[gothic-l] Re: Old Prussian

Fri Jun 11 15:12:17 UTC 2004

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "llama_nom" <penterakt at f...> wrote:
>> Hi Dirk,
> 
> Some other words from the Elbing Glossary (Old Prussian, 14th or 
15th 
> century). Some look quite like Gothic, or Germanic, at least:
> 
> sarwis - armour
> catils - kettle
> sticlo - glass
> rikis - lord
> alu - mead
> konagis - king
> waldwiko - knight
> 
> Sticlo, aside from Gothic _stikls_, has cognates in Slavonic.  
> According to Terrence Wade's "Russian Etymological Dictionary", 
these 
> do derive ultimately from Gothic, which comes from "a Gmc. root 
> meaning sharp" - refering to the point of a drinking horn.  
Koebler's 
> dictionary has this idea too.
> 
> _Catils_ might well be from Gothic *katils (ultimately < Lat. 
> catillus).  Czarnecki's article places Polish kocioł among 
just six 
> words which can be ascribed with CERTAINTY to Gothic!
> 
> I have read that _alu_ could just as easily be
> a Baltic cognate, rather than a borrowing from Germanic necessarily.
> Apparently the word, though not attested, did exist in Gothic (as 
> *aluth), and is thought to account for similar forms in Caucasian 
> languages ("Etymology", ASC Ross).
> 
> _Sarwis_ looks like Gothic _sarwa_ 'armour'.  More than that I 
can't 
> say.

I also mentioned Brunja, which seems Germanic as well. If Sarwis is 
originally Germanic, than I would expect it to be Gothic, rather than 
a later borrowing when Germans arrived in large numbers in the 
region, since the word was not used as far as I know in the middle 
ages. Brunja could be a West Germanic borrowing I suppose, but it 
looks closer to Gothic Brunjo. 

> 
> _Konagis_ is presumably Germanic, but maybe West Germanic rather 
than 
> Gothic? (see Czarnecki's comments on Polish equivalents).  

Some Russian archaeologists have argued that Saxons may have moved to 
the Vistula region in the 6th century, because of the occurance of a 
certain (supposedly) Saxon urn type. These Saxons are said to be 
responsible for the so called archaeological Olstyn or Mazur-Germanic 
group. I think this is still speculative, but if correct it could 
explain West Germanic influence.

> Waldwico, 
> I don't know.  

I think the Old Prussian word Waldwico, means knight, but also lord 
and landlord. The Wald- is supposed to relate to Gothic waldan (to 
rule). 

> Rugis does seem to be a borrowing, one way or the 
> other, but is there any indication for the direction of borrowing?

I think it was borrowed from Germanic (possibly Gothic) to Old 
Prussian. Rye in German is Roggen and the name of the Rugi tribe is 
believed to mean rye-growers. 

> Even if it was from Germanic to Baltic/Slavonic, I guess it might 
not 
> be possible to know whether Gothic was implicated.

Probably not, but the from Rugis does not look like a borrowing from 
medieval German, which almost leaves only Gothic. 

> 
> Re: Polish, yes Czarnecki discounts many supposed Gothic borrowings 
> into Polish, although he does consider a Gothic origin PROBABLE for 
> the river names: Pełtew (*fultho), Skrwa (*Struko) & Tanew 
(*Tânu-) - =
> 
> sources are cited, but no reasoning/explanation given - and 
POSSIBLE 
> Gothic origin for the name Przeginia (<fairguni), although a native 
> Slavic origin for the latter is also considered.  Incidentally, I'd 
> be interested to hear if anyone knows any more details about the 
> etymology of those rivers, the meaning of the names, or alternative 
> derivations.
> 
> If *Tânu- is Gothic, that long _â_ looks odd, but I can't really 
> comment as there are so many factors here that I don't know about, 
> such as Slavonic phonology, or indeed the phonology of East 
Germanic 
> dialects at this early date (e.g. the progress of æ > e, and what 
> might have been the closest phoneme in Prussian and in Slavonic) - 
> after all this is a long time before Wulfila.  Also it might be 
> necessary to consider the possible effects of these names coming 
into 
> Polish through Prussian.

Yes, good point. 

> 
> Re: nationalism.  Ugh, politics!  Well, I suppose it's human nature 
> for people to see what they want to see.  Equally, of course, the 
> fact that someone makes bad arguments in favour of something 
doesn't 
> affect its likelyhood one way or the other, so we just have to look 
> at the evidence.  To look at it more generously, I guess this 
subject 
> requires expertise in several different languages, so there's extra 
> room for error - even if we ignore mad nationalist amateurs from 
long 
> ago.  I know next to nothing about Polish (so far...) sadly, and 
only 
> very basic stuff about any Slavonic languages - on the other hand 
> I've already spotted a few errors in Czarnecki's article regarding 
> Gothic itself.
> 
> That said, there's nothing inherently impossible about place names 
> lasting hundreds of years, and river names are often notoriously 
> ancient.  E.g. there are Celtic river names all over England in 
> places that have been devoid of Celtic speakers for almost as long 
as 
> Poland has been empty of Goths!

That is true, but I was not speaking of river names, but of names for 
settlements. Since there was a time gap of several centuries between 
the departure of the Goths and the arrival of the Slavs, I think it 
is unlikely that settlement names were passed on.

Cheers
Dirk 

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