[gothic-l] Re: Vladimir

Tue Aug 26 14:53:01 UTC 2003

Hi Francisc!

Thank you once more for your exhaustive criticism. 
Though you often force an open door.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

I do not reject conventional theories. The conventional 
theories are objects of learning at schools and bases 
of scientific researches. But most pieces of “common 
knowledge” started some time from a “mad” hypothesis. 
I only look for possible alternatives and I am always 
ready to admit my wrongness. And I do this in respect 
of the Hungarian language where I really confused the 
long ‘o’ and ‘o-umlaut’. (I feel myself very obliged 
to you for the lecture on old and modern Hungarian.)

I did not contest the Germanic ending in ‘Tervingi’. 
I only admitted that a Germanic word might have some 
“foreign” origin because your metathesis

terv- = *taírw- < *tirw- ~ triu, triw-.

does not look convincing. Also, I do not understand 
the statement that the Gothic language did not have 
umlauts. Why such an exclusion among other Germanic 
languages? Who did ever hear the Gothic enunciation? 
If Ulfila had not contrived special letters for umlauts 
this fact does not mean the umlauts did not exist in 
Gothic. For example, I suppose Gothic ‘ai’ sounded ‘ä’ 
(a-umlaut) rather than ‘e’.

As to ‘wald’ in ‘Vladimir’, I seem you lumped everything: 
real old German names, Celtic names with ‘-ld’ suffix 
(like Baroald), and late borrowings (like ‘Valdemar’). 
Though again, I have nothing against ‘wald’, which is 
more probable than ‘hloed’. I only mentioned a possible 
alternative.

Of course, of course, of course... You are right on the 
whole with probability of 99.99%. I do not argue, I reject 
nothing, I only reserve for my “mad” ideas the remaining .01%.

Sincerely grateful

Vladimir

-----Original Message-----
From: Francisc Czobor [mailto:fericzobor at yahoo.com]
Sent: Tuesday, August 26, 2003 3:31 PM
To: gothic-l at yahoogroups.com
Subject: [gothic-l] Re: Vladimir

Dear Vladimir,

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, ?????? ???????? <vegorov at i...> wrote:
> Dear Francisc,
> you remind me again commonly accepted conventional 
> representations on both 'Tervingi' and 'Vladimir'. 
> I am sincerely grateful to you, but I search just 
> nonconventional explanations.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns 
= "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
> 

"Conventional" theories are "commonly accepted" by most specialists 
in the domain, because they are well founded and appear to be the 
best explanation for the moment. In order to reject such 
a "conventional" theory, the rejection and the alternative theories 
have to be well founded as well.

> 
> The ethnonym 'Tervingi' is found in Roman documents 
> rather than in old German scripts. How can we be 
> absolutely sure that this ethnonym had Gothic (German) 
> origin? For instance, as a curious thing, 'terv' in 
> the Finnish language means 'resin, pitch, tar, rosin'. 
> Further, in the Russian language, the same word is 
> 'smola'. And now we have a parallel 'tervingi'-'smolyane' 
> (also an old Slavic tribe, inhabitants of Smolensk) 
> rather than 'tervingi'-'drevlyane'. Or maybe 'drevlyane' 
> and 'smolyane' were the same? At least those were 
> neighbors. No, I do not state 'tervingi' being derivative 
> from Finnish 'terva', Lord forbid! But I would not 
> exclude a priori any version whatever mad should it seem.
> 

The word "Tervingi" is obviously Germanic because of the ending "-ing-
".
In old Germanic languages, the ending -ing-, with the variant -ung-, 
a suffuix denoting appartenence and origin, appears frequently at 
gentilic/tribal names. And it appears only added to Germanic roots. 
Some examples:
- at the Goths: Greutungi (in Old Norse: Gryting), Tervingi, 
Amelungen (MHG version);
- at the Vandals: Silingi, (H)asdingi;
- at the Franks: Merovingians, Carolingians (OHG: karlinga, 
charlinga, kerlinga), Lotharingia (OHG: lutringa)
- at the Germans: Niebelungen (in Old Norse: Niflungar), Thuringen 
(OHG: duringa, turingera);
- in Old Norse: Ynglingar;
Gentilic/tribal names of this type became soon place names, already 
in antiquity, attested in latinized forms: Ascalingium, Caspingium, 
Burungum, Bodungum, and in modern Germany: Sigmaringen, Th?bingen, 
Freising, Straubing, etc., as well as in England: Hastings, and 
elewhere in the Germanic world.
The derivation terv- < triu is not difficult at all: it is merely a 
metathetic variant:
terv- = *ta?rw- < *tirw- ~ triu, triw-.
(In Gothic, [i] becomes "a?", pronounced [e], before r, h, and hw).
Such metatheses are not uncommon in Germanic languages: think only 
about three ~ third in English, or about -brunn ~ -born (from 
Brunnen "spring, fountain") in German place names, or German brennen 
~ English burn, or German Ross < hros ~ English horse.
In conclusion: "Tervingi" is purely Germanic by form and perfectly 
explainable etymologically through Germanic, and moreover it doesn't 
make sense for a Germanic tribe to bear a non-Germanic name. It is 
mentioned only in Latin sources because we don't have any document 
written in Gothic dealing with Gothic history (and I hope you don't 
expect to find the word "Tervingi" in a translation of the Bible !!). 
The things are clear, from my point of view, and there is no need to 
find "alternative" explanations.
Regarding the Finnish word terva "tar", it is of Germanic origin!
The English word tar (Old English: teru), like the German word 
Teer "tar", come from a Proto-Germanic *terw(i)a "substance from 
trees, resin, tar" (from the Indo-European base *d(e)r()u "tree, 
wood", whence also Gothic triu, English tree, etc.). The Finnish word 
terva is one of the relatively numerous Old Germanic borrowings into 
Balto-Finnic languages from a source very close to Common Germanic 
(other examples, in Finnish, are: kuningas "king" < *kuningaz; 
rengas "ring" < *hrengaz, kulta "gold" < *gultha, etc.) Thus, your 
Finnish "terva" would not deny, but reinforce the Germanic character 
of the word "Tervingi"!

> 
> As such a "mad version", I consider the stem of 'Greutungi' 
> to be 'hroed', 'hroeth'. Of course, you can laugh. However- 
> The Latin language did not have tradition to show the 
> aspiration before a consonant (as opposed to the old Greek). 
> The aspiration could be either lost (compare Tacitus' 
> 'reudignii') or replaced by 'g'. The diphthong 'eu' was 
> usually applied in Latin to represent the o-umlaut 
> (I refer here to the same Hungarian Anonym written in 
> an exaggeratedly correct Latin) where Hungarian 'eloed' 
> (with o-umlaut, Eng. 'ancestor') is given as 'eleud'. So, 
> treating 'Greutungi' as 'Hroedungi' might be not so mad. 
> Then, if we should admit for a moment this possibility, 
> we could make a next step. As far as I can judge, in Gothic 
> 'hroed', 'hroeth' means something like 'famous, glorious, 
> renowned'. But a Russian word for these notions is 'slavnyj' 
> with the stem 'slav'. Or 'Slav'? Is not the ethnonym 'Slav' 
> a Slavic calque of Gothic 'hroed', 'hroeth', i.e. 'Greutungi'?
> 

In classical Latin, the letter "h" was pronounced as an aspiration 
rendering the Indo-European *gh (for example Lat. hortus < I.E. 
*ghort-, Lat. hostis < I.E. *ghostis, etc.). This aspiration begun to 
weaken already in Classical Latin and disappeared in the 3rd century 
C.E. (Carlo Tagliavini: "Le Origini delle lingue neolatine", Bologna, 
1972). Therefore, the Germanic "h" was rendered by Latin authors 
with "ch", used also for the transcripton of the Greek letter "khi".
Some examples for proper names:
Germanic tribal names: Chatti, Chamavi, Cherusci
Gothic names: Brunichildis, Gomacharius
Frankish names: Childeric, Chlodovec, Chlothar, Chlodomer, 
Childebert, Charibert
But Wulfila already used in the 4th century the Latin letter "h" for 
the Gothic [h] sound. and later, all the Germanic languages adopting 
Latin script used the letter "h" for [h].
But I don't know any example of Latin authors rendering the Germanic 
[h] with "g". What I know is that Modern Russian renders the [h] of 
Germanic and other languages with "g" (ex. Hague > Gaaga, Hawaii > 
Gavai, Havana > Gavana, Haiti > Gaiti, Hamburg > Gamburg, Himalaya > 
Gimalai, Hongkong > Gonkong, Honolulu > Gonolulu, Teheran > Tegeran).
Vladimir! Don't confuse Latin with Russian!
The assertion that in Old Hungarian [?] was written "eu" is totally 
wrong, and obviously originates from someone who has no idea about 
the history of the Hungarian language.
In Anonymus' chronicle, the word "el?d" (which in fact is written in 
Modern Hungarian not with the usual Umlaut, but with double acute 
stress, denoting a long [?] sound) appears as "Eleudu" because it 
contained the [e?] diphthong, which became in modern Hungarian the 
long [?] sound, through monophthongization (= diphthong 
assimilation). This phonetic evolution (ew/ev > e? > long ?) is 
attested in both inherited and borrowed Hungarian words.
Some examples in words inherited from Finno-Ugrian:
Finno-Ugric *kiBe (cf. Fin.& Est. kivi, Mord.E. k'ev/k'?v, Mord.M. 
k'ev') > Old Hung. kew, keu (12/13 century; pronounced [ke?]) > Mod. 
Hung. k? (with long [?]) "stone";
Uralic & Finno-Ugric *B?nge (cf. Fin. v?vy, Est. v?i, Mord.M. 
ova/ove, Saami vivv(-a)) > Old Hung. weu, wev (14th century, 
pronounced [ve?]) > Mod. Hung. v? (with long [?]) "son-in-law"
Some examples in old borrowed words:
Old Turkic *kevrish (cf. Nogai k?irish, Kumyk g?ir?ch, Chuvash 
kavrysh) > Old Hung. keurus, keures > Mod. Hung. k?ris (with long 
[?]) "ashtree" (the Old Turkic loanwords in Hungarian have in general 
a Chuvashic character)
Slavic cev > Old Hung. chew (15th century, pronounced [che?]) > Mod. 
Hung. cs? [with long [?]) "tube, pipe"
Slavic Severin "northern" > Old Hung. Zeverin, Zeurin > Mod. Hung. 
Sz?r?ny, a place name.
The fact that where in Modern Hugarian is a long [?], in Old 
Hungarian was [e?], is also confirmed by the fact that in old 
loanwords from Hugarian into Romanian (common names and place names), 
where in Modern Hungarian is a long ?, in Romanian appears "eu", 
whereas in modern loanwords Hungarian ? (both short and long) is 
rendered in Romanian as "io".
In Gothic there was no Umlaut, no ? or ? sound.
You are influenced by Old Norse forms like Hl?dur or hr?d-, but any 
specialist in Germanic languages could explain you that the Old West 
Norse (Old Icelandic) ? [or "oe"] reflects the old Germanic diphthong 
[au], thus Hl?dr comes from a Germanic *hlaudaz, and hr?d- from 
*hraud-.
Moreover, in Old Icelandc, "Greutung" appears as "Gryting" (with the 
normal evolution eu/iu > y). And the Old Icelanders had no reason to 
replace "h" with "g", because the "h" sound exists both in Old and 
Modern Icelandic, where it is still kept also before consonants.
In conclusion, a derivation Greutungi < "Hroedungi" doesn't look 
plausible at all. 

> 
> All this looks ridiculous. And it is ridiculous, but on 
> a single condition: if 'Tervingi' does not mean anything like 
> 'famous, glorious, renowned' in some other language. The 
> Geto-Dacian language seems a best candidate for these purposes.
> 

As far as I know, there is no known Geto-Dacian or Thracian word 
looking like "Tervingi". The root for "famous, glorious" in Geto-
Dacian appears to be bist/bost, found in the name of the Dacian king 
Burebista, and in "tarabostes", meaning "noble men" in Dacian (I have 
to check this at home).

> 
> And returning to 'Vladimir'. You stated 
> 
> "This makes more plausible the connection of Slavic "vlad-" rather 
> to the Germanic "wald-" than to "hlud-"".
> 
> You would be right should Vladimir be a title. But it was a name. 
> The component 'Wald', though relevant to titles, was unproductive 
> in old Germanic names while 'Hloed(r)' is very typical for them.
> 

However, wald- appears quite frequently in Germanic names. Some 
Gothic examples (attested in Latinized forms): Ansoaldo, Arvaldus, 
Astrwalds, Aswald, Baroaldus, Baswald, Evroald, Gainwald, Seswald, 
Silawald, Valdefredus, Valdemarus, Valderedus, Waldarich/Valdericus, 
Valduigius.

The abbreviation that I used are:
Est. - Estonian
Fin. - Finnish
Hung. v Hungarian
I.E. - Indo-European
Lat. - Latin
MHG - Midle High German
Mod. v Modern
Mord.E. - Mordvin Erza
Mord.M. - Mordvin Moksha
OHG - Old High German

My main sources are:
- for Germanic gentilic/tribal and place names in -ing-/-ung-:
Herwig Wolfram: "Die Germanen", Verlag C.H.Beck, M?nchen, 1997
Werner K?nig: "dtv-Atlas zur deutschen Sprache", Deutscher 
Taschenbuch Verlag, M?nchen, 1994
- for Old Norse phonetics:
Andreas Heusler: "Altisl?ndische Elementarbuch", Carl Winter 
Universit?tsverlag, Heidelberg, 1967
- for Hungarian etymologies:
"A magyar nyelv t?rt?neti-etimol?giai sz?t?ra" ("The historical-
etymological dictionary of the Hungarian language"), 5 volumes, 
Academic Publishing House, Budapest, 1984, 1995.
"Chronicon Anonymi Bele Regis Notarii v Gesta Hungarum" (original 
Latin text with Romanian translation), "Miracol" Publishing House, 
Bucharest, 1996
- for Daco-Getic / Thracic etymologies:
Al.Rosetti: "Istoria limbii rom?ne" ("The History of the Romanian 
language"), Scientific & Encyclopaedic Publishing House, Buharest, 
1984
- for English etymologies:
"Webster's New World College Dictionary on Power CD", Zane 
Publishing, Inc., 1994-1996
- for Gothic words (proper and common names): 
Gerhard K?bler: "Gothisches W?rterbuch", 2nd Edition, 1989

Francisc

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