Tyringi and Tervingi

[ualarauans]

Hi Dirk,

I may easily error in my retort below, yet it appears to me that 
some purely phonetic problems remain so far in the picture suggested 
by you.

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "faltin2001" <d.faltin@> wrote:
>
> I am still researching the Tyringi - Tervingi problem a bit. The 
name
> derivation is still problematic. However, I found that the town of
> Tyrna (Slovakia), which is called Tyrnau in German was called 
Ternava
> in medieval sources.

What kind of vowel is represented by the Slovak _y_ I wonder? If it 
succeeds the proto-Slavic [y] (e.g. like in Slovak jazyk "language" 
which is OCSl. je.zyku), it must have come from either PIE-inherited 
or early-borrowed [u:] (e.g. OCSl. tynu "Zaun" < Go. *tu:n). In 
which case the proto-form of the place-name is to be reconstructed 
as *tu:rnaw-, though I don't recognize any Slavic or Germanic word 
here. Could someone help here?

There is Slovak Trnava (= German Tornau, if I don't mistake). If 
originally East-Germanic, there could probably have been a regular 
series of successive loans like Go. *Thaurnawi "hawthorn-grown 
meadow/riverbank" > Slavic Trnava (vocalic [r]) > German Tornau. The 
Slavic mediation is to be assumed from the Anlaut-[t], it had to be 
German *Dornau if having developed within Germanic only. Trnava 
could easily be written as Ternava by medieval scribes finding this 
way to render the vocalic [r] in writing. Slovak trn means "thorn 
prickle", a word of the same PIE origin as Go. thaurnus, German Dorn.

Excuse my digression from the point.

> In this case Tyr- and Ter- would be equivalent,
> which leaves the problem of -ingi and -vingi. Yet, I also found 
that
> the Tyring gau (near Helmstedt), which does include the name 
Thuringia
> was also called Derwingo in early medieval sources. The Anlaut D- 
is
> low German (Saxon) for T(h)- so the name would have been Terwingo. 
If
> Terwing-o was possible for Tyring-o and if Tyr- and Ter- are also
> exchangeable than Tyring should be derivable from Terving.

That seems to advocate the view of the primal [þ] in Thuringi as 
well as in Teruingi. What of the former, so surely you know the old 
explanation linking it with Sanskrit tura- "swift", "powerful"; 
however, through a stage of an ethnonym PG *Durôz pl., separated 
from Hermun-duri < PG *Ermun-durôz "Great Duri". This stage would 
seem quite improper; in fact it doesn't fit the known phonetic rules 
of PIE > PG. Briefly, PIE *tur- could not evolve to PG *dur-, 
whereas the change PIE *tur- > PG *þur- is a pretty normal 
development. And, the later change of *dur- to *þur- on the Germanic 
soil (as suggested by Hermunduri > Thuringi) is also hardly 
thinkable, if we proceed from what we know about phonetic changes in 
Germanic.

Now, you mentioned that Teruingi was also rendered with a theta, 
meaning it did reflect the pronunciation. Couldn't it otherwise be 
an imitation by a Greek of contemporary Latin spellings where th- 
was written for [t] just out of ornamental reasons? This Greek could 
have never heard the name being actually spoken, and simply followed 
the tradition of a correspondence between Latin -th- and Greek theta.

If I remember right, the mainstream opinion on the etymology of 
Teruingi connects it with PG *terwa- "tar". That is, it has Germanic 
[t] in Anlaut, and this [t] is very unlikely to turn to [þ] later. 
There are as many as no examples of such a development. If we fancy 
Go. *Tairwiggos [terwingôs] being adopted into a would-be High 
German dialect (lying below the Benrather Linie as you pointed out), 
we must get something like *Zehringer. Note that NHG Teer is a loan 
from Low German. The name would appear *Teeringen in Plattdeutsch. 
The D-forms you adduce strongly contradict the view of their coming 
from Go. *Tairwiggos (with Anlaut-[t]), as the mutation [t] > [d] is 
impossible, but may support the etymology from PG *Þuringôz (with 
Anlaut-[þ]), as PG [þ] > both High and Low German [d] is regular.

But maybe there's another plausible etymology of Teruingi which 
implies Anlaut-[þ]? The forms Derwingo (< Go. *Þairwiggos -?) and 
the like are really intriguing...

> Cheers,
> 
> Dirk
> 
> PS Some may ask why this is important. I think if it can be shown 
that
> the name Tueringi is derived from Teruingi, this would suggest that
> one group of Goths (possibly remnants of the Athanaric Terwingi)
> succeeded in founding a kingdom outside the Roman empire after 
375AD.

Of course it is important, although difficulties can sometimes 
arise. Maybe it is worth while to make some of the "Goth-hunting" 
DNA-research in Thüringen as well?

Ualarauans





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