Warrior Class

[Justïn]

I definitely see the need for the semantic difference, but is there a 
reason I should prefer kaballareis over knaíhts?  My first preference 
would be knaíhts because of the Germanic connotation verses a 
Romantic interference, though I am aware of the Gothic exposure to 
Romance languages via Spain, etc.
Would not knight [horseman] have possibly found its way to a noble 
connotation in Gothic culture theoretically?  Did it finds its way 
there in any culture other than Anglo-Saxon?

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "ualarauans" <ualarauans at ...> wrote:
>
> Some thoughts on Gothic knights.
> 
> In most European languages (all except English afaik) "knight" 
> is "horseman", literally. Although the Goths didn't have knights in 
> the proper sense of the word, they did have cavalry. The Ostrogoths 
> are said to borrow the practice of the mounted warriorship from 
> their Hunnish and Alanic neighbors. They must have had a word for a 
> horseman, right? Of course, they could have borrowed the item 
> together with the word for it. Not that they had never seen a man 
> riding on horseback before they contacted East European nomads. The 
> hypothetical loan could refer to some particular kind of cavalry, 
> e.g. auxiliary Alans. The problem is we don't know the Alanic or 
> Hunnish word either. Modern Ossetic has baræg for "horseman", but I 
> don't know if it's not a later loan from some North Caucasian 
idiom. 
> Somehow it doesn't look like inherited Iranian. I'd expect 
something 
> with Ir. aspa- (Oss. jæfs-) as the first element. Maybe the Goths 
> would substitute it with their IE cognate aihva-, who knows...
> 
> To construct the word from the Germanic vocabulary, I can think of 
> substantivized *reidands (declined like frijonds). *Reidareis 
> suggested by Llama seems OK, too, only I haven't seen -areis added 
> to a strong verb. Which doesn't mean this was absolutely impossible.
> 
> Finally, there's an option of "going Romance" and constructing 
> *kaballareis M.-ja, after French chevalier, Castilian caballero, 
> Italian cavaliere etc. We have Kaballarja attested (in Arezzo 
deed). 
> Personally I like it best. Neo-Gothic lexicographs can load it with 
> all that feudal semantics we associate with knights. And there will 
> be a diffenece between "knight" (kaballareis) and "horseman" 
> (reidands) to be made.
> 
> Ualarauans
>


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