[gothic-l] Re: Snorri on Reidgotaland

[malmqvist52 at YAHOO.SE]

Hi,
--- In gothic-l at y..., keth at o... wrote:
> 
> An initial "h" in front of an "r" is something that was dropped
> in the Scandinavian languages. A birds nest "rede" < hreiðr.
> I was unable to find a direct Gothic correlation of ON hreiðr.
> But if I look at German "horst", that is supposed to be related
> (Adler-horst), then I find meanings related to branches and 
thickets,
> and am told to look under "Hürde", which in its turn is said to
> be related to Gothic "haurds". Thus we have a relationship to 
wicker-work
> and hurdles; but it is of course not the same word. I think
> there were many words in Gohic that were lost. Nevertheless,
> the name of a major group of peoples ought not to be lost so
> easily. Just to put forward at least *some* idea, let me propose
> it was the *greutingi*. Then the "g" became a throat sound
> and became an "h" of the old type which is also a throat sound.
> As the word wandered through different countries as part of
> legends, *greut* changed to *hreut", and gave rise to an idea
> of *hreut-goths*  -- still later, this was misunderstood as
> "nest-goths" and thus arose the legendary name "hreiðgotar".
> (just a theory - it is probably easy to disprove for those who
> know more about sound changes than I do)
> 
Keth, I really like your theory, I'm only an amateur in linguistics 
myself but the sound-changes seem plausibe to me. I'm also not an 
expert on the time-line of these terms, but I have Ingemar Nordgren's 
Goterkällan and I read that he adopts Josef Svennungs theory on 
connecting the Greutungi with Jordanes Euagreotingi. This  implies 
that Euagrotingi lived on the Rocky islands of Bohuslän. Orust Tjörn 
and possibly Hisingen. and then the Greotingi lived in the rocky 
(main)land. So if You and Ingemar and Svennung collectively are 
right, then  Bohuslän is our target... Hm... problem!!! Bohuslän was 
mostly norweigan in Snorri's times. Only some parts of Hisingen was 
swedish. Maybe Leffler is right instead that 
"the Eva-Greotingi where Eva is eya while Greotingi is "they that 
live in stone houses"
 was living in Öland instead  
 Ingemar, I know that this is a clumsy  translation  of Lefflers view 
from your book, but forgive me, I'm only thiking loud.

Best wishes 
Anders


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