[gothic-l] Fwd: Re: [tied] Harii/Hirri into (H)eruli?

Sat Dec 14 12:02:17 UTC 2002

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, george knysh <gknysh at y...> wrote:

> >(Piotr Gasiorowski): This theory was once popular but
> there's no
> > linguistic support for it. To begin with, Latinised
> > "Harii" has Latin <h-> corresponding to PGmc. *x-
> > (it's articulation seems to have been weak in East
> > Germanic already in Roman times). Germanic *xarja-
> > means 'army, host, multitude', and <harii> is
> > interpreted as reflecting the corresponding
> > collective or plural form. *xarja- in turn comes
> > from PIE *korjo-, and the etymology of "Harii" is
> > strengthened by the fact that *korjo- occurs in
> > Celtic ethnonyms like "Tricorii" and "Petrucorii".
> > To sum up, the <h> is not due to hypercorrection in
> > Latin.

Just an association: Who were the Kariones of Ptholemeus at Don?

> > I can't locate the passage where Pliny speaks about
> > the "Hirri". Can you help me with that? I'd be
> > surprised if the name were a variant of "Harii"
> > (unless it's hopelessly garbled), but I can't
> > attempt an identification with no historical and
> > geographic background whatsoever.

After reading the text Piotr accepted in a later mail that the Hirri 
could be the Harii. 

......
> > The Latin <h> in "Heruli" _is_ hypercorrect if Runic
> > <erilaz> and the related Northwest Germanic 'man of
> > worth' words (OE eorl, ON jarl, OS erl, all <
> > *erlaz) have anything to do with this name (which is
> > the received opinion). Quasi-ablaut variation
> > involving *i ~ *u ~ *a ~ zero is common in Germanic
> > suffixes, so if both *er-la- and *er-ila- occur,
> > *er-ula- may easily occur as well (cf. *xak-il-o: ~
> > *xak-ul-o: 'flax-comb, hackle'), and no help from
> > the Greeks is required. The suffix seems to be
> > primarily adjectival, as in *mikila- 'great' (cf.
> > Gk. megalo-). It is _not_ diminutive. I suppose
> > somebody connected <erilaz> with Gothic attila
> > 'daddy', but the latter is a "weak" (nasal) stem,
> > *att-ilan- (nom.sg. *attilo:(n) > Goth. attila),
> > whereas *er-(i)la-z is a formally different "strong"
> > masculine (very aptly for this word). If it had
> > existed in Gothic, it would be something like
> > *aírils there.

That excludes probably the "-ila"-possibility, but as I read his 
explanation he has opened the closed door:

The "H" and the "u" does not exclude that "ErilaR" could be a 
Germanic parallel to "Herul-" - but of course it is neither proved 
that they cover the same people.

Actually this was the purpose behind my Hirii-suggestion, and it does 
not surprise an amateur considering the different ways we spell a 
geographical name in our different languages today.  

However a Harii/ErilaR connection is not excluded by the above and 
such a Harii-connection will not exclude an old Herulian connection 
to Scandinavia either. 

George's new archaeological information has shown new aspects - to me 
at least - about Scandinavians in the Gothic surroundings. As I told 
earlier also Danish archaeologists have made finds pointing at a 
close connection between these regions along the old traderoute 165-
360 AD. 425-565 AD connections are found between Scandinavia and the 
Carpathian Bassin and from 565 AD along the Rhine, the Upper Danube 
and England.

If there are no protests against Piotr's comments or my 
interpretation hereof, I have to work with this new information and 
sources before discussing further.

Thanks a lot George. You (and Piotr) have been to a great help.

Troels    

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