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

Mon Sep 25 02:30:15 UTC 2006

Hails Michel Nasjandans jah alla,

  I still favour Canigo as a slight corruption of Kuni-hauhs for several small factors we haven't yet discussed:

  1. Several place names in the Crimea that are Gothic in origin, but were metabolized into Tatar, including "Gun-charna", now pronounced "Hun-charna", which has no possible Slavic contaminants. It originated as Gothic "Kuni-qairnus", or "Tribal Mill" (see Wulfilan "asilu-qairnus", or "donkey mill"). It also has nothing to do with Hunnic ancestry, as the Huns fought continuously against Crimean Goths, but were unable to penetrate or settle deeply into the Crimea (even if such had been their primary intention!). The "qairnus" word appears elsewhere in Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria (Kvarna). It is an early version of Swedish "kvarna", English "churn", and other Germanic _karne-_ derivatives such as "Karnemelk".

  Also, you asked about whether any other Germanic words with a _u_ root corresponded with an _a_ in Romance? Well, yes, although I am not yet sure just why or under which circumstances. In this case, as analogy or assimilation (e.g., we Romance-speaking peoples are accustomed to hearing an "ah" in the place where you have an "uh", so we instinctively change it to sound right!). 

  Further, inasmuch as Spanish _go_ is aspirated much like the modern Dutch "Gogh", there would have been the least possible change (two phonemes, being u to a, and hauh to go), this theory would at least make Occam less grumpy.

  As soon as I can consult Die Indogermanische Sprachwissenschaft on the subject in the next two days, I will post it. In the meantime, consider:

  Germanic hus  Romance casa;
  Germanic hund(s) Romance canis;
  Germanic miluk Romance lactus.

  One major problem is that we have an imprecise idea of the Visigothic spoken by the "man with the axe" in the 5th Century following Alaric's march into Rome in 410 AD and the arrival of the Visigothic nation in present-day southern France and Northern Spain some years later. Inasmuch as many of the causes of English modernization, i.e., elisions, dropping final consonants, elimination of inflections for gender, case, etc., the Gothic of Wamba and Ricceswinth was likely much changed from that of Bishop Wulfila. All in all, however, I still maintain that Canigo = kunihauh should not be eliminated as a possibility.

  As to the Basque, I have no idea what changes have occurred to their language over the past 1600 or so years. 

  Please forgive this intrusion among some really accomplished and knowledgeable linguists and historians. I am neither, only a jurist, but I certainly appreciate all I have learned from Gothic-L, and am doubly grateful for the acquaintances I have had the honour of meeting here.

  Ik fairhaitai thagk.

  Aizamundereiks

  Arthur
  Arthur.jones at yahoo.com

michelsauvant <michelsauvant at yahoo.fr> wrote:
          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
>

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

You are a member of the Gothic-L list.  To unsubscribe, send a blank email to <gothic-l-unsubscribe at egroups.com>. 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gothic-l/

<*> Your email settings:
    Individual Email | Traditional

<*> To change settings online go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gothic-l/join
    (Yahoo! ID required)

<*> To change settings via email:
    mailto:gothic-l-digest at yahoogroups.com 
    mailto:gothic-l-fullfeatured at yahoogroups.com

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    gothic-l-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/