Gepids

[llama_nom]

Grimm's take on Gepids brings us back to the connection with 'giba',
'giban', which still seems plausible to me, especially given personal
names like *Gibareiks and *Gibika. This ties in with my suggestion
that they were the lucky, blessed, fortunate ones (in their own
language), those to whom good luck (or victory) has been "given" (cf.
Silingi = *Selingos "the blessed people"?).

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=DgsDAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA463&lpg=PA463&dq=gepanta+gibites&source=web&ots=oTntU0E1fs&sig=M-EI0AzEtn9k0aXcjW2gMW4KWV8&hl=en
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=DgsDAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA464&lpg=PA463&ots=oTntU0E1fs&dq=gepanta+gibites

I assume the 'þ' in his reconstruction *Gibiþa is based on the rule of
dissimilation by which we get the alternation of voiced and unvoiced
consonants in a suffix depending on the voicedness of the preceding
consonant, e.g. 'meriþa' : 'auþida'. And that might account for the
't' sometimes found in classical forms. This issue came up recently
when we were trying to reconstruct ordinal numbers (regular *fidworþa
with dissimilation from the preceding voiced consonants, or analogous
*Fidworda without).

Thanks again to Google we can see the man's name Kippid that Grimm
mentions in context:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=YfY-AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA38&lpg=PA38&dq=kippid+corbeienses&source=web&ots=HxMWuj7F4m&sig=g4to1Qz0mx4FZ9Rfum6vpX8sQug&hl=en

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/gothic-l/attachments/20080303/3aaaba9d/attachment.htm>