[gothic-l] Re: Toponym

[Håkan Liljeberg]

--- In gothic-l at egroups.com, Grsartor at a... wrote:

Hails allaim!
I also heard the theory that finnish "Ahvenmaa" could come from ahva-
, meaning water, stream. Finnish ahven means bass, maa means land
(island), but the smilarity can explain why the finns conserved ahva- 
in the name. Maybe it was the finnish historian Matti klinge who 
wrote about this. Maybe it was called *ahvalanda. I think that the 
theory that Ahvenmaa contains the proto-germanic *ahva, is right on 
the spot!



Gutwulfs
Håkan Liljeberg


> About whether the Swedish place-name Aaland contains a relic of 
Gothic AHVA, 
> water. It would not be surprising if the two were related, but I 
think some 
> kind of learned argument would be needed to persuade the world that 
the "aa" 
> actually came from Gothic.
> 
> According to Wright, Go. AHVA is cognate with Old High German AHA 
and Old 
> English EA. I think it is also supposed to be related to Icelandic 
A (with an 
> accent) meaning "river". It therefore seems likely that several 
languages 
> will have words, or elements of place names, that are akin to AHVA, 
without 
> their people's necessarily having had contact with Goths. For 
example, some 
> place-names in England, such as Mersey, contain a relic of EA/AHVA. 
The 
> Scandinavian form survives in the name of the Scottish town of 
Thurso (bull 
> river).
> 
> Gerry T.


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