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>Answering two messages in one: >Ron: Although the frigate is described as "Finnish," >there was no independent Finland before 1917. Until >1815, most of Finland, except the southeastern part, >was ruled by Sweden. The rest was part of the Russian >Empire. So we are supposing that the "frigate" was >Swedish. > >John: The "-et" suffix is the definite article in >Swedish, that is, "the." "-et" indicates that the >noun is neuter rather than non-neuter in gender (the >original Indo-European and later Germanic masculine >and feminine genders having collapsed in Swedish). >Unfortunately, both of the Swedish nouns spelled >"Hopp" are nonneuter, so the gender doesn't tell us >whether the name meant "Hope" or "Spring, jump, leap." > It's like an English vessel named the "Spring." Is >it named for the season, the jumping movement, or the >water source? In Swedish, the definite article is >usually used with ship names that are not proper nouns. > >Looking at the inscription on the bell more closely: > >GORDAF I.A: KIEMPE A° 1774 >"Af" is a Swedish preposition meaning "of, by, with." >I would guess that this line is really "GORD. AF I.A. >KIEMPE A° 1774," that is, "{participle} by I.A. Kiempe >in the year [Latin "anno" = "Aº"] 1774." The most >likely translation would be "Cast" or "Made by . . .," >but my dictionaries don't have any Swedish words >beginning with "Gord..." and I suspect that this is a >slight misreading, but I don't know enough Swedish to >be able to guess what the correct word or abbreviation >might be. Modern Swedish doesn't use the letter "C" >initially except in foreign words, so "Cord." doesn't >help. > >FREGATT SKIEPPETT HOPPETT IFPAN UHLEOBORG >Clearly this starts with "Frigate the ship The >{Hope/Leap}." I think "ifpan" is a misreading of the >Swedish preposition "ifrån" (in all capitals, IFRÅN"), >meaning, in this case, "from." So we have "The >frigate-ship Hope/Spring from Uhleoborg." Although >"-borg" is a suffix found in many Swedish place names >(it's the equivalent of the German "Burg," "fortress, >castle"), I can't find an "Uhleoborg." "Uleaborg" is >the modern Swedish version of Finnish "Oulo," a >coastal town on the eastern (modern Finnish) shore of >the Gulf of Bothnia (quite far up), possibly a home >port. The only hit I could get in Google on >"Uhleoborg" is to a page in Finnish, but I couldn't >actually find it when I got to the page. Perhaps >"Uhleoborg" is an old spelling of "Uleaborg." > >John is right that the Royal Swedish Navy did not have >a frigate (or ship of the line or corvette) named >"Hoppet" at any time after 1774, so <i>Hoppet</i> must >have been a private ship, perhaps of the Swedish East >Indies Company. It might have been described as a >"frigate ship" because it was armed. What it would >have been doing off St. Pierre & Miquelon is anybody's >guess. A North Atlantic gale or hurricane would not >have driven it <b>west</b>. > >Since brass bells are expensive but durable, it's >possible that the bell was cast for a private Swedish >"ship-frigate" named <i>Hoppet</i> in 1774 but that >the bell was salvaged when the ship was broken up some >time later, and sold for re-use on a vessel of a >different name and nationality. The ship with the >second-hand bell might have been wrecked on St. Pierre >or Miquelon. > >If Guy can't read this, I hope one of our >French-English diglots will write a précis for him.

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