The Gothic word for "mother"

[Ingemar Nordgren]

Hi!

Just an impulsive idea!

The chief of  a Gothic household is a Frauja. In connection with his
family he is Fadar (Sw. fader) so that is evidently the normal word.

In Sw. kin, family with extension far back to ancestors is called 'ätt'.

Could atta just be an honorary title on the oldest  person of the
family living - family/kin father, sw. ättefader, and analogous the
mother= 'ättemoder'. This could be comparable with the Roman habit.

Penzl connects atta with Asian shamanism suggesting , perhaps, a
connection with ancestorcult.Mayhap of Hunnish origin.

Pick your choice!

Ingemar


--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "Ian Ragsdale" <delvebelow at ...> wrote:
>
> At one point I was working on a short paper RE: the use of "atta" in
> the Gothic Lord's Prayer, but there seemed to be little etymology to
> speak about with the word and futile to extrapolate on the point ad
> nauseum.  Everything I've read simply touts "atta" as a nursery word,
> pointing out attested forms in many languages both IE and otherwise.
> Lehmann's etymological dictionary has little else to say.  Aithei just
> looks to me like a feminized form with the dental stop assimilated to
> a fricative to deal with the new vowel.
> 
> I've always thought that Tucker's Etymological Dictionary of Latin
> pointed out an interesting fact: "atta" in Roman times was used by old
> men to refer to their seniors, as a sign of respect.  So this "nursery
> word" is also found in other cultures/times outside of baby talk.
> 
> -IMR
>


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/gothic-l/attachments/20080806/12886f50/attachment.htm>