Translating Getica (cerva)

[ualarauans]

Hi Francisc,

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "Francisc Czobor" <fericzobor at ...> 
wrote:
>
> There might be a connection between the Hungarian "szarvas" and
> Latin "cervus", but not so direct. szarvas is a derivative form
> szarv "horn, antler", the meaning being "having horns/antlers". As
> substantive it means "deer" (any gender), and as adjective: "with
> horns/antlers, horned", as in the compound szarvasmarha "horned
> cattle".
> The word szarv "horn" is common Finno-Ugrian, having cognates in 
all
> other Finno-Ugrian languages (Finnish: sarvi; Estonian: sarv;
> Livonian: so:ra, sa:ra; Saami [Lappish]: c^oar've; Mordvin: s'uro,
> s'ura; Mari [Cheremis]: s^ur; Udmurt: s'ur; Komi: s'ur; Khanty
> [Ostyak]: s'arBi; Mansi [Vogul]: s'o:re). This common Finno-Ugrian
> word is considered to be of Indo-European (satem, most probably
> Iranic) origin (cf. Avestan sru:, srva:, Mod. Pers. seru:, suru:
[n];
> other cognates mentioned there are Latin cervus and German Horn).
> (source: A Magyar Nyelv Történeti-Etimológiai Szótára [The 
Historical-
> Etymological Dictionary of the Hungarian Language], Akadémiai 
Kiadó,
> Budapest, 1976)

At first I thought szarvas preserves Indo-Iranian a-stem masculine 
ending -as, much like Finnish germanisms do. The expected proto-word 
could be then smth like *s'arvas "horned animal" < PIE *k'er at w-: 
*k'r.w-o- (Pokorny I, 576) – cf. Lith. kárve, OCSl. krava (both 
fem.) "cow", OPruss. kurwis "ox" (with a surprising initial k- in 
otherwise satem languages). Now I see from your exposition that
the -as in szarvas is a Hungarian suffix and does not account for 
gender. Thank you for clearing this up.

> The old Hungarian chronicles mentioning the deer-legend were 
written
> in Latin, the oldest of them being that of Simon de Keza (written
> 1282-1285) (followed by the Chronicon Hungariae Pictum / Painted
> Chronicle of Vienna, written around 1360, etc.). Until now, I have
> found only modern Hungarian translations of Keza's work, where the
> animal appears sometimes as "gímszarvas" (stag), sometimes
> as "szarvas ünö" (doe). But, finally, I have found the Latin text,
> only a part of it, but containing the passage of interest
> (http://www.konyv-e.hu/pdf/Kezai-latin-r.pdf): there is clearly 
about
> a "cerva" ! The passage reads:
> "Accidit autem dierum una venandi causa ipsos perrexisse; quibus in
> deserto cum cerva occurrisset, in paludes Meotidas illam 
insequentes,
> fugiit ante eos. Cumque ibi ab oculis eorum prorsus vanuisset,
> diutius requisitam invenire nullo modo potuerunt. Peragratis tandem
> paludibus memoratis pro armentis nutriendis ipsam conspexerant
> oportunam."
> The influence of Iordanes is obvious.

It is obvious indeed. Thank you for citing this source. Well, looks 
like one argument less for a male deer. Now what we have for a "doe" 
in Gothic (a bit of summing up):

*hinda F.-o (*hindo F.-on; *hindei F.-ein)
*raiho F.-on (*raihjo F.-on)
*sago F.-on

*demo (?) F.-on seems really problematic...

Ualarauans

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