Was the word "kunig/kunigas/kunigur" a gothic word?

[Ingemar Nordgren]

Hi Michel,

The old word for tribal chief (inclusive with his religious functions)
was as far as I know 'kuningaz' which definitely must be related to
'kind' in Northgermanic meaning 'family area, family in a broad sense'
et c. You have the same meaning in English 'kin',relative et c. The
Gothic tribes were called kuni,kunja and the coordinator, note not
king, among the Vesi-Tervingiwas called 'kindins' -the one responsible
for the cooperation between the different kuni, 'kinsman'. In Sweden
we have ancient administrative districts called 'kind' that by most
researchers are assocoated with old family areas. It hence fits very
well together. The word 'reiks' is a later invention by influence from
the Roman realm and their 'rex'. Þiuðans just means 'leader of the
people and refers to the earlier sacral king who was in charge of the
united tribes, but he never was a tribal king. When that line
disappeared the remaining king was the Ostrogothic/Greutungian tribal
king, reiks, and by the Vesigoths the kingdom was within the tribes
solely as tribal 'reiks' while the 'kindins' as I understand it was an
elected successor of the old þiuðans substituting his earlier
functions of preserving the religion of the common folks, the
fertility religion, and to be responsible for military defence if an
enemy attacked. Note however that he was not allowed to carry command
outside the borders of Gutþiuða. Formally, however, he never was a 'king'.
Accordingly the name of the mountain might well rest on the word
'kuningaz' or 'konungr' and similar old North  and Eastgermanic , or
Northeastgermanic if you stick to an older school, words.Maybe even
Westgermanic, but since the Visigoths lived there I vote for an
Visigothic origin.

Note however that I am in no way a linguist!

Best wishes
Ingemar

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "michelsauvant" <michelsauvant at ...>
wrote:
>
> Hello
> 
> I'm a French and specialist of toponomy for Northern Catalonia 
> (Gothaland??) a region where Visigoths lived between 414 and the 
> 750's (Septimania).
> 
> I am writing to you in order to verify a personal assumption about 
> the name "Canigo" of one of the summit in this country.
> 
> This name could have been given by Goths as  "Kunighauh" .
> But what could be the exact meaning ? 
> 
> I read all the messages about the words for "king" in gothic 
> language, and I know that there is no evidence that Goths borrowed a 
> word like "kunig" or something else similar, with the meaning 
> of "king".
> But we know that such word existed, around the Ost-Baltic sea, 
> spoken by Visigoth's ancestors. At that time the meaning could 
> be "noble" and Visigoths could have borrowed the word with the same 
> meaning, or the meaning of "prinz", despite their usage of the 
> words "reiks" or " thiodans" for their proper kings.
> The word "kunego" = prinz in old slavonic  is compatible with my 
> assumption.
> 
> I precise that this remarkable mountain Canigo -- we can see it from 
> the sea side the main summit (around 2800m) like the Fujijama 
> inJapan-- was not mentioned by antics authors travelling there.
> Despite 5 centuries with the grecian city of Emporion near it, and 5 
> centuries of government by Romans! 
> So its name seems to be done between 400 (start of the lack of 
> authors writing about something with no relation with the Bible) and 
> 875 (first occurrence of the name "Canigo" in a document). 
> In consequence this name is necessarily from Visigoths or Franks. 
> But I can explain why this name was not created by Franks coming 
> around 750.
> And I can tell you that a name meaning "Noble Mount " is 
> particularly adapted to its magnificence. The highness of the Canigo 
> could have inspired this adjective to the Goths.
> 
> If you tell me that this assumption is false, I have an other 
> assumption:
> The proto-germanic  ancestor of the OHG word "kunig"or "kunning" 
> (and all the similar words meaning "king" in various countries) 
> could have been a concatenation between "kuni"= "family or people" 
> and "gur" = "en haut". I think at the corresponding word "kunigur" 
> in the isolated Iceland. 
> In that case the etymological meaning of an hypothetical gothic 
> word "kunig" (or "kunigo" or "kunigas") could be "somebody being 
> over the members of his family, or tribu or clan"
 as a king is.
> In this case it could have been used for a personified summit over 
> the other summits in the same set of mountains, to tell everybody 
> that is the highest mountain.
> NB. An other origine for "kuning/kunigas/kunigur" could 
> be "Khan+i+goh" = higher lord.
> considering that "khan" was the word for "lord" somewhere in central 
> Asia. 
> 
> If these two assumptions are false, I must admit that some indo-
> european around 1500-800BC gave the name "khanigo" as a 
> concatenation of "Khan + i +go" = higher summit (hier "Khan" 
> means "summit" (preindoeuropean meaning ),  even if no antic author 
> mentioned this remarkable mountain. 
> 
> What do you thing of  this ?
> 
> Best regards
> 
> Michel Sauvant
> michelsauvant at ...
>






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