Comments on: Where'd Borges Get Dem Werds?

Question: Where'd Borges Get Dem Werds?

Rev. Syung Myung Me — Sat, 05 Nov 2005 08:56:37 -0800

On behalf of a friend, though it actually sounds like an interesting question and I think I'd like to know too: Could you put up something asking about whether there's a real-world source/derivation for the words "hron" and "hronir" used in Borges' "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius"?

By: Hildago

Hildago — Sat, 05 Nov 2005 09:25:18 -0800

There's a river in Slovakia called Hron, but I don't know if that makes a difference.

Hron sounds, to me, like the kind of word I would make up if I wanted something that sounded Scandinavian. I say this as someone who doesn't speak any of the languages, and is only a Borges afficionado, not a scholar.

What I can say is that Borges read extremely widely, so if it's an obscure reference, you may have trouble pinning it down. I believe he learned Icelandic at a fairly old age (after he'd gone blind) in order to understand the Sagas, but this was many years after he wrote Tlon... so that's no help either.

Here, for reference, is a page with some Borges resources, including a dictionary. The dictionary is of existing words used in Borges' writing, though, not words he coined.

If someone can track this down and answer it, that would be pretty impressive.

By: BigBrownBear

BigBrownBear — Sat, 05 Nov 2005 10:08:29 -0800

i think I remember derrida writing about the meaning...i've poked around online but cant find anything :(

By: halcyon_daze

halcyon_daze — Sat, 05 Nov 2005 20:19:31 -0800

Another possible fiction--

"Hron" is fairly close to the Arabic "Harun" and the Hebrew "Aharon," which means "exalted" in both languages. This is also how the name "Aaron" was derived, i.e., the brother of Moses.

I think it was fairly common in Borges day for Arabic translations to omit certain vowels, and change a u to an o here and there (perhaps for Hebrew as well--that I don't know.) It's quite possible that he came across a text wherein "Hron" was a common occurrence.

Given the story, in which I thought I detected a certain ironic view of exalted-ness, it's a possibility at least.