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

Wed Sep 27 14:06:57 UTC 2006

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "ualarauans" <ualarauans at ...> wrote:
>
> Hi Michael,
> 
> Just some comments
> 
> --- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, Michael Erwin <merwin@> 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
>

Hi Michael and the other Honourable investigators,

I would like to make some methodologycal remarks about the style of 
argumantation. Perhaps ten or more  years ago famaous indoeuropean 
specialist James Mallory stressed, that only some historical and 
archaeological facts and data together with linguistical research 
could yield THE GREAT ANSWERS to lots of problems still existing. 
According to this point of view we have the problem how and when 
there appeared kings, kunigas...in the Old slavonic, Baltic and 
German languages. Could it spread together with agriculture wave in 
Europe, which gave lots of simmilarities - we call this now 
indoeuropean, I suppose - ? Some words like the Greek hunter -
 'kunegos', together with lithuanian 'kiaune' slavic 'kunnica', 
lithuanina 'kunas'-the body and goths 'kuni' could have such 
possibility. But there were the other important processes - trade, 
millitary activities affecting relations among different nations. I 
would like to stress that according to the Greek neolithic beginning 
research the history of sailing in Greece started 7 000 BC and at 
1000 BC we have the colonization of the Black sea  coast and even 
middle Dniepr by them. Olbia (Odesa port in Ukraina) was destroyed  
by Goths in aproximately 250 years, and predecessors of vikings 
traded earlier than those militaryy relations appeared. The problem 
is how to tie those facts to the interlanguage changes and loan 
words possibilities. If we study only at linguistical level, we 
could built some theretical constructions, but they will be not 
strong enough.

So, the more wide problem is how the names of rulers in europa did 
appear - all these kings, rexes, kaiser-cesaris, basileus...

best regards

Kestutis K.Urba  

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