48 Åke Viberg
Table 7. The inventories of basic vehicle verbs in the Germanic languages,
French and Finnish
Language Travel on
foot
walkingTravel
on horse-
backTravel in vehicle Make a
As a journey
passengerAs a driver Transportation
in vehicle
a. Germanic languages
Swedish gå rida åka
faraköra resaNorwegian gå ri kjøre reise
Danish gå ride køre rejse
Icelandic ganga ríða aka
keyraferðastfara fara
German gehen reiten fahren reisen
Dutch lopen rijden rijden reizen
gaan gaan
English walk ride drive travel
go go
b. French and Finnish
French marcher aller/monter
à chevalaller conduire
voyager
aller
Finnish kävellä ratsastaa ajaa matkustaa
mennä mennäA horse is strictly speaking not a vehicle, but since ‘ride’ has a tendency to be
extended and be used as a vehicle verb, information is included about verbs with
this meaning. Travelling on horse-back is expressed with a cognate of English
ride in all the Germanic languages. The extension into the field of vehicle verbs
proper has a natural starting point in describing motion of vehicles drawn by a
horse. As early as Middle English, ride could take on the extended meaning ‘to be
conveyed in a wheeled or other vehicle drawn by a horse’ (OED). From this, it was
a short step to riding in a train or a car, once these means of conveyance had been
invented. As we have seen, this development is most radical in Dutch among the
Germanic languages. English ride can also translate åka but is not very frequent
as a translation. In Dutch, being transported can be alternatively expressed with
rijden or gaan ‘go’, but for operating a vehicle and transportation in a vehicle,
rijden appears to be the basic alternative.
Among the languages studied, only Swedish seems to have a verb like åka
that only covers the sense of being transported (within the field of vehicle
verbs). In Medieval Swedish, aka could refer to driving and transportation as in
Modern Icelandic, in addition to its modern meaning of travelling as a passenger