People Names [gothic-l]/GJOTA/CADMUS

[keth at ONLINE.NO]

Bertil wrote ,
>Esteemed listmembers, Am pleased to provide a collection of sources on readings of the connection between the people names of Goetar, Gauts, Goths, and Gutar. I thought this might be of asome assistance to those who want to sudy these questions further after the extensive discussion we have had on the subject here on the list.

>2. Goetar (sing. Goet), Gauts (sing. Gaut), Goths (sing. Goth), Gutar (sing. Gute)
>
>have also included the English summary of the article.
>
>"Goetar, goter, gutar" by Thorsten Andersson, pp. 6-21, Namn och Bygd - Tidskrift foer nordisk ortnamnsforskning, Uppsala, Vol. 84, 1996.
>

>As the present author has attempted to show in an earlier essay both *gautoz and *gutaniz are probably nomina agentis based on different ablaut grades of the verb Sw gjuta, Germ giessen 'to pour', in the sense of 'to pour semen', both of them thus meaning 'men, people'.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In an earlier post I already pointed out to you, that this matter of the connection between the "Ablaut" series of the ON vb. gjóta and the national names "Gautar" and "Gotar" is not a new result, but was already known in 1903, as mentioned by your countryman ADOLF NOREEN in his book on Altisländische Grammatik, § 160. I think you ought to add this to your list of references, since otherwise people might get the impression that this is an idea that derives from your essay.


>Professor Andersson has further developed his theory in the article on Goetar in
>
>Goetar, Hoops 2nd ed., Vol. 12, 1998,  5 pages
>
>Further Andersson has published
>
>Goetar, "Fraan goetarna till Noreens kor", Hyllningsskrift L. Elmevik, 1996,
>17 pages.
>
>Further there is a German work with much of interest:
>
>L. Ruebekeil,_Suebica. Voelkernamen und Ethnos_ (1992).
>
>Of importance is also Professor Elias Wessén in an article from 1969,
>
>E. Wessén, "Nordiska folkstammar och folknamn", Fornvännen 64, 1969, 22 pages.

There is however a trick to this, and that is that two words derived from different parts of the ablaut series of a verb, do not always have the same meaning. There are examples of this. (Does any one have an example of this in Gothic?) Hence, in the case of the verb gjóta, you cannot conclude that the Gautar are the same as the Gotar just because they fit into the same ablaut series. You probably never said so. But it might be a good idea to bring this to the reader's attention, since the reader might otherwise be inclined to draw that conclusion.

Then we come to the "semen" part, which you let follow as the next clause, whenever you mention that gjóta means to pour. But it could of course also mean "to cast", like in 'casting from metal'. In fact, since weapons were highly esteemed in antiquity, and especially the weapons cast from bronze, that were probably found to be vastly superior to the older weapons made of stone and bone, it would be a very natural thing to choose names related to certain weapons as the names of nations. An example is the Saxons, whose name relates to the short sword they used. Often such names weren't so straightforward either, since they were often tied to particular myths, and it is often quite impossible to understand the connotation of such a name or why it was given, if you do not know the myth. As example may serve the myth of Cadmus, and how he overcame a dragon, whose teeth Pallas told him to sow in the earth. This gave a harvest of armed men who engaged in battle against each other, but Cadmus was told not to interfere. Only 5 men survived, and they became the ancestors of the Thebians.  They were later referred to as "Spartoi", which has been explained as "sown men". But if you only knew the name "sown men", it would be very difficult to guess the myth that lies behind it. "To sow" is a verb, and the name Spartoi is derived from this verb. Likewise "gjóta" is a verb, and Gautar/Gotar might very well derive from it. But still, it is far from certain that it has to do with "semen", especially when the myth that lies behind it is unknown. The verb "to sow" is in fact a lot closser to "semen" than the verb "gjóta" is, and yet "the sown men" name is not related to "semen", but rather the teeth of a vanquished monster.

Best regards
Keth



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