[gothic-l] Re: Gothic & Greek B in Slabonic + izba

Wed Sep 8 07:17:46 UTC 2004

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Hi Llama nom!

Let's leave the "Romance influence" regarding
the initial on Wade's conscience.
Any "sporadic phenomenon" needs an acceptable
explanation as well.

As to the example <izumrud>, it has no relation
to our topic. This word has in Russian a Turkic origin
(cf. Izmir<Smirna, Izmail<Samuel, Iscander<Alexander,
etc.). The elder form for 'emerald' in OR borrowed
from Persian was <smaragd>.

Now about the "hard sign". Yes, the "hard sign"
reflected a weak hard unstressed vowel in Church
Slavonic or Old Bulgarian (in modern Bulgarian
this letter may be stressed), which should be omitted
in Russian during the so called "fall of reduced vowels"
in XII c. Thus, the question is where was the accent
in <stuba> and especially <istuba>. (Note that
the accent in the Russian <izba> is upon the last
syllable in all cases of the singular, but it shifts
to the first syllable in the plural.)

I do not know prehistory of the word <stupa>, but
the sound did not exist in OR. It appeared
in place of either the former diphthong <ou> or
just the nasal <o>.

The Russian <stul> was borrowed from German
with a meaning very close to the English 'stool'
(including the medical notion, but rather 'chair',
i.e. a seat with a back). Moreover, another borrowing
from Norse might be suspected for the word <stol>,
which has in modern Russian the meaning 'table',
but in OR had the sense 'throne'. The earliest
written attestation is an inscription
<VLADIMIR NA STOLE> i.e. "Vladimir on the throne"
on first coins (<zlotnik> and <srebrenik>) minted
in Kiev in XI c. You can find an impressive description
of the throne of Russian kagans (highest rank rulers
of Kiev Rus') in Ibn Fadlan's Travel Notes
"Travel to Volga" of 922 A.D. Kagans' <stol> resembles
there a huge King Arthur's Round table, with the kagan
sitting upon (!) the Table-throne and never leaving it
even to serve his physical needs (sorry for such
not very lofty details).

Vladimir

-----Original Message-----
From: llama_nom [mailto:penterakt at fsmail.net]
Sent: Monday, September 06, 2004 4:57 PM
To: gothic-l at yahoogroups.com
Subject: [gothic-l] Re: Gothic & Greek B in Slabonic + izba

Hi Vladimir!

Thanks for your thoughts. I think Wade will have been aware of
Preobrazhensky; but not vice versa. Wade's book was published in
1996, and is much smaller and less comprehensive. And thanks for
putting me right on <istopka>. I must have just read the italic
Cyrilic as Roman <n>!! I'm very ignorant about the history of
Russian, so for now I can only quote the ideas I've read. Regarding
the initial , Wade says this is either due to "Romance influence"
(He doesn't elebourate on this), or a "sporadic phenomenon", of which
he gives one other example: <izumrud> 'emeralds'.

In the CSl. form I quoted, <istuba>, that would be spelt in Roman
letters with a diacritic indicating the indistinct vowel which is
represented in CSl. with the symbol that is now the "hard sign" in
Russian. Would this imply an unstressed syllable in Church Slavonic?

The example of <stupa> is interesting. I wonder if this had a nasal
at one time? cf. English 'stamp', etc. Another borrowing with no
initial is <stul>, which might be from Norse or German.

Llama Nom

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

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