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

[Michal Cigan]

Hi, 
only little correction,

You wrote:
...The word "kunego" = prinz in old slavonic...

I do not know, what's Your source, but as far as I know, the old slavic word for "prince", or "duke" was k'nenz', and it's probably a borrowing from some germanic language - I heard about a theory, that it's a loanword from old high german

Michal


michelsauvant <michelsauvant at yahoo.fr> 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 yahoo.fr
 
 
     
                       

 				
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