Etymology of "Alavivus?"
Francisc Czobor
fericzobor at YAHOO.COM
Wed Feb 20 13:42:18 UTC 2008
Koebler (in "Anhang 3: Gotische Namen") derives Alavivus from weihan.
I understand this that the name is composed of ala- "all" + a
derivation of weihan (I suppose it's weihan, strong verb, "to battle,
combat, dispute", and not weihan*, weak verb, "hallow, sanctify").
The Gothic form could be *Ala-weihs or *Ala-weigs, but I can't
understand how the second "v" of "Alavivus" appeared.
Alatheus, on the other hand, is explained as Alathius (ala- "all" +
þius "thrall, servant").
Francisc
--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, Michael Erwin <merwin at ...> wrote:
>
> Can anybody reconstruct the name Latinized as "Alavivus?"
>
> I was thinking it could be a corruption of the name Latinized as
> "Alatheus," e.g. if he had added a Gothic signature to a Latin or
> Greek diplomatic letter, and the þ was hard to read, and/or the
> readers didn't know any Gothic.
>
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