Gepids (Spesis provincia)

[llama_nom]

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, "llama_nom" <600cell at ...> wrote:
>[...]
> 
> Kemp Malone (1933). `The suffix of appurtenance in "Widsith"' The
> Modern Language Review 28:3, pp. 315-325.  [
>
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0026-7937%28193307%2928%3A3%3C315%3ATSOAI%22%3E2.0.CO%3B2-P
> ].

He also has a theory about the other name for Gepedoios "the islands
of the Gepids" (Biblical Gothic *Gibidaujos) given by Jordanes: Spesis
provincia. 'Spesis', he suggests, could be a Latin genitive singular
of an East Germanic i-stem adjective *'spêþs' > *'spêss' "late,
tardy", "with assimilation as in English 'bliss' < 'bliþs'. One may
conjecture that such an assimilation was characteristic and that the
Goths upstream took advantage of the peculiarity to coin a jocular
name for the land of the Gibids, some such name as *'Spêss-fera'. Here
of course there would be a double-entendre highly satisfying to the
Gothic sense of humour, for *'Spêss-fera' could be taken to mean at
the same time (1) a region where everyone said 'spêss' for 'spêþs',
and (2) a region where everyone was habitually late."

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/gothic-l/attachments/20080303/35563e90/attachment.htm>