[gothic-l] The Name Gepid

[Alburysteve at AOL.COM]

Hi Keth:

> I don't know if it was already mentioned, but Iordanes explained
>  the origin of the name "Gepidae", in that one of the 3 ships
>  that the original Goths used under their king Berig to emigrate
>  from the island Scanza, was lagging behind the two other ships,
>  and that the name "Gepidae" derives from this; for here Iordanes
>  adds the explanation "nam lingua eorum pigra gepanta dicitur".
>  (pigra = lazy, slow, dull)

Thank you for providing this.  I had not seen the Latin text before.

>  It is a pity that the number of Gothic words that are found in the
>  Gothic Bible are so few, and that I am unable to find this Gothic
>  word that Iordanes mentions here : gepanta. In fact, I looked
>  both under g as well as under p. The idea of looking under p,
>  derives by analogy from, for example, German, where a word for "fast"
>  (geschwind) is closely related to MHG "swind", because -ge is
>  simply a prefix used to build words, which I assume has been operative
>  in Gothic as well as in Old German. (I don't know what the technical
>  term for such a prefix is. Is there any one who can give a more
>  professional explanation of the phenomenon?)

My linguistic abilities are also limited and this issue is deviled by several 
problems.  Jordanes' may be a spurious folk etymology (gepanta) and unrelated 
to the (tribal?) name Gepid.  The term Gepid itself is probably a Latinized 
form of a Germanic word which must be understood before any meaning can be 
extracted, rather like finding "City of Constantine" in the Turkish word 
Istanbul.

Notwithstanding the correctness of Jordanes' etymology, gepanta is suspicious 
because:
1) it has no known Gothic correspondance, 
2) (as you've said) it begins with what could be the common Gothic prefix ga-
3) and is ends with what could be the common Gothic gerundive suffix -anda.

>  I see, however, that Gothic has very few words that begin on p.

This is because Gothic p- comes from proto Indo-European b- and for some 
reason, very few IE words begin with b- (for example, check your Latin 
dictionary).

>  But there are many words that begin on f. I also remember from
>  Old Norse that the language often vacillates between p and f for
>  a given sound (e.g. eptir/eftir). Hence it seems to me that one
>  may equally well look for a Gothic word that begins on an f, and
>  has a meaning that is related to slowness. But I was unable to
>  find any. 

Being mindful that Jordanes "slow" etymology may be a false track and the 
name of the Gepidae may have meant something completely different.

> Then it strikes me that sometimes there is also a close
>  relationship between p and b. Hence I should also look for a Gothic
>  word that begins with a b, and means "slow" or something similar.
>  I then recall the Norwegian word for "to wait" = å bie, which
>  I do find in the Gothic dictionary as the verb *beidan. Associated
>  with it are also words like *ga-beidan = to endure, which is actually
>  close enough to the name Gepid that we seek to explain. Could this
>  then be the solution ?  (I wonder) ..
>  Another possible solution, that is very similar, lies in the verb *baidjan,
>  that means "to excercise a constraint" (moral), with which there are
>  also associated forms like *gabaidjan.

Words like beidan (to bide) and beid-jan (cause to bide) seem like plausible 
roots for a tribal name, though I'm unaware of a comprehensive study of this 
subject.  How/why peoples styled themselves (or were styled by others) with 
names like Marcomannns, Sueves, Langobards, Wendals, Tervings, Gruenthings, 
Saxons, etc might be revealing in this effort. Still, the best starting point 
is an educated guess at the East Germanic word that classical writers 
intended when they wrote "Gepid".   Was it Gabaid (like you suggest) or 
Haband or Giband or Gabind?  

Rgds,

Steve O'Brien
Albury, Ontario

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