[gothic-l] Re: Gothic & Greek B in Slabonic

[llama_nom]

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, åÇÏÒÏ× ÷ÌÁÄÉÍÉÒ <vegorov at i...> wrote:
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> 
> Finnish borrowings from the Common Germanic are 
> an intriguing riddle that gives me no rest. 
> Where and when the Finns had contacts with speakers 
> of Common Germanic? Besides, is the form <hlaibaz> 
> really attested in Germanic? (BTW, the same question 
> in respect of the form <hlaibaR> in ON.) 
> However that may be, Finnish actually has borrowings 
> from Common Germanic, not Norse, that is a fact and-- 
> a mystery!


Hi Vladimir,

I'm not aware of of any Proto-Norse inscriptions containing the word 
*hlaibaz/*hlaibaR itself, but there is attested, on the Tune rune-
stone, Norway c. 400, a Proto-Norse compound word, or perhaps a 
phrase: WITANDAHALAIBAN.  This is usually taken as a compound of 
witanda- 'protecting' + hlaiba, dat. sg. masculine n-stem, a 
derivative of hlaibaR 'bread'.  The sense is probably 'lord', 
literally 'bread-protector', cf. MnE lord < OE hlaford < hlaf + 
weard, with the same meaning.  Alternatively, HALAIBA (the first A is 
a parasitic/svarabhakti vowel, quite common in these inscriptions) 
might represent a Proto-Norse cognate of Got. gahlaiba, OHG 
galeipo 'comrade, colleague, companion' (literally: 'mess-mate, 
someone you eat bread together with).  For more details, see the 
indepth discussion of the Tune inscription on the Theudiskon group 
some months ago, and check out the Kiel Runenprojekt site, which 
offers the interpretations of various scholars.

> 
> If it is of interest, the pronunciation _hlep_ 
> in Russian is not a "development" from _hleb_. 
> In all Slavonic languages, more or less, voiced stops 
> at the end of words are pronounced as paired unvoiced. 
> That is, <hleb> is a written form, which was pronounced, 
> from the very beginning, as _hlep_. To compare, 
> the genitive is <hleba> with the same pronunciation _hleba_. 
> I have mentioned this example only in order to show that 
> a Slavonic ear took Gothic <hlaifs> as containing a stop 
> (its voicing is here of no importance) rather than 
> a fricative (Old Slavonic knew both _f_ and _v_). 
> Perhaps this feature sheds a little light upon specificity 
> of the Gothic _b/f_.
> 

The early runic inscriptions don't necessarily offer much clue about 
the development of <b>, since in the earliest times, the same rune 
was used initially for a stop and medially for a fricative.  Probably 
when they were invented the initial sound was a fricative too.
An early borrowing into Latin, Suevi, suggests as we'd expect a 
fricative medially rather than a stop.  Ptolemy, writing in Greek, 
has Sueeboi, presumably also representing a fricative, but without 
the means of making that clear.

Some more Latin spellings of Gothic names (reconstructed on the 
right):

Recciverga (657) < -bairga
Sunhivadus (6th c.) < Sunjabadws
Tilgeva (6/7th c.) < Tilagiba

Spellings such as fragibtim (L 1,27) suggest that the fluctuation in 
the manuscripts of voiced and voiceless spirants was not necessarily 
reflected in speech, but might just be analogical spellings.  The 
admittedly late (9/10th c.) Vienna-Salzburg codex regularly 
transcribes Gothic final <s> into Roman script as <z>, but this could 
be voiceless following the conventions of OHG.

I've read one idea that the Slavs may have taken the Germanic/Gothic 
word for bread because previously they only knew rye bread, and the 
loan was a useful term to refer to the innovation of wheat bread, 
which perhaps reached Germanic areas first.


> Of course, it is hardly to suppose the word <korabl'> 
> having been an early borrowing as the Slavs never were 
> seafarers and just did not sense necessity in borrowing 
> words to express a notion of a ship (vessel) until 
> the word appeared in translated Greek texts.

I wonder...  Often the lack of a commodity or practice among one 
people is taken as grounds for accepting loanwords from another 
culture which does have that practice, whether the practise itself is 
adopted too, or just the idea.  That is to say: If the Greeks had a 
certain kind of boat the Slavs didn't, the Slavs could well have 
taken the Greek name for it (Whether they actually did or not at an 
early date, is another matter...).  But I'm always a bit suspicious 
of theoretical proofs of what words could or couldn't be borrowed, 
let alone must or must not!  They can help us to consider the 
likelihood, but if we follow the theory too dogmatically, we end up 
ignoring the quirkiness of history.  Sometimes words for quite 
familiar concepts are borrowed, for cultural reasons which might not 
be clear to us now.  Or in some cases there may have been a nuance in 
meaning which is now obscure.  To know the full story, we might need 
to consider not only the subtly shifting meanings of the words in 
question, but how they fit into the evolving web of semanticly 
related concepts.

Do you know anything about a Slavonic word *oldija 'ship' (Entwhistle 
& Moris) which is supposed to lie behind OIc ellidi 'a kind of ship' 
(Zoega).  This could be a case in point.  The Varangians/Rus 
presumably had a wider knowledge of ships than the Slavs at the time 
of contact, but maybe this word originally stood for a type of boat 
the Norsemen didn't know.  Or the word might just have been used back 
in Scandinavia for the sake of local colour, or out of sheer love of 
words, or as a synonym for the sake of rhyme and alliteration (or 
obscurity) in their poetry.  In Fridthjof's Saga, Ellidi appears as 
the proper name of a ship.

Also, what do you think about the etymology of OB istuba, Russ. 
izba?  I've seen two radically different ideas about this, one 
deriving it (and presumed relatives outside of Slavonic) ultimately 
from Romance (perhaps via German), the other from a native Germanic 
root.

(Excuse the rant!)

Llama Nom


>  
> 
> Hi Llama nom!
> 
>  
> 
> 
> The Old Bulgarians could not follow a tradition 
> of themselves in reproduction of the Greek Beta 
> as a Slavonic _v_ because they merely had not got 
> such a tradition. The Bulgarian written language 
> and initial Bulgarian literature originated from 
> and always remained under influence of Greek writing 
> tradition. And certainly, the Bulgarians of the IX-XI cc. 
> had opportunities to hear Greek speech and oration 
> almost every day. We cannot thus help accepting 
> pronunciation of the Beta by the Greeks as _v_ 
> (or a sound that Bulgarian ears perceived as _v_) 
> at least since IX c.
> 


>  
> 
> Vladimir
> 
>  
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: llama_nom [mailto:penterakt at f...]
> Sent: Wednesday, August 25, 2004 8:07 PM
> To: gothic-l at yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [gothic-l] Re: Gothic & Greek B in Slabonic
> 
> 
> 
> Hi Vladimir!
> 
> Ah, so the appearance of /b/ in korabl' isn't necessarly evidence 
in 
> itself for an early borrowing.  Thanks for the extra background 
> details.
> 
> I guess even if we could pin down the pronunciation of Gothic <b> 
at 
> any one time, that still leaves a wide area in space and time where 
> the exact value is unknown.  In Primitive Germanic, it is thought 
> that there was originally no voiced bilabial stop except 
after /m/.  
> Elsewhere there was only a fricative /b/, which eventually became a 
> stop initially in all of the historically attested Germanic 
> languages, including Gothic.  Medially and finally it remained a 
> fricative in OE, OS, ON, but became a stop in OHG.  In Gothic, <b> 
> was used to transliterate a fricative in the name of the Roman 
month 
> November, Got. Naubaimber.
> 
> The alternation of <b> : <f> in inflection also implies that at 
some 
> time at least <b> stood for a fricative.
> 
> Latin writers spelt Gothic <b> as <b> initially.  Medially, they 
> normally used <v> (Braune/Helm, Gotische Grammatik, 54).  After /l/ 
> and /r/ Gothic <b> is usually considered to represent a stop, since 
> it isn't devoiced to <f> at the end of a word.  Against this is the 
> personal name Silva, but the spelling of this particular name was 
> probably influenced by the Latin word.
> 
> It has also been suggested that Greek Paulos retained a fricative 
> pronunciation in Gothic Pawlus, giving rise eventually to Spanish 
> Pablo (Braune/Helm, Gotische Grammatik, 39.1) - maybe with an 
> intermediate stop stage between Gothic & Modern Spanish?
> 
> Occasionally final <f> (representing an earlier /b/) appears 
written 
> as <b>, especially in Luke and certain other parts of the Bible.  
But 
> I'm not sure whether this was just a spelling difference, or if the 
> analogy extended to speech.
> 
> Finnish laipa might have come from Germanic or Old Norse: 
> hlaibaz/hlaibaR.  The modern Russian, etc. pronunciation _hlep_ is 
a 
> later development, isn't it?  It has <b> in Old Bulgarian.
> 
> My thought was that to speakers of a language which has a labio-
> dental fricative /v/ and a bilabial stop /b/, hearing words of 
> another language with a voiced bilabial fricative, it isn't a 
> foregone conclusion that they would interpret this as closer 
to /v/.  
> For example, the Spanish <b>, <v> which has very little friction 
> sounds to me more like English /b/ than /v/.  Maybe that's why 
Gothic 
> hlaib- appears in Russian as hl'eb.  The common omission of medial 
> <g> in Gothic names by Latin writers makes me think that maybe this 
> too had a fairly gentle pronunciation, more like Spanish <g> than 
say 
> Dutch.
> 
> Maybe the writers of Old Bulgarian who prefered <v> to transcribe 
the 
> Greek beta, were following in a tradition themselves, as the later 
> Russian writers were - imitating each other.  But an adhoc oral 
> loanword might involve a more arbitrary choice of nearest 
equivalent 
> sound.  Or maybe the Greek sound had become closer to OB /v/ at 
this 
> time?
> 
> Llama Nom
> 
> 
> 
> 
> --- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, åÇÏÒÏ× ÷ÌÁÄÉÍÉÒ <vegorov at i...> 
wrote:
> > ***<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-
> com:office:office" />
> > 
> >  
> > 
> > Hi Llama nom!
> > 
> >  
> > 
> > Having nothing to add to the matter in question, I'd like to 
> discuss some 
> > your postulates regarding Greek and Gothic influences on Slavonic.
> > 
> > Pronunciation of the Greek Beta as _v_ in Russian loanwords from 
> Greek 
> > is usual but not absolutely obligatory. Note that Old Russian 
> borrowed 
> > most of Greek words in a written form (from ecclesiastic 
> literature, 
> > hence not earlier than in the XI c.). No matter, which way the 
real 
> Middle 
> > (Byzantine) Greeks pronounced the Beta in the XI c., Russian 
monks 
> never 
> > heard Greek enunciation and translated solely manuscripts. From 
> this standpoint, 
> > the Beta might be translated (black and white) as _b_ or _v_ 
> depending on 
> > preferences of a particular translator. Predominance of the 
variant 
> _v_ 
> > is explained only by the fact that many Greek texts, especially 
> within the initial 
> > period after the Christening, came to Russia through Bulgaria 
> already translated 
> > into Old Bulgarian (Old Slavonic) where the Bulgarians, well 
> acquainted 
> > with the Greek culture and language, used to put the Slavonic V-
> equivalent 
> > instead of the Beta. Nevertheless, there are a few modern Russian 
> loanwords 
> > from Greek with _b_ in place of the Greek Beta. Besides the 
> mentioned 
> > <korabl'> I'd point out the word <bibliya> 'the Bible' that 
> preserved 
> > both _b_ of the Greek original. Maybe we have here an example of 
> > a "holding action" of the _l_ after the Beta?
> > 
> > Now we touch "the presumed fricative Gothic b/f > b in loanwords 
to 
> Slavonic". 
> > You know, the stem of the Gothic word <hlaifs> was <hlaib> (cf. 
G. 
> <hlaibis>), 
> > but "quality" of this _b_ is under question. I do not know how 
> exact is reflection 
> > of the sound in a conventional writing _b_. At least the modern 
> Russians 
> > pronounce <hlep> while the modern Finns pronounce <laipa>, both 
> with _p_ 
> > in place of the Gothic _b/f_.
> > 
> >  
> > 
> > Regards
> > 
> > Vladimir
> > 
> >  
> > 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: llama_nom [mailto:penterakt at f...]
> > Sent: Tuesday, August 24, 2004 1:32 PM
> > To: gothic-l at yahoogroups.com
> > Subject: [gothic-l] Re: Goths and Vandals
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > Hi Jim,
> > 
> > There are some early Greek loanwords in Slavonic, for example 
> Russian 
> > KORABL' < Gk. karabi(on), a sort of boat.  According to 
Entwhistle 
> & 
> > Morison's "Russian & the Slavonic Languages" this must have been 
> > borrowed before the Greek Beta became a fricative, because later 
> > borrowings have _v_.  Do you know when that happened?  Wright, 
and 
> > Streitberg I think, both say that it was before the time of the 
> > Gothic Bible, but I don't know how long before.  (The same word 
was 
> > borrowed later into Norse, giving Old Icelandic KARFI).  On the 
> other 
> > hand, the presumed fricative Gothic b/f > b in loanwords to 
> Slavonic 
> > (e.g. chl'eb < hlaifs...
> > 
> > Maybe a bilabial fricative sounded closer to B than to V in 
> Slavonic 
> > ears.  I've always assumed that Greek B went through a bilabial 
> stage 
> > on its way to the modern V sound, but I don't know about the 
timing 
> > of any of this.
> > 
> > Another Greek loan to Slavonic, OB. kopije 'spear' < Gk. 
> > koopion 'haft', is said to have been transmitted via the Germans 
(?
> > Goths).
> > 
> > Given such words, maybe we shouldn't read too much into Priscus's 
> > comment beyond the immediate situation at Attila's court, or 
maybe 
> it 
> > didn't apply at an earlier time.  If it was true though, the 
> > following article might explain it:
> > 
> > http://www.kortlandt.nl/publications/art198e.pdf
> > 
> > Here Frederik Kortlandt argues that the Goths migrated not 
directly 
> > from the Vistula to the Ukraine, but along a more westerly route, 
> > along the Danube.  This, he says, explains certain Latin & Celtic 
> > influences on Gothic.  I'm a bit wary of some of his conclusions 
> > though.  He seems very definite about certain things, and doesn't 
> > mention alternate explanations, e.g.:
> > 
> > "The words Kreks `Greek' and dat. pl. marikreitum `pearls' also 
> > betray the influence of an Upper German dialect without voiced 
> > obstruents (cf. Kortlandt 1988: 9)."
> > 
> > Usually Got. Kreks, OE. crecas, etc. are explained as an earlier 
> > borrowing, with K for G due to the lack of voiced stops in 
> Germanic.  
> > Kortlandt's idea assumes a very early date for this distinctively 
> > Upper German consonant shift, pre 350!  Also, that the Germanic 
> > tribes had no established name for Greeks before this time.
> > 
> > "Gothic phonology resembles that of Latin and Romance more than 
> that 
> > of the other Germanic languages" - is a curious statement.  I 
> wonder 
> > what exactly he has in mind here.  The other Germanic languages 
are 
> > only recorded extensively in much later forms.  In the mid fourth 
> > century the runic evidence suggests that they were much closer to 
> > Gothic, with a simpler set of phonemes.
> > 
> > That said, I don't know enough to comment on the overall 
> hypothesis.  
> > Maybe there is something in it.
> > 
> > "It seems to me that gen. pl. skaurpjono `scorpions' almost 
> suffices 
> > to show that the Goths entered the Balkans from the west, not 
from 
> > the north."
> > 
> > Almost suffices, I don't know, but Gk. skorpios (accute accent on 
> i) 
> > versus Lat. scorpio, does suggest that the Goths took the word 
from 
> > Latin rather than Greek.  Another reason for the Latin influence 
> > might be the prevelance of Latin in the military, even in the 
> East.  
> > I'm not sure of dates or sources for this, but I've read that 
Latin 
> > persisted longest in the Eastern Empire as the official language 
of 
> > the army.
> > 
> > Llama Nom
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> 
> 
> 
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