LL-L "History" 2007.06.03 (03) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L  -  03 June 2007 - Volume 03

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From: Marcel Bas <roepstem at hotmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Traditions" 2007.06.03 (01) [E]

Hi everyone,

John Welch wrote:

And so Danu river-goddess made thunderbolts for Indra
and became DNiester, DNieper, DON and DANUbe rivers,

and DANAan gods of Ireland. The Boyne river goddess(bo "cattle")
captured cows as did the Ukraine "Danu"

ancestress, and all(except Boyne)are snake-woman dragons.

Brahmins and goats were created together, and labourers

and cattle together._Tattiriya Samhita
 vii.

This would mean that names for rivers were named after a goddess. It seems
more likely that things occurred the other way around; the *dn- root in
Dniestr, Dniepr and Don is thought to be an Iranian root. In the name for
the Danube scholars have concluded that it must have been of Celtic origin.

The Iranians of the Iron Age were nomads that lived in the Pontic-Caspian
steppe, and they stayed there for many centuries (eventually leading up to
Iranian tribes as the Sarmatians moving to the Danube area in the second
century AD). Also the steppe Bronze Age cultures in Central Asia are almost
surely considered to be essentially Indo-Iranian.

I could give you some cognates in the ancient Iranian languages such as
Alanian: _don_ or _dan_ would mean "water" and _dniepr_ would be made up by
_don_ or _dne_ "water" + _apr_ "deep". And _dniestr_ would have been made up
by _don_ or _dne_ "water" + _stour_ or _str_ "big". Some people also think
that the Danube (Danuvius) got his name from Iranian tribes. Others think it
is of Celtic origin (meaning 'river, stream')

Most Indo European gods got their names from already known words and terms
that characterised these gods. Gods often came into being in a psychological
process that personified certain attributes or concepts, after which they
were deified. Like the Celtic horse-god _epon_ <*ekwós "horse", the Roman
god _mercurius_ (cf. _merx_ 'goods, wares') and both te Slavs and the
Iranians have radically modified the meaning of the Indo European word for
'god' (*deiwos) to 'hostile demonic creature', and both groups have chosen
to give the notion of a 'diety' the word that means 'richess' and 'giver of
richess' (in Slavic this would be 'bog').

It there are geographical names that contain roots that denote 'water' or
'richess', I think is more likely that they got their names from an existing
word, and not from the name that was goven to a god. Especially in
combinations with other words, like _dniestr_, which otherwise would give
"big water god" rather than "big water".

Best regards,

Marcel.
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