identification of Flutausis as Cogaeanus

[dciurchea]

"In the land of Scythia to the westward dwells, first of     33
all, the race of the Gepidae, surrounded by great and
famous rivers. For the Tisia flows through it on the
north and northwest, and on the southwest is the great
Danube. On the east it is cut by the Flutausis, a swiftly
eddying stream that sweeps whirling into the Ister's
waters. Within these rivers lies Dacia, encircled by the     34
lofty Alps as by a crown." Jordannes:V 
(The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Origin and Deeds of the Goths, by
Jordanes, Translated by Charles C. Mierow 
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/14809 : V) 

The name of the river should be Plautausis (i.e. in modern 
Romanian 'plutashi', eng. raftsmen). 
Indeed, this river which today starts in the mountains as Bistritza 
and later as Siret down to the Danube was used by raftsmen until 
1969 to convey  timber down to Danube and therefore may be taken 
as "Plutashi">>Plauta(u)si(s), the border of Gepidia with Caucoensi. 
According to a decent map derived from Ptolemy 
(http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/macedonia_1849.jpg) the 
name of this river is "Cogaeonus", i.e. a name related to the Getic  
sacred mountain Kogaion. 
The term "koga" is used locally today as an insult for the 
strangers, foreigners (not in dictionaries); the official name is 
Neamtz(usually denoting a german; the word is actually formed 
starting from the root "neam"=stock), as an euphemism for foreigner, 
since today there is a small ucrainean community there; perhaps in 
antiquity Starbon(7:3:5) was told about the "Kogaionon" the border.  

I am glad to learn that the toponimic transcripted by Jordannes was 
in fact genuine Romanian (i.e. Wallachian), as with Galtis on Alutha.



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/gothic-l/attachments/20070818/2e39abc9/attachment.htm>