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

[ualarauans]

Hi Michael,

Just some comments

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, Michael Erwin <merwin at ...> wrote:
>
> A few sketchy hypotheses; I'm not ready to argue for or against
> these, but I'd like to know what others make of these.
> 
> (1) Got. 'reiks' doesn't come (directly) from Lat. 'rex.'

No, it doesn't, though it might have been influenced by rex later 
(we don't know for sure whether and when it was, in fact)

> (2) Got. 'reiks' comes from Clt. 'rix.'

Yes, Celtic rix being an exact formal match of Latin rex (PIE [e:] > 
PClt. [i:]).

> (3) Eng. 'king' doesn't come (at all) from Greek.

No, it doesn't. Greek words cognate to Eng. king (< PG *kuningaz) 
are, inter alia, GENOS "kin", GYNH "woman" (i.e. "she who bears 
children", Go. qino)

> (4) Eng. 'king' comes from Eng. 'kin.'

Yes, OE cynn "kin", cyning "king" (cynn + ing)

> (5) Got. 'kindins' comes from Got. 'kuni.'

No, kindins comes from unattested *kinds F.-I "clan", "tribal 
subdivision" meaning literally "clan chief". Kuni is only relative 
to *kinds and, thus, kindins (different Ablaut series of the same 
PIE base gen-/gon-/gn-, *kinds < PIE *gen-tis; kuni < PIE *gn-iom)

> (6) Got. '*kunig--' would come from Got. 'kuni' as well. (what 
should
> the Gothic ending be?)

Go. *kuniggs (read [kunings]) does in fact come from kuni through 
adding the patronymic suffix –iggs [ings]

> (7) Got. 'thiudans' comes from Got. 'thiuda.'

Right you are
 
> (8) The analogy kindins : kuni :: thiudans : thiuda is older and
> meanings probably shifted.

Probably it would be more correct to speak of the pairs 
kindins:*kinds (uide supra) and thiudans:thiuda, where the first are 
derived from the second via adding the suffix –in-/-an- (it's a 
purely phonetic variation) meaning "head of ..." (thiudans "head of 
thiuda"). The meanings can be shifted to the time of Wulfila, yes. 
In particular, we don't meet *kinds in the survived texts. Which 
fact may suggest that only its derivate kindins was still in use, 
whereas the realm of kindins could be termed with some other word(s) 
but *kinds. Maybe it was land (Pauntius Peilatus kindins ruling over 
Iudaialand). But as our Gothic corpus is a very fragmentary one, we 
can never be sure whether all the absent words were in fact absent 
in the language of the epoch.

If David's suggestion of thiudans meaning "wartime leader" in the 
very beginning is true – and it seems plausible – then the shift 
to "king" may be indirectly attested by the cited quotation from 
Tacitus.

Finally, kindins was never a synonym of thiudans.

> (9) The analogy *kunigs : kuni :: thiudans : thiuda is younger and
> probably holds.

Not sure I understood. *Kuniggs derived from kuni may be younger if 
we consider the way it is formed. This way of forming words (i.e. 
via the suffing PG –inga-) is proto-Germanic, whereas the 
suffixation –in-/-an- as it is in thiudans is proto-Indo-European.

> (10) Both kindins and *kunigs derive from the same word using older
> and newer word-formation rules. Because the vowels diverge in 
kindins
> vs. kuni I assume kindins is older. Because *kunigs is attested in
> the other Germanic languages it is still very old - probably 
Common-
> Germanic. Alternatively, one of kindins and *kunigs might have been
> borrowed from another Germanic language, or *kunigs might have been
> unknown in Gothic.

Kindins is not older than kuni, it's just a different ablaut vowel 
in the same consonantal base. They are of the same age, I'd say. But 
they're different, and kindins and *kuniggs are different too, both 
phonetically and semantically (the first meaning "clan chief", 
then "province governor"; the second meant "man of a noble descent" 
maybe, then "king" in West- and North-Germanic). The word-formation 
rule in kindins is indeed older than that in *kuniggs, you're right. 
PG *Kuningaz (> Go. *kuniggs) may be Common-Germanic, and it may be 
a West Germanic new-shaping as well, later spread to the North 
Germanic, or vice versa. *Kuniggs might have been unknown in Gothic, 
yes. Still I think that after all the contacts with West Germanic 
peoples the Goths would have borrowed it as *kuniggs anyway, in the 
meaning, at least, "kings of those people looking and speaking 
similar to us, but in fact far inferior as compared to the Gothic 
noble kin" (look how Jordanes The-Proud-Goth refers to fellow 
Germanic Varnians in Getica).

Ualarauans





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