Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0001681, Sat, 8 Feb 1997 15:59:26 -0800

Subject
Re: Nova Zembla - info please (fwd)
Date
Body
EDITOR's NOTE. Here, thanks to Sergey Il'yin, is the OED entry on "Novaya
Zembla" See also Sasha Dolinin's comment of today.
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From: Sergey Il'yn <isb@glas.apc.org>

----
At 11:51 2/7/97 -0800, you wrote:
>
>I'm 100% positive that "Nova Zembla" is not a real place. What is a real place
>is an archipelago of the Arctic Ocean, called Novaia (or Novaja, or Novaya)
>Zemlia (or Zemlya). This spelling, so close to real Russian toponym, contains,
>however, the "blya"-syllable, familiar to all the native speakers, which makes
>the word unmistakably Nabokovian. - V.Vainer
>
>
>> I can't imagine one needs permission to call a store Nova Zembla.
>> It's a real place. -C. Nicol
>>
>
From OED2 on CD-ROM:

1.
Zembl(i)an, a. and n. rare.
[f. (Nova) Zembla = Russ. Novaya Zemlya _new land'.]
a. adj. Belonging to Nova Zembla, a group of islands in the Arctic Ocean
north of Archangel in Russia; hence, arctic.
b. n. A native or inhabitant of Nova Zembla.
1674 tr. La Martinière's New Voy. 34 Samoiedes, Siberians, Zemblians.
Ibid. 122 We descryed_a Zemblane in a Canoe.
1749 Cawthorn Poems (1771) 179 Thy unwearied soul_gave to Britain half the
zemblian sky.
1806 Shee Rhymes Art (ed. 3) 10 Lybian sands, or Zemblan snows.

2.
1881 Athenæum 26 Feb. 294/1 That island_which for ages our geographers have
insisted on Latinizing from the Russian Novaya Zemlya into Nova Zembla.

3.
1659 Pell Impr. Sea 275 In Greenland, and Nova Zembla, &c. which onely in
Summer-time may bee spoke with.

And so on

Sergey B. Il'in
<isb@glas.apc.org>
Moscow

Nashe delo veseloe.