[gothic-l] Re: The Letter H

[keth at ONLINE.NO]

Hi Troels
Thank you for your reply. I am affraid we are running 
a bit in double her. Hope you don't mind. I don't.


>We do not know if the Heruls originated as a separate people from 
>Scandinavia. The statement from Jordanes is not certain, as he could 
>refer to an event in the 5th or the beginning of the 6th century. 
>They might be a Gothic tribe or something else. Neither do we know if 
>they had another original language with or without an initial "H" in 
>their name.

I thought Jordanes said they lived in Scandinavia. 
See Jordanes § 23 !
Also Prokop is supposed to say somewhere that
they went back to their original homeland
(the island Thule)
(Ask for reference)
I am less sure if they were a separate people.


>> Eril develops a breaking around that time.
>> Just like "Erde" -> Scandinavian IARD/ Old English EARTh
>> You see the breaking of the initial E-vowel occurring both
>> in Old Norse as well as in Old English.
>> But the breaking is not realized in the same way in the two
>> languages. In Old Norse initial e --> ja  and in
>> Old English the initial e --> ea.
>> Another example is "heart": Using German and Dutch as reference
>> (because the bereaking never occurred in those two languages)
>> We have German "Hertz", Dutch "hart".
>> But English "heart" and Norwegian "hjarta"
>> So that is rather a constand sound change rule in those languages.
>> Note also that the eample "heart" shows that initial h
>> is not affected by this change.
>> 
>> So according to this sound change rule we easily obtain
>> Old English    Eril  --> Earl    and
>> Old Norse     Eril --> Iarl.   (the "i" disappears through syncope)
>> 
>> So that is the easy part.
>
>Does this mean that Eril originally was a word/name coming from 
>Germany without a breaking E or was it originally a common Germanic 
>word/name without a breaking E developing in different directions?

No, it doesn't. It means that words that were similar (corresponding/common)
in Scandinavia and Germany before the breaking occurred, were different
in Scandinavia and Germany after the breaking had occurred. The breaking
did not occurr in Germany, only in Scandinavia. (and also in England, 
but in England without the J: earl/jarl)


>> The difficult part is to explain the connection between
>> runic "Eril" and   Langobard/Gotic  "Herul".
>> Because the latter is rather well documented.
>
>Where is Herul documented in Langobardic or Gothic? Am I right when I 
>suspect this to be the silent Latin "H" again?

I think Herul is documented in Latin and Greek.

 
>> But maybe it is Procopius that is the source of the English 
>> scholarly usage of writing it as "Erul" without H.
>> The German scholarly tradition is to keep the H.
>
>This is a much later issue without connection to the above.

That is true. But remember that the Germans like the H
and the English seem to be less fond of it, for some reason.
I thought perhaps someone who is used to reading the secondary
literature in English, will find Herul with H "stranger" than 
someone who reads German secondary literature (where I have only
seen it with H). Thus, reading habits may influence one's opinion
about the original spelling.

I think we'll also have to move the discussion into the question
about the meaning of the name. The simplest possibility is to
see it as Her + ul. But what is -ul? Is it a suffix? Do we have
other examples of such a suffix? Her- is easier, because we have
many example of Germanic PN's beginnnig with Her-
But if it was Er + ul, we cannot read Er- as a variant of Her-
(I think), but more easily as a variant of Ir-.
So then we end up with a different set of comparisons. For example
Irminsul, Irmingard etc.. And so you have "Irma la douce" confronting
"Hærfolket".


>> But I'd still like to see the Procopius reference.
>> (and why disregard Dexippos?)
>
>See my earlier mail.

Yes, thanks. Was that the Loeb edition?

>> 
>> >If the name was written in runes we should according to Keth 
>expect 
>> >the name to be written as it was pronounced at that time and 
>place. I 
>> >agree, but do we know how "erilaR" was pronounced in the 5th and 
>6th 
>> >century as you indicated, Keth? 
>> 
>> I think so. Because runic inscriptions are from wide areas.
>> And we know the approximate pronounciation of the vowels,
>> because the languages were recorded later, also over a wide area.
>> And some words found in runic inscriptions can also be compared
>> wit the the same words as recorded in contemporary Latin sources.
>> And since all words contain some vowels, and there aren't
>> too many vowels either in early Gemanic, I think we know what
>> sounds the runic vowels corresponded to.
>> At least the literature that discusses runes has given phonology
>> an especially important place, and the opinion seems to prevail
>> that the pronounciation is known quite well (within reasonable 
>limits).
>
>Was this ErilaR without a breaking E?

Yes, because the inscriptions are classified as "urnordisk".
And urnordisk has no breaking. After the breaking had taken place,
together with a lot of other changes, the language was no longer 
urnordisk. Exactly when the breaking took place I can look up.
But I won't be definite about it now, because I might say something
that needs to be corrected later. Any way, for our argument it is
not important exactly when the breaking took place. But one knows
it must have been some time between 500 and 800. But that is only
very rough. And if I looked it up, I might find a more precise 
time interval. The erilar/irilar inscriptions are from before 
the breaking took place.


>> (example: the Kjølevik inscription: HadulaikaR ek Hagusta(l)dar
>> hlaaiwido magu minimo, SW Norway ca. 400 AD - lots of initial H !
>> Compare Hildebrandslied)
>> 
>
>I have never denied that "H" existed in Scandinavia, which is not the 
>same to claim that there was an "H" in Herul.

No, you'd better not!  :)

Well, in Latin and Greek sources there is an H (except
Prokop if I understood you correctly).
And I can't figure out where it could have come from,
if it did not come from the Heruls themselves.

Loss of H is attested. But not gain of H.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There is however another argument, and perhaps I shouldn't mention it
yet. But it concerns the Gothic ai-:

You saw that I went into some language statistics and showed that
initial H was very common in Germanic (I checked for Gothic and
Old Norse). But initial E was very rare in Gothic. Example is
PN "Esaw" But that is imported and so we disregard it.
However initial AI was much more common than initial E in Gothic.

Thus, Gothic airþ = "earth".
But in German it is Erde, and Da/Engl it is jord/earth.
So you see:
           Gothic   German     Danish    English
             ai       e          jo        ea

This is the rule of "correspondence" between these languages.
But it can also be depicted as the branches of a tree.

One more example:

 Gothic   German     Danish    English   Dutch
 hairto   hertz      hjerte    heart     hart

 Old Norse Old Frisisan Old English Old Saxon  Old High German
 hjarta    herte        heorte      herta      herza

Well, I don't know what the original urnordisk may have
been. But I think it must have been with an "e", although
the books I have don't say. Maybe the Finnish form can tell us?
Any way, maybe the Gotic "ai" developed from an earlier 
undocumented "urgotisk" where it also was en "e", i.e.
the same as in urnordisk.

I hope this made sense.
I still don't understand the H.
But I am looking for a good explanation of the facts.
I'd like to look at Dexippos' Greek text where he explains
the etymology of Herul. 

Best regards
Keth




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