[gothic-l] Varangians

[gazariah]

Greetings, Tore!

>>It is now fully accepted by the present generation of scholars in
Russia that the Varangians played an important role in forming the
Russian state. Novgorod, Kiev etc.>>

Yes, once Stalin and his heirs were gone, the Russians became willing
to accept the Varangian theory.

Still, we should be careful of going too far. The Varangians set up a
state, and a number of words got borrowed into Russian. But the
impact of Norse on Russian was not anything like the impact of French
on English after the Norman conquest. Even the Norse names we find
in "Russian" treaties with the Byzantines don't really prove much. An
English king named Richard (French name, deriving from Norse) might
very well not speak French, although the first one surely did.

I put "Russian" in quotes because, as you probably know, the
name /rus'/ itself is thought to come from Swedish.

As for /airils/, the problem is nobody here seems to know what this
meant, or if it is in Gothic, or Norse, or anywhere at all.

Remember too that there seems to have been contact between Slavs and
Germanic peoples (maybe Goths) in a time long before the Varangians.
A word like /xl#b/ "bread," probably from Germanic /hlaifs/, is found
in nearly every Slavic language, which would not have happened if the
borrowing came as late as the Varangians.

Regards,
Gazariah


------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-->
Buy Remanufactured Ink Cartridges & Refill Kits at MyInks.com for: HP $8-20. Epson $3-9, Canon $5-15, Lexmark $4-17. Free s/h over $50 (US & Canada).
http://www.c1tracking.com/l.asp?cid=6351
http://us.click.yahoo.com/0zJuRD/6CvGAA/qnsNAA/wWMplB/TM
---------------------------------------------------------------------~->

You are a member of the Gothic-L list.  To unsubscribe, send a blank email to <gothic-l-unsubscribe at egroups.com>.

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/