Introduction Post

[Edmund Fairfax]

Dear Justine,

As a postscript, it goes without saying that a *razdakunthja would be masculine, and that the feminine counterpart would be *razdakunthjo.

Edmund




On Wednesday, December 18, 2013 3:55:59 PM, Edmund Fairfax <edmundfairfax at yahoo.ca> wrote:
 
  
Dear Justine,

*Razdakunthja would be my first choice. The use of the suffix -jato form nomina agentis from nouns is well attested in Gothic: fiskja, liugnja, timrja, gudja, wardja, skattja, skilja, waurstwja, kasja, swiglja, ferja, haurnja, afdrugkja, weindrugkja, afetja, bihaitja, arbinumja, fauragaggja, gasinthja, ingardja, nehwundja.

A good treatment of early Germanic word-formation can be found in Friedrich Kluge's Nominale Stammbildungslehre der altgermanischen Dialekte. Even though published in 1926, it is still one of the best. A further source is Wolfgang Meid's Germanische Sprachwissenschaft von Dr. H. Krahe, III Wortbildung(1967).

I might add here as an aside, hopefully of interest, that the -j-suffix was also used to form patronymics ('so-and-so, son of son-and-son') in Germanic. This usage is clearly attested in the earliest runic inscriptions (I give normalized forms in the following):

Ek Hlewagastiz Holtijaz(Gallehus horn) 'I Hlewagastiz, son of Holtaz'
Ek Aljamarkiz Baiijaz(Karstad stone) 'I Aljamarkiz, son of Bajaz'

The cognate in Gaulish (-ios) was similarly used, e.g. Kongennolitanos Kartsilitanios'Kongennolitanos, son of Kartsilitanos'.

Edmund





On Wednesday, December 18, 2013 1:25:35 PM, "underwoodjustine at yahoo.com" <underwoodjustine at yahoo.com> wrote:
 
  
Hi there Edmund, I hate to resurrect an old post, but if you would render "razdakunthi" for linguistics, how would you render "linguist?"  *razdakunthja, perhaps?


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