[gothic-l] Fwd: Re: [tied] Harii/Hirri into (H)eruli?

[george knysh]

I am cross-posting this with the kind permission of
the author. GK
--- Piotr Gasiorowski <piotr.gasiorowski at inetia.pl>
wrote:
> To: cybalist at yahoogroups.com
> From: Piotr Gasiorowski
> <piotr.gasiorowski at inetia.pl>
> Date: Sat, 14 Dec 2002 00:32:51 +0100
> Subject: Re: [tied] Harii/Hirri into (H)eruli?
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "george knysh" <gknysh at yahoo.com>
> To: <cybalist at yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Friday, December 13, 2002 2:53 PM
> Subject: [tied] Harii/Hirri into (H)eruli?
>
>
> > Someone has asked on another list whether it is
> > possible that Pliny's Hirri and Tacitus' Harii
> could
> > have developed into the groups later known as
> Heruli
> > or Eruli. I have strong doubts about this on
> > historical and archaeological grounds, but the
> > discussion has taken a linguistic twist and I
> > mentioned that I would consult the excellent
> linguists
> > on Cybalist on the issue. The argument is that
> > Harii/Hirri could be derived from the same root as
> the
> > one which gave Erila, the H being a Graeco-Roman
> > superfluity. It is further argued that Erila could
> be
> > interpreted as "little Eri", and that Greeks
> changed
> > the "i" to a "u" whence the historically recorded
> > name. Does this make any sense?
>
>(Piotr Gasiorowski): This theory was once popular but
there's no
> linguistic support for it. To begin with, Latinised
> "Harii" has Latin <h-> corresponding to PGmc. *x-
> (it's articulation seems to have been weak in East
> Germanic already in Roman times). Germanic *xarja-
> means 'army, host, multitude', and <harii> is
> interpreted as reflecting the corresponding
> collective or plural form. *xarja- in turn comes
> from PIE *korjo-, and the etymology of "Harii" is
> strengthened by the fact that *korjo- occurs in
> Celtic ethnonyms like "Tricorii" and "Petrucorii".
> To sum up, the <h> is not due to hypercorrection in
> Latin.
>
> I can't locate the passage where Pliny speaks about
> the "Hirri". Can you help me with that? I'd be
> surprised if the name were a variant of "Harii"
> (unless it's hopelessly garbled), but I can't
> attempt an identification with no historical and
> geographic background whatsoever. Gibbon, who
> alludes to the "Heruli = little Harii" theory,
> speaks of "the Skyrri and Hirri" on the same breath
> -- a really harum-scarum association.
>
> The Latin <h> in "Heruli" _is_ hypercorrect if Runic
> <erilaz> and the related Northwest Germanic 'man of
> worth' words (OE eorl, ON jarl, OS erl, all <
> *erlaz) have anything to do with this name (which is
> the received opinion). Quasi-ablaut variation
> involving *i ~ *u ~ *a ~ zero is common in Germanic
> suffixes, so if both *er-la- and *er-ila- occur,
> *er-ula- may easily occur as well (cf. *xak-il-o: ~
> *xak-ul-o: 'flax-comb, hackle'), and no help from
> the Greeks is required. The suffix seems to be
> primarily adjectival, as in *mikila- 'great' (cf.
> Gk. megalo-). It is _not_ diminutive. I suppose
> somebody connected <erilaz> with Gothic attila
> 'daddy', but the latter is a "weak" (nasal) stem,
> *att-ilan- (nom.sg. *attilo:(n) > Goth. attila),
> whereas *er-(i)la-z is a formally different "strong"
> masculine (very aptly for this word). If it had
> existed in Gothic, it would be something like
> *aírils there.
>
> Piotr
>
>
>
>


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