Back to Attila

[Laurence Horn]

At 9:49 AM -0500 6/20/07, Joseph Salmons wrote:
>The Ostrogoths had even more intense contact with the Huns than the
>Visigoths, and I don't recall offhand whether this name is connected
>particularly to Ostrogothic sources. But atta was a common word for
>'father' in Gothic, see atta unsar 'our father' in the Bible
>translations done by Ulfila/Wulfila, a Visigoth, who authored almost
>all the actual Gothic material we have. (The form fadar is famously
>attested once there as well.)
>
>The word is found across Germanic and people have often suggested
>that it started as child language. Cognates show up as the usual word
>for 'father' today in some North Frisian dialects, for example.
>Sources like Lehmann's Gothic Etymological Dictionary give a set of
>Indo-European cognates.
>
>And -ila is a common diminutive/hypocoristic suffix with names
>(including the just-mentioned bishop/translator, connected to 'wolf')
>and beyond (like barnilo, 'little kid').
>
>
>Joe
>who's somewhat surprised that discussion has turned to an area he
>knows a little about
>
any relation to the Yiddish diminutive of "bubbeleh", "kindeleh", "keppeleh"?

LH

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