[gothic-l] Re: old prussian - alu, ale, öl & *aluth

[llama_nom]

Hails,

The Caucasian words quoted by Ross are:

Georgian: aludi, ludi
Ossete: aeluton, iluton

All meaning 'boiled beer'.  He doesn't give any more information, in 
the book I have, on their connection with Gothic, other than that 
they "appear to be borrowings of a lost Gothic *aluth..."  If this is 
correct, it would certainly suggest that the word existed in Gothic 
at the time of the earliest _alu_ runes, and that 'beer', or some 
fermented drink, was at least part of its meaning.

Regarding the Finno-Ugric forms, like Finnish olut, he says these 
come from Baltic rather than Germanic, citing as evidence the Finnish 
[o] for Baltic [a] (as in Finnish lohi 'salmon', Lith. lashis).  
Because of this, he believes that the Baltic _alu_ must once have had 
a final -t, comparable to OE _ealoth_.  I'm afraid I don't know 
enough yet about Baltic etymology to reasonably comment on this.  
There are Slavonic versions of this word too (e.g. Russian Church 
Slavonic _ol_), none with a final -t ot -d.

Have you seen Looijenga's dissertation on runes?

http://www.ub.rug.nl/eldoc/dis/arts/j.h.looijenga/

There's some interesting stuff on the early _alu_ inscriptions in 
Chapter 6.

llama_nom



--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "hrafnsnest" <wulfsligrs at c...> wrote:
> Hailsa, 
> Please elaborate on the possible Caucasian connection with this 
> powerful "magical" word.  I have found that the earliest carving of 
> this word in stone is from the Elgesem stone found in SW Norway 
dated 
> at 400 CE.  Later it developed into the Norse word _öl_ meaning 
_ale_.
> 
> Vaxa ok vel Hafaz!
> Valulfr Vaerulsson
> 
>  
> 
> But I gather _alu_ could just as easily be a Baltic cognate, rather 
> than a borrowing from Germanic necessarily.  
> Apparently the word did exist in Gothic (as *aluth), and is thought 
> to account for similar forms in Caucasian languages ("Etymology", 
ASC 
> Ross).
> > llama nom



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