmaðr m. ‘man, male’, + the adjectival suffix -ligr.
The form calamand occurs in two poems by the 18th-century Sutherland poet Iain MacAoidh (c.1690–c.1750). It should probably be written calmand, with stressed epenthesis (svarabhakti) between l + m, as the contexts suggest: calamand : talmhainn : sealbhach : falbhadh and talmhainn : dhealbh e : calamand : armailt (Rose 1851, 112, 124).
Although the spelling calamand is retained in Black 2001, 154, and Dwelly App. Note that, while stressed epenthesis would be expected in West and most of North Sutherland, the epenthetic vowel would be treated as a normal unstressed vowel in the most easterly part of North Sutherland and in East Sutherland (cf. SGDS Item 283: cuirm, Points 128–38 and 139–50). Iain MacAoidh was from Mudale, west of Altnaharra, due south of Melness (Point 134).
SG calmand is no doubt an apocopated form of calmanda, preferrably written calmanta (so AFB˄) – there is no phonemic distinction between nd and nt in this environment – from SG calma
LASID IV, 278, 280, Item 877: calm [kɑʟɑ.mh], [kɑłɑm], in Assynt in South-west Sutherland (near SGDS Points 128–30); Wentworth 2003, s.v. sturdy: calma [ˈkʰ[ɑʟɑ]mə], in Wester Ross.
‘stout, brave’ (EG idem) + -anta, a development of the adjectival ending EG -ḋ(a)e after nasals, e.g. ealanta ‘skilled’ (SG ealain ‘skill, art etc.’), but later used as an adjectival ending in its own right, e.g. norranta (SG norra, norrag ‘sleep’) (Cox 2017, 152 + fn 6).