Visborg on Gutland and the Visi-Goths

[akoddsson]

Hails Tore.

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, Tore Gannholm <tore at ...> wrote:
>
> Hi,
> 
> Vi is holy place where the gods were worshipped.
> 
> Tore

Indeed. However, the name is Visborg (contains -s-), not Viborg. The 
Old Norse word vé is neuter, compounds with its root (vébjörg in 
Denmark, for example) and occurs in Gutnish as wî/vî (as Gutnish 
does not lower the ê to î, as in all other Scandic languages, and in 
this respect matches Gothic). Gutnish wî would occur in the language 
of Wulfila's time as *wîh (written *weih), but would be neuter in 
contrast to the related weiha, masc. 'priest'(also occuring in Old 
Norse as véi, Gutnish *wîi). Now, if the element in Visborg were 
really *wîha, then we could generate a Gothic *weihabaurgs, but this 
would yield Gutnish *wîborg/vîborg after syncope instead of attested 
Visborg - thus, a more logical forerunner to Gutnish Wîsborg would 
be Gothic *wîsiborgs (written aka Wulfila *weisibaurgs), which would 
yield the correct form. Note that Gothic *weih would be an a-stem 
neuter, compounding with the same -a- that originally occured in the 
nominitive/accusitive singular (pre-Wulfilian-Gothic *wîha). I want 
to add here as an aside that the personal name vîsburr also occurs 
on a migration-era Swedish king (see Ynglingasaga), something which 
I forgot to mention in my original post (meaning something like 
famous/renowned son/offspring). If this is related, and I think it 
likely, then the name would occur in Wulfilia Gothic as *weisibaur, 
using the same element as *weisibaurgs (pronounced wîsiborgs), famed 
son and famed city, respectively. Now, as to whether or not assumed 
Gothic element *weis- really compounds with compositional -i- (as in 
English 'visigoth' or not, or is even an oroiginal i-stem, I cannot 
say at this time (lack of available evidence). 

Regards,
Kunjareths

> On Jul 10, 2006, at 6:31 PM, akoddsson wrote:
> 
> > Regarding the element 'visi-' in english 'visigoths', I am not 
sure that there is a general scholarly consensus as to what its 
actual form would be in Gothic. It is often thought to mean 
something like 'famous/renowned'. I have never seen any references 
to this element being used in germanic languages, personal- or place-
names in general. It seems isolated, and thus likely the questions 
about what its Gothic form would have been, if it is indeed Gothic. 
However, I noticed that it could be related to the name Visborg on 
Gutland, which is mentioned in Gutasaga and in Gutland inscription 
#100 (rundatabase). What struck me here is that the element occurs, 
of all places, on Gutland ;) Now, as is known, Visborg is a major
historical location on Gutland. Now, it would certainly be
interesting if the so-called 'visi-goths' of later, continental fame
had this 'visi-' element due to an historical origin in or around
Visborg. Judging from the changes into the later Gutlandic, an
earlier form might have been something like *weisibaurgs in
Wulfila's spelling. Anyway, the fact that the only other possible
instance of the 'visi-' element that I could find was on Gutland,
and then for a major location, really struck me.

> > Regards,
> > Kunjareths.
> >
> >
> > 
> 
> 
> 
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>






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