[gothic-l] Re: The Letter H

[Troels Brandt]

Hi Keth

I have combined your 3 mails below.

--- In gothic-l at y..., keth at o... wrote:
> Sorry for the length. I hope you will forgive me this time too,
> where I also try to respond to all your arguments.

OK - I just wanted to explain my briefer answer.

> I didn't understand Matþaius' explanation.
> I think he must know a lot more than he actually wrote down,
> for otherwise it would not suffice.
> He did not comment Dexippos' etymology (with H).
> And if the H was lost in Italy, why would Jordanes then put in
> the H everywhere, if there was no basis for it in speech?
> 

I think I understood him, but that could be a mistake. This 
understanding is important for the whole discussion. However my 
knowledge is not sufficient to explain Matþaius' theories - only to 
ask questions and discuss your historical arguments.

 
> I missed that reference. If you happen to look once again,
> could you describe once again the accent in front of the epsilon?
> was it just a raised comma, or was it a raised inverted comma?
> Can you find any control words to compare it with?
> 

I wrote down-left, but raised comma is a more elegant description.

> 
> Would it have helped to hear them talk, if he understood nothing?

There had to be a lot of communication between the officers. And they 
were also welknown in Byzans where Justinian used them against an 
uprise.

> But any way, here is a better argument, since you say the
> Byzantines were very familiar with Heruls who were in the city at
> that time  :
> 
> If the apostrophe is the non-H type, it just means that the
> Greeks of Constantinople called them Eruls without H.

Why should they do that, if the name earlier was with H as you claim, 
and they also pronounced it with H as you claim?

> That is all it
> really means. He wrote to the Greek/Byzantine public. And he
> wrote the name in the form in which the Greek public would 
> most easily recognize it.

I agree.

> Prokop wrote around the same time as Jordanes.

In different languages
 
> Here are the important dates:
> 508 Heruls defeated by Langobards
> 526 Fall of Theodoric.
> 551 Jordanes writes the Getica 
> 552 3000 Heruls are reported near Singidunum in Pannonia
>     (which shows they were still in the area as Jordanes was 
writing)

They were spread all over the Byzantine Empire.

> Jordanes was of Gothic family and remembered King Rodulf
> and his defeat in 508. He also remembered Theodoric.
> I assume he spoke Gothic and knew the pronounciation
> of the Germanic names. In his Getica the Heruls are
> mentioned many times and nearly all the extant Mss.
> write it with H. (except in some random places where
> H-es are missing. But these are very few)

Yes but still they used H without pronouncing H - Matþaius again.


> >In the early Greek sources (mentioned by Andreas in February) 
there 
> >is more doubt about the spelling and Dexippos originally described 
> >both Goths and Heruls as Scythes - 
> 
> Yes, but Scyths are unimportant. 
> Those are only attempts to "place" them within the
> Greek horizon of known peoples. That Prokop believed they
> might be Scythes has no bearing on the pronounciation of
> Herul.

I wrote Dexippos - Procopius called them Goths.

> >and more important: Even if a 
> >spelling with "H" was correct in the 3rd century it may have been 
> >silent in the 6th century, where the migration (not necessarily 
> >return) to Scandinavia took place.
> 
> "Even if"? Deuxippos even informs us concerning the etymology of
> the name Herul. And relates it to a word that begins with H.
> 

Do you mean Jordanes'/Ablasius' referral to Hele and Heluri?

Still I suggest, that it could have been with or without H in the 3rd 
century and silent or very faint in the 6th century. 

> There is no reason to assume H to beome silent in 6th century 
Germanic.
> There is no loss of initial H in the Germanic languages.
> Jordanes, who knows Gothic and has contacts with Germanic 
> peoples in Italy knows the Germanic pronounciation, and consistently
> writes Herul with H.

He wrote in Latin.

> 
> The loss of H is only in the Greek language and in Italic.
> 
> >
> >But one of my questions is, if there may have been a consonant all 
> >the time starting as an "H" in Greece and ending as a faint 
breaking 
> >sound in Scandinavia.
> 
> That the Heruls would have lost H? Then they must have been much 
more
> influenced by Greek and Latin pronounciation than all the other 
Germanic
> peoples, since initial H is typical for Germanic language.
> (My ON dictionary had 60 pages for H, but only 14 for E!)
> 
> But the "Ek Erilar" inscriptions, what is their date?
> Perhaps they are from before the time of the reemigration?
> 
> The Rosseland stone in Norway, ca. 450: ek wagigaR irilar agilamudon
> Ethelhem fibula Gotland, ca. 450: mkmrlawrta (I the Iril wrote)
> Bratsberg fibula Norway ca. 500: ekerilaR
> Lindholm amulet Skåne ca. 500: ekerilaR sawilagaRhateka
> Kragehul spear Denmark, ca. 500: ekerilaRasugisalas muhahaite 
gagaga ginuga...
> Veblungsnes rock Norway, ca. 550: ek irilar wiwila
> By runehelle Norway ca. 575: ek irilar hroRaR hroReR orte þat 
aRina ...
> 
> You see that two have been dated to before the reimmigration.
> But the others are very close to the time of the reimmigration
> and are yet scattered over a wide area. Furthermore, they show
> dialectal variation, corresponding to West Norse i and East Norse e.
> 
> So I am not sure these inscriptions can be used as reliable sources
> to tell us anything about the Heruls. 

First of all we are not sure of these datings according to your 
answer in an earlier mail, and secondly I have never claimed, that 
the Erilar-inscriptions were maid of the Heruls from Procopius 
migration. There were probably visiting Heruls in Scandinavia earlier 
than that, as they were located at the wells of the Oder and in 
Frisia in the 5th century. 


> One, however, makes us pause
> and that is the Rosseland inscription (in Hardanger W Norway),
> because it mentions the name "Agilamundo" which happens to be the 
name
> of a Langobard king who may have died around 400(?), killed by Huns 
> or Bulgars. That the same Personal Names occur ca. simultaneously
> in distant places, does of course not signify the same person.
> But it does indicate some kind of connection.  In fact, if Heruls
> according to written sources travelled back and forth between
> Scandianavia and the Balkan ca. 550, then why couldn't the same
> thing have occurred anno 400 with other groups? The Langobards
> had quite a few names on Agil-.

Just my words above.

> >Regarding the Herul Fara mentioned by Dirk he died in 535>
> >For a much later writer like Paulus the Heruls were probably a 
> >historical people described in old books - and therefore his 
spelling 
> >is useless.
> 
> useless..
> It is true that he may have gotten the spelling from Jordanes,
> because it was said earlier on the list, that Paulus knew the 
Getica well.
> But I also think dramatic events like that will have lived
> on in peoples memories, and especially if the Bavarian princes
> had Heruls as great great grandfathers, I assumed that they
> would have mentioned the Heruls in their stories from  time
> to time. Stories told in Bairisch, where there was no loss of
> initial H. Especially if the stories were told at both 
> Bavarian and Langobard courts by professional storytellers,
> as I assume they may have been. Then the pronounciation must
> have become habitual. Just like we all know the hero's name
> is Hoppalong Cassidy. We would never change that into 
> "Oppalong Cassidy", even if we grew very very old, and hadn't
> seen the movies since our youth. Because such names, as are
> part of storytelling, do stick very well in memory. Neither would
> we suddenly speak about "Ans og Grethe".

Yes but still the classical educated Paulus would spell it as he had 
seen in his books - and the silent H would not bother him.

> 
> 
> But aside from that, we do not need Paulus' testimony.
> After all we have the Getica! And it too quite consistently
> carries through the initial H in Herul.

Still the problem with the silent H.
 
> Here is some language statistics.
> Wilhelm Streitberg's Gothic "Wörterbuch" lists only 3 (three)
> original Gothic words that begin with e. They are
> "ei", "eisarn" , "eiþan". (all with diphtong "ei").
> But there are very many words that begin with "h".
> (they take a while to count, because I have to skip
> over biblical names and various doubles, the same word
> with different prefixes and things like that)
> But suffice it to say that the words beginning with
> H are maybe 50? (H covers almost 10 pages of Streitberg's
> Wörterbuch). It is therefore quite clear that words beginning
> with H are very common in Gothic. But words beginning with
> E are rare. (and are not nouns) 

I have never denied that, but how can we use such statistics.

 
> For a Gothic analogue to iril/eril, I think we'd have 
> to look for a word on ai-. That is because "earth" in
> Gotic is "airþa". So maybe the iril/eril, if he spoke
> Gothic, would have been an "Airil".

Pronounced like English "air" + il?

2. --- In gothic-l at y..., keth at o... wrote:
> 
> >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 !

Yes, but when? this is eagerly discussed by scholars.

> 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.

Where did he write that?

> >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)
> 
> about the original spelling.

I think we agree, as this was my second alternative - and below you 
meybe described it more clearly.

> 
> 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".

Maybe.

> 
> >> 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?
> 

I have seen several versions, and unfortunetely I have not written 
down which of them my copies were from. 

> >
> >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.
> 

Thanks.
 
 
> 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.

Where was it gained? In Germany? Only if it is not based on Latin 
writing. 

> 
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 
> 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.

It did.

> 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. 
> 

Before searching you should take a look at MSG 3400 from Andreas. I 
do not know if his use of E and He refer to the original text, as I 
did not pay this problem much attention earlier.


3. --- In gothic-l at y..., keth at o... wrote:
> Troels,
> In connection with the question about the H in Herul, you wrote:
> 
> >For a much later writer like Paulus the Heruls were probably a 
> >historical people described in old books - and therefore his 
spelling 
> >is useless.
> 
> It is this argument of yours that I should like to take up.
> I have quoted what you wrote concerning this, in full above.
> 
> The essence of your arument then is, that since Paulus' "Historia 
Langobardorum"
> was written in the 8th century, it is too far removed in time, to 
tell us
> anything about the pronounciation of Germanic names by people who 
spoke
> a Germanic language in the 5th and 6th centuries. 
> 
> Since Paulus is thus at least two centuries removed from the events,
> this argument of yours has a certain validity. I have already argued
> against it, basing my argument upon Paulus growing up in a Germanic
> milieu and writing his book where the topic was the history of his
> own Germanic people, the Langobards. Hence I argued for the validity
> of Paulus' book relative to the matter under discussion, basing my
> argument on an appeal to the oral continuity of Langobardic 
tradition
> in Italy, where the native language was Langobardic/Germanic/Gothic
> for some centuries. Albeit Paulus' book was written in Latin, I
> thought this latter fact to be of lesser importance in the matter.
> 
> Let us now assume, temporarily at least, that I accept your argument
> which can be summarized as: "Paulus wrote two centuries too late."
> 
> Then IF this is accepted as a valid argument, THEN it would seem
> that Latin books and records that were NOT written several centuries
> too late, might be much more acceptable as valid arguments for
> my proposal.
> 
> Hence if I found a Latin text from ca. AD 500, i.e. a contemporary
> Latin text,  that describes some of the same events and peoples as 
> were under discussion, may I then asume that you are willing to
> grant it a greater weight in the discussion?
> 
> In fact, if you are NOT willing to grant such a contemporary Latin 
> book greater weight in the matter, then I would say that your 
> objection cannot have been only the two centuries that had passed,
> but rather the fact that it was written in the wrong language:
> Latin instead of a suitable Germanic langauge.
> 
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> okay. Then I think I have done my best to formulate things as 
logically
> as I can.
> 
> The book I have now taken down from the shelves is called "Vita 
Severini"
> and was written by a man called Eugippius, who was born around 460 
A.D.
> and whose "Life of Severinus" was finished in 511, i.e. only 3 years
> after the defeat of king Rodulf and his Heruls by the Lanngobards.
> 
> The book is not only contemporary, but the events it depicts also
> take place in exactly the right area, viz. the Donau border area
> where the Rugii had settled to the North of the river, and Noricum
> Ripense situated to the South of the river.
> 
> Would you concede then, that what this book can tell us, may be
> of some relevance to the matter under discussion? And if not, will
> you or any one else on the list, be able to present a good argument
> against its pertinence in the matter?
> 
> På forhånd takk!
> med vennlig hilsen
> Keth

Keth! The only problem in your arguments above is the silent H. This 
should be a discussion between you and Matþaius as I just described a 
consequence of his mail, as I read it. I asked some questions in that 
connection, and you and Francisc answered most of it. This has been a 
great help to me.

Med venlig hilsen
Troels  


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