The West Germanic word of the week is furlang, which is derived from the Old English word that also gave modern English 'furlong'.
I needed a word for 'stadium' and many (or most?) Indo-European languages here borrow from Latin and Greek.
In Old English, it was a measure of distance that was fixed in the 9th Century on the Roman stadium, which was one-eighth of a mile. The word 'stadium' in Latin thus meant, as 'furlang' in Old English, a measure of length, but it also grew to mean a foot race and was later adopted into languages to describe a stadium.
I presumed that the Old English 'furlang' could have taken a similar course. All in all, a nice Germanic word!
Contact me if you would like to know something specific about West Germanic or would like me to translate a word: seancanderson@sky.com
