[gothic-l] Re: Gothic word for King

[Francisc Czobor]

Hi Dirk,

--- In gothic-l at y..., dirk at s... wrote:
> ...
> Hi Francisc and Alberto,
>
> can I slip in a short question about these name-forms, please. Are
> names like Alareiks, Thiudareiks, Athalareiks etc. really attested
for
> those kings? Would they themselves have used these forms or are they
> more theoretical reconstructions? In documents and on coins (for the
> latter two) they used of course the latinised forms Alaricus,
> Theodericus and Athalaricus. Thus, Athalaric's full title on coins
is
> D(ominus)N(oster) Athatalaricus Rix (sometimes, but rarely replaced
by
> Rex). Why would the latinised form not be Athalareikus or similar if
> the commonly known and correct form of the name was Athalareiks?

As far as I know, the Gothic forms Alareiks, Thiudareiks, Athalareiks
etc. are not attested, but induced from their latinized forms. Even
Iordanes writes Alaricus (with variants: Halaricus, Alarichus),
Amalaricus, Athalaricus rex etc. It is a general tendency in
mediaeval documents to latinize non-Latin names by adding an "-us"
ending. Regarding the "Rix" in "Athalaricus Rix", it can be
interpreted in two ways:
- the "I" of "RIX" is in fact a compressed "E"
- a contamination between Lat. "rex" and Gothic "reiks", that occured
only in the independant word, but not in the proper names composed
with "-reiks".
In fact, I don't know, but it looks indeed very convenable to
interprete "Alaricus" as "Alareiks", "Theodericus" as "Thiudareiks"
etc.

Francisc



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