[gothic-l] Re: Gothic word for King

[Francisc Czobor]

Hi Le,

--- In gothic-l at y..., "Le Bateman" <LeBateman at N...> wrote:
> When I asked about the word for King I was thinking of a word 
similar to the
> Cyng in OE.

Wulfila uses only the word þiudans for "king", being derived from 
þiuda "people". But all the West and North Germanic languages use 
words descending from Common Gmc. *kuningaz (OE cyning, Eng. king, OHG 
kuning, chuning, Germ. König, ON konungr, Icel. konungur etc.), 
derived from Gmc. *kunja- "kin". This word was borrowed, probably in 
Common Germanic time, by Finnic (Finnish kuningas "king") and Slavic 
(Slavonic kunenzu "prince"). The old Germanic borrowings in Finnic are 
probably from Proto-Norse, but those of Slavic are most probably (in 
some cases sureky) from East-Germanic (the Slavs were subjects of 
Ermanaric's Gothic Empire, and generally in ancient times their 
Germanic neighbors were East Germanic tribes). Thus it looks probably 
to me that in Gothic may existed also the form *kuniggs (from Gmc. 
*kuningaz), having in view that the basis of this word is attested 
also in Gothic: kuni "race, tribe".

Francisc



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