People Names/GJOTA/CADMUS [gothic-l]

[keth at ONLINE.NO]

Bertil wrought:
>As I am no professional linguist I hesitate to go into this
>but Germanic is related to Baltic and Slavic. K.T. Witczak wrote
>on the re-Germanic substrata and Germanic
>maritime vocabulary in a volume, _The Indo-Europeanization
>of Northern Europe_ (1996), which you maybe could consult.

Yes, that has been mentioned earlier on the list.
That is another testimony to the early seaparation of
a Baltic language group that took its separate path
from such more southern or central euopean languages
as Celtic. It seems as if one cannot theorize about
the coming into being of Germanic, without also clarifying
its relationship to Baltic and Slavic.


>Never heard in Swedish of fish "gjuta rom" under water.
>Is this something peculiar to Norwegian?

No.
Have you looked at Danish?
As you know, Norway used to be the number one fishing
nation of Northern Europe. You could say that for a 
long time fish is what Norway was all about. And so 
"fisken gyter", "gyteplass", etc is the most frequent
way this word is used in Norway. I often find 
that some of the things you quote journals for,
can more simply be found out by consulting a good dictionary. 
Thus the ON dictionary testifies to the same usage
in Old Icelandic as in modern Norwegian; viz. the
phrase "gjóta hrognum" (Dat.) is found in the Old
Icelandic Eulicidarius, for which see K.Gíslason's
book of 1858.

Here are some Swedish translations:
 N.            Sw.
gyte         lägga rom, leka  - om fisk.
gytefisk     lekfisk
gyteplass    lekplats för fisk

It is also Danish, but then it is written "gyde".
In Old Norse it was apparently not only used about fish,
but also about dogs, that is in the meaning "to give 
birth". I should have liked to see a reference for the
latter usage (about dogs and possibly other animals),
but it will have to wait. I see that the famous Icelandic
"geysir" is also related to this word. Lehmann writes
that this variety of forms exemplified in Gmc. for a
case like this, provide excellent examples of the pre-
valent usage of extended root forms, rather than simple
roots in Gmc. And that such extended forms are the stems
for strong verbs classes I -III. So there is another
reference for you, to include in your article! 

I see there is also an Old Norse verb "gauta", that 
directly reflects "der germanische Urvater" or whatever
the hypothesis was. Although personally I'd like to
treat such hypothesises with some caution.


>Have never seen the explanation underneath relating
>gjuta/giessen to Bronze Age casting. 

It is because you so often say that as long as there
is only one hypothesis, then it must be a true hypothesis.
And then you defend your hypothesis by challenging the
doubters to provide alternative hypothesises. Well,
that is what I have done.


>It is not uncommon
>to relate "shedder of semen" to a well known word 
>construction process like the Greek arraen, arsaen

Yes, but now you too refer to Greek usage, which
you reject further below, in order to object to
an hypothesis that doesn't agree with yours.

>"male, man" in turn related to rain, moisten, wet. There
>is according to Andersson no alternative to the most

It seems to me that Anderson is most of all a compiler,
and that these things you refer to Anderson for have been
standard in the litterature for at least a 100 years.


>common theory. There was once a theory that the Goths
>were named after *Gut, a theoretical part of the
>Baltic Sea,  but of course one can always discuss 
>a topographic solution.
>
>In the case of the name of the Gauts/Goths/Gutar man
>must in the connection with semen mean the ability
>of reproduce, man as the reproducer. It is possible that his

That is of course a very rational explanation.
And it could be possible - of course.
But if you look at other peoples from the same period,
about whom the "myth of origin" or rather "the myth of
how they got their name" is known, you will see that
the connections are what you might call "symbolic"
rather than "rational".

Thus, for example the name of the Langobards is related
to a story about women dressing up as men, and thereby
saving the nation. The woman called "Gambara" was
instrumental in this. Thus we can say there is also
an "Urmutter" involved. And not just an "Urvater"
as you imply with your hypothesis.

Perhaps the Goths too had an "Urmutter".
Maybe this other meaning of "gjóta" as "giving birth"
is actually closer to the truth than your more simple
semen theory, which gives priority to the male element
in the birth of the nation.


>explanation is "too simple" bit it is the common explanation
>(Andersson: "Einigkeit besteht heute dareueber, dass
>die Stammesbezeichnungen goetar und Goten/gutar
>ablautend mit dem Verb urgerm. *geutan, dt. giessen
>irgendwie zusammenhaengen. Andere Vorschlaege, die 
>gemacht worden sind, brauchen nicht mehr beachtet
>zu werden.")  

Yes, it is related to the verb. But the verb signifies a much
more general idea than that of "semen". It signifies one thing
_emerging_ from another. And there are quite a few examples
of things emerging that have no direct relationship with
"semen". For example a bird laying an egg. Then the egg "emerges"
from the bird. But that doesn't men you can say the egg *is*
semen. It is rather the beginning of a new being where both
elements, male and female, are already combined.

If you reread what Anderson wrote, assuming it is the 
complete quote you supplied, then you will see that he connects
"Goths" to the verb "gjóta", to which your semen theory forms
a non-unique secondary hypothesis.


>So why should there be a connection with
>myth to make it complicated enough?
>
>Personally I have problems with connecting Hesiodos
>(I guess you are referriong to him?) with the Goths.
>After all Hesiod wrote around 700 BC. 

Well, we already have 300 BC for the Goths.
So the difference is only 400 years.
That time difference is a lot smaller than some of the time
differences that you have been operating with.
I'd rather say that the example from Hesiod shows that a 
connection with the casting of Bronze, wouldn't be a
Scandinavian innovation. And the 4 centuries that lie 
between them is actually a positive evidence, since a
"Wandersage" needs time to propagate. And the more centuries
that are available, the more likely it is that the legend
will have made it from Greece to Sweden.
 
Besides, I said that *if* the name goes back to the Bronze
Age (< 500 BC), *then* it would make sense to relate
the name to a tribe of bronze casters. And as you know,
there are many examples of Bronze Age items being transported
over large distances. Wasn't there a beautiful Greek vase found
at Vix in France?

You have  300 BC for the Goths.
Bronze Age is < 500 BC. That is only 2oo years !


>But all theories are worth studying as after all the
>explanations we discuss are theories. 


I think if one made a list of all creation myths
or myths of origin that are known, and then looked
at the names given to the first people, one would
see that the myth of origin is always important
when explaining a name. Deucalion and Pyrrha for
example. But the Hesiod myth was actually interesting
because he said the "Bronze men" came from the "Ash
tree". And in Nordic myth we also have Ask and Embla
being created from trees.

Your theory about "Gaut" as sole father, also works
by collating relatively late sources, and then using
them as "pointers" that "point" towards a distant
prehistoric name, which the hypothesising process
manages to materialize due to the common "force"
of the pointers.


Best regards
Keth




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