Was the word "kunig/kunigas/kunigur" a gothic word?

[michelsauvant]

Hello

I'm a French and specialist of toponomy for Northern Catalonia 
(Gothaland??) a region where Visigoths lived between 414 and the 
750's (Septimania).

I am writing to you in order to verify a personal assumption about 
the name "Canigo" of one of the summit in this country.

This name could have been given by Goths as  "Kunighauh" .
But what could be the exact meaning ? 

I read all the messages about the words for "king" in gothic 
language, and I know that there is no evidence that Goths borrowed a 
word like "kunig" or something else similar, with the meaning 
of "king".
But we know that such word existed, around the Ost-Baltic sea, 
spoken by Visigoth's ancestors. At that time the meaning could 
be "noble" and Visigoths could have borrowed the word with the same 
meaning, or the meaning of "prinz", despite their usage of the 
words "reiks" or " thiodans" for their proper kings.
The word "kunego" = prinz in old slavonic  is compatible with my 
assumption.

I precise that this remarkable mountain Canigo -- we can see it from 
the sea side the main summit (around 2800m) like the Fujijama 
inJapan-- was not mentioned by antics authors travelling there.
Despite 5 centuries with the grecian city of Emporion near it, and 5 
centuries of government by Romans! 
So its name seems to be done between 400 (start of the lack of 
authors writing about something with no relation with the Bible) and 
875 (first occurrence of the name "Canigo" in a document). 
In consequence this name is necessarily from Visigoths or Franks. 
But I can explain why this name was not created by Franks coming 
around 750.
And I can tell you that a name meaning "Noble Mount " is 
particularly adapted to its magnificence. The highness of the Canigo 
could have inspired this adjective to the Goths.

If you tell me that this assumption is false, I have an other 
assumption:
The proto-germanic  ancestor of the OHG word "kunig"or "kunning" 
(and all the similar words meaning "king" in various countries) 
could have been a concatenation between "kuni"= "family or people" 
and "gur" = "en haut". I think at the corresponding word "kunigur" 
in the isolated Iceland. 
In that case the etymological meaning of an hypothetical gothic 
word "kunig" (or "kunigo" or "kunigas") could be "somebody being 
over the members of his family, or tribu or clan"
 as a king is.
In this case it could have been used for a personified summit over 
the other summits in the same set of mountains, to tell everybody 
that is the highest mountain.
NB. An other origine for "kuning/kunigas/kunigur" could 
be "Khan+i+goh" = higher lord.
considering that "khan" was the word for "lord" somewhere in central 
Asia. 

If these two assumptions are false, I must admit that some indo-
european around 1500-800BC gave the name "khanigo" as a 
concatenation of "Khan + i +go" = higher summit (hier "Khan" 
means "summit" (preindoeuropean meaning ),  even if no antic author 
mentioned this remarkable mountain. 

What do you thing of  this ?

Best regards

Michel Sauvant
michelsauvant at yahoo.fr







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