There is no European language where val means house/home/abode? — though Valhalla does not mean “abode of Allah,” the second half really does have the ancient semantic idea of a protected/covered dwelling or great residence.
There is something genuinely intriguing about the word Valhalla . The temptation is to hear val and wonder whether it might somehow mean house, home, abode, or dwelling in an older European language—and whether the resemblance to Allah might point toward some forgotten cultural connection. Linguistically, however, the evidence does not support the idea that Valhalla means “abode of Allah.” But the question becomes much more interesting once we look carefully at what hǫll , the second half of the Old Norse Valhǫll , actually meant. The Old Norse Valhǫll is conventionally analysed as valr + hǫll : valr meaning “the slain,” particularly those fallen in battle, and hǫll meaning “hall.” Thus, literally, Valhǫll is the Hall of the Slain . The same val- appears in valkyrja , the “chooser of the slain.” This makes the traditional etymology quite secure: val- is not the Old Norse word for “house.” But hǫll is considerably richer than the modern English word hall suggests. The Germ...
