meaning "land on the water" or "island". The name Scandinavia would then mean "dangerous island", which is considered to refer to the treacherous sandbanks surrounding Scania. Skanör in Scania, with its long Falsterbo reef, has the same stem () combined with -, which means "sandbanks". Alternatively, Sca(n)dinavia and , along with the Old Norse goddess name , may be related to Proto-Germanic (meaning "shadow"). John McKinnell comments that this etymology suggests that the goddess Skaði may have once been a personification of the geographical region of Scandinavia or associated with the underworld. Another possibility is that all or part of the segments of the name came from the pre-Germanic Mesolithic people inhabiting the region. In modernity, Scandinavia is a peninsula, but between approximately 10,300 and 9,500 years ago the southern part of Scandinavia was an island separated from the northern peninsula, with water exiting the Baltic Sea through the area where Stockholm is now located. Appearance in medieval Germanic languages The Latin names in Pliny's text gave rise to different forms in medieval Germanic texts. In Jordanes' history of the Goths (AD 551), the form is the name used for their original home, separated by sea from the land of Europe (chapter 1, 4). Where Jordanes meant to locate this quasi-legendary island is still a hotly debated issue, both in scholarly discussions and in the nationalistic discourse of various European countries. The form as the original home of the Langobards appears in Paul the Deacon' Historia Langobardorum, but in other versions of Historia Langobardorum appear the forms , , and . Frankish sources used and Aethelweard, an Anglo-Saxon historian, used . In Beowulf, the forms and are used while the Alfredian translation of Orosius and Wulfstan's travel accounts used the Old English . Possible influence on Sámi languages The earliest Sámi joik texts written down refer to the world as in Northern Sámi) and in Skolt Sámi, meaning "Skaði's island". Svennung considers the Sámi name to have been introduced as a loanword from the North Germanic languages; "Skaði" is the giant (jötunn) stepmother of Freyr and Freyja in Norse mythology. It has been suggested that Skaði to some extent is modeled on a Sámi woman. The name for Skade's father Þjazi is known in Sámi as , "the waterman"; and her son with Odin, Sæmingr, can be interpreted as a descendant of , the Sámi population. Older joik texts give