[gothic-l] Re: Anagastes? + Q. on diphtongs?

[sig]

Dear Matthew! 

 Sorry for my neglect to mention your post which substantially
says the same thing as Andreas´! However, I think that Andreas
Schwarcz made his case more convincing by distinguishing an- from
ana- which gave at least to me a revelation. (These are the days
conductive to celestial revelations..)

 Halfway back to Gothic/Germanic times, during the Viking heydays,
I feel that at least the Nordic languages were heavily
diphtongized like the Gothic, and e. g. the Anglo-Saxons and
Germans kept on with that. Still to-day, out of 13 uni-lettered
long vowels in Faroese, 6 are pronounced as diphtongs (as short
vowels 3) while Swedish has none. Why? Rune stones bear witness to
diphtongs being rather common once. How has this process been in
Norway, Denmark, Frisia, Netherlands? 

 Open Q: In the Germanic languages 200 BCE to, say, 500 CE, to
what extent is it assumed that they were diphtongized like the
Gothic compared with to-day? Is the process of de-diphtongizing a
general phenomenon in only the Nordic countries?

 Behind my question is this. While seeking intuitively
etymological origins it is very helpful to test different diphtong
samples. Take "jarl" which is earl. By replacing j with i (English
ee) one gets the diphtong of 'ia' and from there to 'ea' is no
distance. In the province of Ostergötland I found a small village
called Svanhals which in to-day's Swedish means Swan neck, which
of course never was intended. By re-diphtongizing one might find
Svan to become Svein or Svain (and hals maybe hellR of hellz =
stone, rock). A neighbouring village here is called Svinhult
('Swineholt') which is less funny to its villagers. Svein(s) Holt
would be a more likely interpretation. Thus Svein can become in
monophtong versions both svin- (swine), svan- (swan) and
Sven/Swein or sven (chaste adult male). 

 So, by re-diphtongizing modern words their origins might be made
more apparent. But in order to do that one needs some basic
knowledge about what diphtongs were around where and at what
times.

Cool Jule!


Sig

M. Carver wrote:
..
> > andreas.schwarcz at univie.ac.at wrote:
..
> > Sig wrote:
..

> This brings us back to my post of 13 Dec 2000:
> 
> Aina-           one, sole, lone
> Arni-           secure, safe
> Auna-           luck (but usu. transcribed O'ni-}
> Ana-            ancestor (cf. ? Anila)
> 
> If ana- is to be preferred, then we could then say what the following names
> are made of and what they mean perhaps:
> 
> 1. Anala/Anila/Anilas
>     = *Anila = *Ana-[nickname w/ missing element?]
>     But note: Onila = *Aunila = *Auna-[] "Lucky"
> 2. Anaolsus
>     = *Anawulþus "Ancestor-glory"
>     Second element questionable: also: -wulfs or possibly -walis-, -walhs, ?
> 3. Aniedruda
>     = *Ana-, *Ani-, *Anja-þruþa "Ancestor Strength"
> 4. Anna (f. = Anna- or Ana- or Arna-)
> 5. Annia (f.)
>     [one wonders whether there is an *anj- root: note however Antemir =
> *Antimers "Giant-famed"]
> 
> Matthew
> 
> 
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