[gothic-l] Re: Vladimir

Wed Aug 27 10:15:32 UTC 2003

Hi, Vladimir,

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "?????? ????????" <vegorov at i...> 
wrote:
> 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 am not in principle against unconventional, or "mad", hypotheses. 
You're absolutely right, such "mad" hypotheses have pushed human 
knowledge forward, becoming in time commonly accepted conventional 
theories, until they are overthrown by new, "mad" hypotheses. And a 
new theory must not necessarily abolish the old one; it may also 
integrate it in a more comprehensive framework of knowledge (like the 
relativist mechanics of Einstein integrated the classical Newtonian 
mechanics as a particular case). But if you wish to convince also 
others (including specialist, not only amateurs like us) about the 
validity of your unconventional hypotheses, you have to bring really 
solid, uncontestable arguments in order to support them. Otherwise 
they remain at a level of a personal intellectual game with no impact 
in the outside world.

Regarding the Hungarian language, being partially of Hungarian origin 
(my last name, Czobor, is Hungarian), I was strongly interested in 
the origins and history of the Hungarians and of their language, 
reading as much as possible on this subject.

> 
> 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'.
>

I don't understand why you don't find convincing this metathesis. It 
has many parallels in Germanic and, after all, reflects a Proto-
Germanic alternation *terw ~ *trew, which actually occurred at the 
root in discussion in Proto-Germanic times:
*trewa- "tree, wood" ~ *terwa- "tar"
(*trewa- "tree, wood" is reconstructed from Gothic triu, Old Norse 
tré, Old Sax. tréo, Old Eng. tréow > Eng. tree;
*terwa- "tar" is reconstructed from Old Eng. teru > Eng. tar, Dutch 
teer, Germ. Teer, Swed. tjära, and the Old Germanic loanword into 
Finnish: terva)
The alternation in Proto-Germanic is explained by the polymorphy of 
the Indo-European root meaning "tree, wood": *dru-, *drew-, *deru-, 
*derw-, *derew-, *drw-.
For me, "Tervingi" looks very Germanic. Why don't you want it to be 
Germanic? You are looking for any alternative (Finnish, Geto-Dacian), 
anything but not Germanic. Probably your reasons are extra-linguistic.
The statement that Wulfila's Gothic had no Umlauts comes from 
specialists in Germanic languages. According to them, this vowel 
mutation (metaphony or Umlaut) began in the Germanic languages in the 
5th/6th centuries C.E. and affected only West and North Germanic. 
Wulfila's Gothic (4th century) is attested from a period when no 
Germanic language was still affected by Umlaut, and when this 
phenomenon begun to spread, the East Germanic languages (including 
Gothic) where largely extinct. The occurrence of Umlaut in Crimean 
Gothic remains an unsolved problem, due to the quantitative and 
qualitative poorness of its attestation (words like hoef "head", 
broe "bread", oeghene "eyes" could suggest an o-umlaut in Crimean 
Gothic, but in fact we don't know what kind of sound noted Busbecq 
with "oe": it could be o-umlaut, like in older German writings, or a 
long [u], like in Busbecq's native language - Dutch).
Another argument could be the following: in the Greek words 
introduced by himself as loanwords into his Bible translation, 
Wulfila rendered the Greek letter "y" (upsilon, that at that time was 
pronounced in Greek like u-umlaut) with the Gothic letter for "w" 
(which has a Y-shape, like the Greek upsilon). But the "w" letter 
never appears in genuine Gothic words in vocalic position (i.e. with 
the value of u-umlaut), but always in consonantic position, being 
equivalent to English "w". Having in view that in a language system 
both rounded front vowels (i.e. u-umlaut and o-umlaut type vowels) 
appear together (or both, or none), it could be inferred that, if 
Gothic didn't have a u-umlaut type vowel, it also didn't have an o-
umlaut type vowel.

> 
> 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.
> 

It's not me who lumped everything here, but Koebler in 
his "Gothisches Wörterbuch". In the Annex 3 of this book Koebler put 
together in alphabetical order all known Gothic proper names, 
indicating the year or century of attestation, the source and, where 
possible, the etymology. Go to the website 
(http://www.koeblergerhard.de/germanistischewoerterbuecher/gotischeswo
erterbuch/GotischeNamen.pdf), pick up all the names where "waldan" is 
given as etymology, and you will get exactly the same result like me.
I never heard about Celtic names with -ld suffix.
(Attested ancient Celtic personal names are, for instance: 
at the Gauls: Bricius, Corbus, Lucios, Magalos, Orgetorix, 
Vercingetorix, Viriatus;
at the Celtiberes: Broccus, Boudica, Caranto, Magilo, Vindius;
at the Celts of Rhaetia & Vindelicia: Brennos/Brennus, Bolgios, 
Lonorius, Lutarius;
at the Galats of Asia Minor: Brogitarus, Deiotarus, Skiggomagos).
In fact, the -oald ending in Baroaldus and other such names 
represents an imperfect rendering of names ending in -(o)wald 
(with "w" pronounced like in English!).
Baroaldus is given as a Gothic personal name attested in A.D. 693, 
without reference.
Valdemarus is given as a Gothic personal name attested in A.D. 684, 
the references being:
- L. Garcia-Moreno: "Prosopografia del reino visigodo de Toledo", 1974
- G. Kampers: "Personengeschichliche Studien zum Westgotenreich in 
Spanien", 1979.
Indeed, this Valdemarus looked somehow suspect also for me, knowing 
that to the West- and North Germanic ending -mar corresponds a 
Gothic -mers or -mereis, rendered in Latin texts as -mer and later 
as -mirus (reflecting the Gothic evolution of long [e] > long [i], 
fact attested also in post-Wulfilan Gothic texts and in Crimean 
Gothic). Probably the bearer of this name, although living in 
Visigothic Spain, was not a Visigoth, but of West Germanic origin 
(most probably, Suebian).

Francisc

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