Some questions for you who might know

[Fredrik]

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, Guenther Ramm <ualarauans at ...> wrote:
>
> Hails, Frithureik!
>   Don't you forget aiza-smitha which translates Greek CALKEUS with 
a certain reference to a metal?
>   About "period". I don't know whether Koebler had sufficient 
reasons to postulate *era and *stunda as possible existent Gothic 
words. The first could easily be a misspelling (and a typical one for 
Middle Latin) in the Latin-written Lex and Chronica Regum 
Visigothorum (I must confess I did not see these primary sources) of 
the ordinary Latin aera and so have nothing to do with Gothic. If 
borrowed maybe it would rather look like *aira (cf. kaisar < Caesar, 
but at the same time there is Kreks < Graecus)? Btw, is there any 
rule of reflecting Latin –ae- / Greek –ai- in Gothic depending on 
chronology and the way (oral or scribal) of borrowing? I wonder if it 
could be connected with that discussion on the phonetic value of 
Gothic digraphs we had here lately.

I don't know when ae became e in latin and why gothic as ai in kaisar
but e in kreks is not anything i know. I hope somebody here has info 
enough to clear this out.
But most likely all three are loan from latin, and era and kreks 
would be later loans.
Might it be like caesar was a loan in pgmc time?


>   The second (*stunda) is based on Provencal estona, but are we 
quite sure that all earlier Germanic loans in Provencal and Ibero-
Romance are unexceptionally to be ascribed to Visigoths? Could not 
some of them come e.g. via Old French ultimately from Frankish or Old 
Low German?

Well, maybe. Even some germanic words in spanish ain't of gothic 
origin but loan from old french and ultimately from frankish.
And some could also be loans to latin and then later it occurs in 
spanish and provençal.
I guess sp. guante is a loan from mid.latin vantus or maybe frankish.
Both italian has it (as guanto) and french (as gant).
gothic would have wantus I think.

> And how we would call now, for example, the WWII? Anthar Unfrithus 
this Airmingrundaus (just to keep the vowel alliteration, for 
*airmingrundus cf. OE eormengrund et sim.)? And, is Alabrunsts really 
an appropriate word for the Holocaust?

WWII, I would say Anthar Wigan Fairhvaus.
And the Holocaust, maybe So Qisteins.
(Or gataurths as a translation of german zerstörung which is a 
translation of hebrew shoah)


>   As you know, the Rhine and the Danube were two principal rivers 
that divided Pax Romana and Barbaricum. Notice that the Rhine is 
(most probably) male and the Danube female – could there be some 
mythological background of this gender distribution? A myth of 
brother and sister running away from parents home (their sources are 
comparatively close to each other) and from each other after having 
committed incest (an Indo-European mythological pattern)? Well, 
that's all my fancy, but we have here experts on mythology, maybe 
they know some about it?

I don't know about IE mythology but it sounds believable.

>   Another German river is the Elbe, which is Albis in Latin < 
Celtic and *Albiz in PG, literally "the white (river)".

If *albiz wasn't a word for river, but only as an element in river 
names for "white rivers", then is it good to use it in gothic?

According to runeberg IE albhi- is a feminine form of albho- = lat. 
albus. the pgmc masc. form would be albaz and the gothic albs (but a-
stem), right?

In ON we have quite a common noun elfr "river" and a lot of hydronyms 
in Sweden ending on –aelven. In fact, that's a perfect "river-word" 
for reconstructed Gothic. The form would be Alfs F. –i (Gen. Albais) 
and in compounds like *Austradalalfs for Swedish Oesterdalaelven (-en 
is a reflex of the post-positive article?).

älven is definite form of älv, one of some words in swedish for river.
(some others are flod and å, where å is cognate to gothic ahva.)
The islands of Åland is in finnish Ahvenanmaa, the first part a loan 
from germanic language.
A gothic name could be Ahvaland. (sounds little weird I think)


>   Jordanes has uiscla alongside with Vistula and it is supposed to 
be corrupted Gothic. Is it *Weisla, or *Weihsla (to the stem weih-
 "holy" or weihs "village")?

Is it a name of gothic (or germanic) origin or maybe from some other 
language?
The t seems to be a part of the name in some sources.

Ptolemy also records the tribes around the Vistula River, which he 
regards as the border between Germany and Sarmatia. He uses the Greek 
spelling, "Ouistoula". Other ancient sources spell it "Istula". 
Pomponius Mela refers to the "Visula" (Book 3) and Ammianus 
Marcellinus to the "Bisula" (Book 22), both of which names lack the -
t-. The Anglo-Saxon poem Widsith refers to it as the "Wistla".


>   The river flowing through Prague (Czech Republic) had a German 
name Moldau (Chech Vltava). Could it be *Muldawi (the same word which 
you proposed for Moldova, this latter was also called Moldau in 
German). Or maybe *Wulthawi "a glorious river" (see Vltava)?

Maybe the original name was wulthawi which became vltava in czech 
language. And in germanic later changed to muldawi. Or the other way?

The word awi is cognate to ahva which means flowing water/river. But 
can awi be used in the same meaning?

Isn't it also used as steppe/meadow?
As I might have said before, the scythian steppe which included the 
area of Moldova was oium (aujom) in gothic, from awi.
So was awi used for steppe?
Then Muldawi would be a good name for Moldova.
I don't know if i've said it but in swedish M. is Moldavien. 


> 
> 
> Fredrik <gadrauhts at ...> wrote:  So what you're saying is that the 
only attested meaning is 'money'.
> And only by comparison with other languages we can suppose the 
> meaning also could be brass, bronze and copper.
> Is the meaning metal not an option?
> 
> 
> I was in a hurry before so I forgot some of my questions so here 
are 
> some of those:
> 
> I need a word for period, and have a suggestion.
> I know there are some attested words already but maybe not in 
exactly 
> this meaning.
> We have mêl, hveila, stunda and era.
> Era btw semms to be cognate to ore, aiz and aes.
> I don't wanna use era coz it's a loan word.
> Some of the other might work but what about teiþs (i-stem).
> The pgcm word tîðiz I think means 'division of time' or 'point or 
> portion of time'. This is similar to the meaning period I think.
> What I mean by period is a specific part of the time. Like the cold 
> war was a period of the 20th century.
> 
> I also wanna know if there are any attested word for the rivers in 
> Europe. Especially any for Rhine?
> If not attested could it have been smth like Rein?
> The word comes from gaulish Renos so the extra h, is that from the 
> latin form Rhenus?
> 
> 
> What about the word watô in compound words?
> Some one gave a suggestion for nominative as namnadrusts.
> If namô makes namna- then watô should make watna-.
> So e.g. lack of water = watnawan (or wan watins).
> 
> 
> /Fredrik
> 
> 
> --- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "llama_nom" <600cell@> wrote:
> 
>     
> ---------------------------------
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