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

Mon Sep 25 01:44:08 UTC 2006

Hi, all of you discussing about terms for leaders

Thanks for yours answers to my previous message (19/09).
I appreciated your accurate advices.
And I was happy to read your debate at a very interesting level. 
I hope that some referential glossary for Gothic will inherit 
benefice from the result of this debate around the global concept 
of "king".

As input for the choice I have to do (concerning Canigo), I kept the 
following conclusion of this debate:
"Alaric arriving in South of France and Spain, and his successors 
couldn't be titled  "kuniggs" (or something similar), except if they 
were influenced by the west-german title "kuningas"/ "kunning" (or 
something similar), when they went through the West-german countries 
around the year 400 . 
But at that time a gothic word "kuniggs" (or something similar) 
existed to qualify men from noble family".

I'm not closing our exchange; but at the moment I have to think 
about reasons for choosing between :
- a wisigotic solution (kuniggs hauh), 
- a proto-basque solution (khani goi) meaning « higher mountain »
- one of two I.E. solutions meaning "keen and high"" or "dog's 
tooth".  

I know that it could be a long process to attest the assumption I 
will choose for the Canigo; and it could be still with your help if 
it is the wisigothic solution. 

Salut d'un ami de la « Gothie lointaine » (French expression 
translating  « Gothia longuna », which could be the original name of 
the "Catalunya" around year 760)

Michel

P.S.
Was the « ku- » in « kuniggs » pronounced like "cool" , or "cut", or 
german "Kügel", or "core", or "copy", or "coat" or something else? 

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "ualarauans" <ualarauans at ...> wrote:
>
> Hi Michel
> 
> --- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "michelsauvant" <michelsauvant@> 
> wrote:
> >
> > I listed the various serious assumptions made by other people.
> > I added some other assumptions I found.
> > <...>
> > 4 assumptions of the 5 remaining are proto-basque or celtic; the 
> 5th
> > is the gothic I'm completing with you.
> > Let me tell you the 4 others:
> > --- "khani goi" imitating the basque expression "gaini goi",
> > meaning "over the mounts"
> > or "khan+igo" imitating the basque word "gainago (comparative 
form
> > gain+ago)" meaning "higher mount".
> > For both versions, meaning, language and roots are the same.
> 
> Of the assumptions you listed I'd find these Basque best, both for 
> historical and phonetic reasons. A proto-Basque name could later 
> have been adapted to some Romance words, _cane_ as "tooth" 
or "dog" 
> among them.
> 
> > Note : in catalan language "i" has the meaning of "and". Catalan 
is
> > very far from Latin, but this "i", like the "y" in spanish 
> language,
> > seems to come from Slavic countries.
> 
> I'd doubt this. Much more likely it is a form descending from 
Latin 
> _et_. We should be very careful when meeting similar-sounding 
words 
> in even neighboring languages, because they can easily prove to be 
> of a quite different origin. A classical example is the word _fiu_ 
> which we find both in Hungarian and Romanian meaning the same, 
> i.e. "son". What more? Hungary and Romania are bordering 
countries, 
> and their languages had a lot of interaction in history. But in 
> fact, Hungarian is a Finno-Ugric language and its _fiu_ is cognate 
> to _poika_ "son" in Finnish, another Finno-Ugric language, while 
> Romanian is Romance and has inherited its _fiu_ from Latin 
_filius_.
> 
> > Coming now on the linguist side:
> > I know that the syllable "Kan" and "Kon/Kun" where very 
resistant 
> to
> > the time in various languages.
> > So normally a word pronounced [kuninga] or an expression 
pronounced
> > [kuningahauhi:]
> > could not mute to some word starting with the sound "kan".
> > Among my 132 names I don't have a "con" becoming a "can"; but we
> > have at least 2 "o" becoming "a". Examples (I suppose you read
> > Latin):
> > ---"Orbus Solis ! Mos est novus Deus!", written in 313,
> > became "Arbussolas (950) Mosseto (10th cent.  Nosèdes (888)"
> > --- « Tobit evolue : (de) patri oculis privis luce", written in
> > 359,  became "Taltevul (11e c.)  Paziols (13e c) Perelons (12e 
c).
> > An other example is the name "Catalunya" coming from "Gothia
> > longitana" ("longitanus" became "llunya" in catalan language)
> > = "Country where Goths are living far away from their proper
> > country".
> 
> I heard an interpretation of Catalonia as Gotho-Alania. In which 
> case both a's are carried over from -alan- (???). Very dubious 
> though. In Ossetic (still living survivor of Alanian), as far as I 
> heard, these hybrid would sound *Gut-Allon.
> 
> > 1.Is your "a" at the end of [kuninga] pronounced like "account" 
or
> > like "ago"?
> 
> I'd suppose it was like in "but", short and unstressed, therefore 
> apt to get reduced and altered.
> 
> > 2. I understand that there is more probability that the Visigoths
> > came with the word "kuniggs" meaning "noble", than with this word
> > meaning "king" . Is it true?
> 
> To the time of the settling down in Septimania The Visigoths had 
had 
> and were still having dealings with many West-Germanic tribes 
which 
> used this word (West-Germanic *kuning) to refer to their kings. 
Even 
> if Gothic *kuniggs had meant something else before (e.g. was 
> retaining the supposedly original semantics "nobleman"), it 
couldn't 
> help getting influenced by the "king"-meaning in other Germanic 
> languages. I wonder if it was possible that the Goths used 
*kuniggs 
> to specifically refer to the kings of their West-Germanic rivals 
> while keeping old good thiudans for theirs? For example, some 
> retired Visigothic bard would sing of the famous battle at Vouille 
> in 507 AD:
> 
> Warth than waihjo in Waugladis aujom
> Undar Alareik godana Gutane thiudan
> Jah Hluthaweih frikana Fragkane kunigg...
> 
> Interea Chlodouechus rex cum Alarico rege Gothorum in campo 
> Uogladense decimo ab urbe Pictaua militario conuenit...
> (Gregory of Tours, Historia Francorum, II, 37)
> 
> > In that case, I ask you what is the adjective in Gothic
> > having "kunig" as root ? (like "königlich" in german)
> 
> I'd suggest *kuniggisks [kuningisks], but we lack attested 
examples 
> of adjectives formed from nouns ending in –iggs. If you mean smth 
> like "royal", "noble", "of the king's descent", it could be 
> *kuniggakunds [kuningakunds] probably as well.
> 
> > 3. Have you a reason to explain more the mutation of [kuninga]  
to
> > Canigo than mutation from  [kuningahauhi:]  to Canigo ?
> > 
> > At the end of our discussion , the conclusion cold be :
> > "Now , with the existence of the Canigo we are able to attest 
that
> > Visigoths coming in Spain have had "kuniggs", or some word 
similar,
> > in their vocabulary in the 5th century before they forget gothic"
> 
> I think it's a long way still to go to make such a conclusion :)
> 
> Ualarauans
>

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