Reconstructions of contemporary Gothic words

[llama_nom]

Regarding Danube, Thomas Czarnecki proposes the Gothic form *DONAWI 
to account for Polish Dunaj.  "Die Bezeichnung dieses großen Flusses 
ist zu den Slawen entweder durch die Vermittlung des Balkangotischen 
(got. *Donâwi) gekommen oder sie ist eine einheimische Bildung, die 
im Osten des Gebietes des Volkes entstanden ist." [ "Gotisches im 
Wortschatz des Polischen" 
http://www.fh.ug.gda.pl/images/Czarnecki.pdf ].

The /o:/ would be the normal development of /a:/ in Germanic, 
supposing the name came from the Celtic source for Latin Danuvius, 
Danubius.  The long vowel /a:/ is present in native Gothic words 
where a nasal has been lost before /h/.  I don't think that applies 
here.  Is a long vowel essential to the argument I wonder?  Or could 
we imagine the end of the name was identical, or assimilated, to Go. 
*awi "low lying marshy meadowland, surrounded or partly surrounded 
by water" (cognate with Icelandic ey, German Au, English i(land) < 
OE íeg)?

Huns as a mixed u/i-stem is an interesting idea, and might account 
for the fluctuations between a- and i-stem in the other Germanic 
languages.  Note though that in such names the nom. sg. end in -us 
(e.g. Iudaius "Jew", Skwþus "Scythian", barbarus "'barbarian'").  On 
the other hand, the names of peoples which follow this declension 
may all be borrowed from Latin or Greek, and based partly on the 
Latin second declension with nominative sg. -us, pl. -i.  But 
wouldn't the Huns have been known to the Goths first?  Naturalised 
names don't necessarily follow this declension, cf. Kreks "a Greek", 
Krekos "Greeks".

It's been pointed out to me that many ancient tribal names follow 
the i-stem declension, at least in the plural.  There was an 
interesting discussion of this at the Theudiskon group [ 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Theudiskon/?yguid=203859842 ].  See 
posts 753-767.

"Hunnish" would presumably be uncontracted in Gothic: *Húnisks.

Hervarar saga also contains an ON name for the river Dniepr.  In one 
version of the saga, 'á Danparstöðum' is the name of the district 
where the Gothic citadel Árheimar lies.  In another, it is the name 
of the citadel itself, and Árheimar the name of the district.  The 
form 'á Danparstöðum' could mean "on the Banks of the Dniepr", or 
the second element could be "steads", as in Atlakviða, stanza 5 'ok 
staði Danpar' (which has obvious echoes of Hlöðskviða in Hervarar 
saga).  Both staþ-s "bank, shore, landing place" and stad-s "place" 
are attested in Gothic.  Jordanes calls the river Danaper.

Other ancient names from Hervarar saga include Gotþjóð (=Go. 
Gutþiuda, attested in the Calender fragment), Húnaland "the land of 
the Huns", Reiðgotaland "land of the (H)reið-Goths", and Harvaða 
fjöll "the Carpathian mountains" (showing the influence of the 
Germanic consonant shift, Grimm's Law), and of course 
Myrkviðr "Mirkwood", which would give Gothic *Maírqiwidus.

Llama Nom





--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "Roman Rausch" <aranwe at m...> wrote:
> >For a complete list of names recorded in
> >the Gothic Bible, including many Greek placenames, see Koebler's
> >Gotisches Woerterbuch, Anhang 2 "biblisch-gotischen Namen" [
> >http://www.koeblergerhard.de/gotwbhin.html ]. If you want to try 
your
> >hand at reconstructions, you might want to look at this essay on 
the
> >declension of foreign names in Gothic [http://www.nthuleen.com/
> papers/755gothpaper.html].
> 
> Thanks, these links are indeed useful. So far two attempts:
> 
> Looking into the Norse 'Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks' (http://norse.
> ulver.com/ontexts/forn/hervarar.html, maybe a millenium too late, 
but 
> still it's better than nothing) I've found there:
> _Húnar_ 'huns' (obviously strong masc.)
> Zoëga's Old Icelandic dictionary (http://www.northvegr.org/zoega/
> index002.php) gives also the alternative form _Húnir_ (m.) as well 
as 
> the adjectives _húnskr, húnlenzkr, hýnskr_.
> According to Nancy Thuleen's quote from Gaebeler 'Völkernamen' 
usually 
> decline like masculine i-stems, sometimes mixed with u-stems. All 
this 
> taken together, would it be as simple as the following paradigma:
> N *Huns       *Huneis
> A *Hunu       *Hununs
> G *Hunáus     *Hune
> D *Hunáu      *Hunum
> and the adjective _*hunsks/*hunisks_? Otherwise it seems that it 
could 
> be 'ordinary' masculine i-stem as well.
> 
> Zoëga also gives _Dun-á_ (f.) 'the Danube'. In the 'Hervarar saga' 
> this is however only attested in the compound _á Dúnheiði_. The 
first 
> element is, as it seems, _heiðr_ (fem.) 'heath, moor'. Maybe it's 
> attested somewhere else with a more clear hint on it's gender and 
> ending. I also wonder whether it's connected to _duna_ 'a rushing, 
> thundering noise'..
> Again according to Nancy Thuleen's article foreign place names in 
> Gothic are a mix of feminine o- and i-stems. So (similar to the 
> declensions of _Achaia_ and _Ruma_):
> N *Duna
> A *Duna
> G *Dunáis
> D *Dunái
> (Interestingly the Russian word for the Danube is 'Dunaj'.)





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