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

[Troels Brandt <trbrandt@post9.tele.dk>]

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, george knysh <gknysh at y...> wrote:
> cross posting with author's permission. GK
> --- Piotr Gasiorowski <piotr.gasiorowski at i...>
> wrote:
> > To: cybalist at yahoogroups.com
> > From: Piotr Gasiorowski
> > <piotr.gasiorowski at i...>
> > Date: Sat, 14 Dec 2002 18:52:48 +0100
> > Subject: Re: Re: [gothic-l] Fwd: Re: [tied]
> > Harii/Hirri into (H)eruli?
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "george knysh" <gknysh at y...>
> > To: <cybalist at yahoogroups.com>
> > Sent: Saturday, December 14, 2002 6:28 PM
> > Subject: Fwd: Re: [gothic-l] Fwd: Re: [tied]
> > Harii/Hirri into (H)eruli?
> >
> >
> > > A cross posting. What do you think of Troels
> > Brandt's
> > > idea that "Heruli" came from "Harii" via
> > Sarmatians or
> > > Greeks?
> >
> > ["The meeting between Harii and Alanic Sarmatians
> > was another and with the Greeks a third. In such
> > cases I do not believe that the system with
> > the reconstructed rules and *words will work."]
> >
> > I don't understand the idea, frankly. How is a Greek
> > or Sarmatian "filter" supposed to help in this case?
> > How does it explain the difference between what's
> > expected and what's observed? If all that Troels
> > Brandt wants to say is that in a contact situation
> > involving two or three languages situation anything
> > goes, I can only say that (1) it isn't true (loans
> > and words affected by foreign influence have their
> > own regularities), and (2) it's self-defeating (if
> > in such a linguistic configuration no constraints
> > have to be observed and a plausible etymology cannot
> > be distinguished from an implausible one, the "Harii
> > -> Heruli" etymology is just arbitrary speculation).
> >
> > Piotr

To be quite honest. Piotr has solved my ErilaR-problem already.

The disappearing Harii and the new Heruls is an interesting question,
but if there is no obvious linguistic explanation neither history nor
language can in my opinion explain the origin of the Heruls. In that
case I agree it is arbitrary speculation unless archaeology can bring
us new information.

Regarding the Alans my suggestion was, that groups of Harii and Alans
(or Bosporanians for that sake) may have merged at the Black Sea into
a new people - the Heruls. If the new name was an Alanic version of
Harii or if there was an obvious Alanic etymology the linguistic
rules might explain the name. Therefore I mentioned this solution. If
it was a new name - maybe even formed as a mixture - not even Piotr
knows the rules. Jordanes (Ablasius) tried to explain Dexippos'
version - but his name was not 'Erouloi but 'Elouroi. Not the best
starting point for us 1500 years later.

Regarding Greek I had the Makaev-explanation in mind: That "-ul-"
could be due to a Greek translation of a name just as Harii/Hirri
were earlier Latin translations (Makaev did not mention the Harii).

Troels



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