[gothic-l] Re: Gothic word for King

[keth at ONLINE.NO]

Hi Francisc!
Thank you very much for this advice. The same thing was also pointed
out by Brian, and I wish to thank him too! I think perhaps some 
scribes may have been sloppy. The proof of this must in fact be sought
in the manuscripts themselves, that do - all too often - show deviations
and variants. If we assume only one opriginal manuscript (a reasonable
assumption) then I think "sloppiness" is a good explanation.
Perhaps also the scribes who did the copy work, sometimes also undertook
to copy manuscripts that was not in their mothers language. Perhaps
some (as monks perhaps) had learned Greek, but were not perfect in
all details (i.e. "the points over the iota's"). That may then be the reason
why these ortographic signs sometimes were dropped. If you look at
the manuscripts you often see that they were not dropped in a consistent
manner, but rather in what seems like a random manner.
(like someone dropping eggs, not plannned and systematic, but at random
moments in time)

I was also interested in the source for the name "Halamardus".
This was said to be from some West Germanic inscription, but
I do not know which one. I find it interesting, because the first
part is clearly similar to the first part of "Halaricus". Also, we know
the meaning of both -ricus and -mardus from other Germanic PN's.
('mardus' is from "famous", related to German "Märchen", Dutch "vermaard".)
Thus it seems established the Hala- is a first component in Germanic
PN's. I'd like to compare it with Old Norse "halr" that was a word that
meant "man" or "hero".

I have before me the text of Hesiod's "Erga kai emerai" (which is
incidentally also what Bertil asked a while ago, when he said 
he could not find my Hesiod quote about the bronze men in Theogonia.
But that was because the quote wasn't from Theogonia, but rather from
Erga kai emerai.) It has lots of proper names in it. Looking at random
I find for example " 'Efaiston " (f="phi"). Here the apostrophe in
the Greek text is the forward sloping one: " ´ " (don't know if
that one came through, it being non-ascii). Any way, the translation
says "Hephaistos". So clearly the forward sloping apostrophe represents
the "H". Another example is  " 'Iapetoîo "  -> "Iapetus".
But here the accent is a different one, as you point out.
Here it is rather a normal comma raised up to the top level of the
letters that form a given line. Another example is Pallas 'Athene,
where a normal comma occurs in a raised position before the u.c. alpha.
So those are good pointers, and I will take good care to differentiate
between them. There are however also two kinds of forward-sloping
apostrophes. Do you know what the difference is? (I suppose one of
them is merely the aigu that finds no room above the capitals, and
is hence put in front of them.)

With Best regards
Keth



>Hi Keth,
>
>Be careful, in Greek there are two kind of "apostrophes" put before an 
>initial vowel:
>- the "hard spirit" (soemthing like `), indicating that before the 
>vowel is an apiration (h);
>- the "soft spirit" (something like '), indicating that there is no 
>aspiration before the vowel.
>Thus, `AláriXos is read [haláriXos], but 'AláriXos is [aláriXos]. The 
>problem (at least for me) is that both signs are very easy to be mixed 
>up, if you don't look very carefully at them.
>
>Francisc
>
>--- In gothic-l at y..., keth at o... wrote:
>> Hi Francisc,
>> 
>> >In fact, I don't know, but it looks indeed very convenable to 
>> >interprete "Alaricus" as "Alareiks", "Theodericus" as "Thiudareiks" 
>> >etc.
>> 
>> I also found the Greek form:
>> 
>>  'AláriXos
>> 
>>  ' = apostroph
>>  A = u.c. alpha
>>  l = lambda
>>  á = accented alpha
>>  r = rho
>>  i = iota
>>  X = chi
>>  o = omicron
>>  s = sigma
>> 
>> I do not know if this tells us much more, but the apostrophe is 
>interesting.
>> Getica § 117 and § 277 also has Halaricus.
>> 
>> 
>> Best regards
>> Keth
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Note added :
>> 
>> Getica § 117 : But even if he was famous for having subdued so many, 
>he was not satisfied before he had struck down a large part of the 
>Herulic nation, that Halaric governed, and put the remaining ones 
>under his rule. According to the historian Ablabius this nation lives 
>near Maeotis marshes in swampy areas, which the Greeks call "hele" and 
>for this reason the nation is called Heruls. It is a quick nation and 
>therefore all the more high strung.
>> 
>> Getica § 117 : Sed cum tantorum servitio clarus haberetur, non 
>passus est nisi et gentem Herulorum, quibus praeerat Halaricus, magna 
>ex parte trucidatam reliquam suae subegeret dicioni. Nam praedicta 
>gens, Ablavio istorico referente, iuxta Meotida palude inhabitans in 
>locis stagnantibus, quas Greci ele vocant, Eluri nominati sunt, gens 
>quantum velox, eo amplius superbissima.
>> 
>> Similar PN : Halamardus; W.Gmc.
>
>
>
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