[gothic-l] The Gothic equivalent to the Anglo-Saxon Thegn

[Johann Dröge anheropl0x@gmail.com [gothic-l]]

Ah, how jealous I am of your wealth of knowledge and your resources. I must
add these books of etymology to my library some day.

On Fri, Mar 20, 2015 at 4:29 PM, edmundfairfax at yahoo.ca [gothic-l] <
gothic-l at yahoogroups.com> wrote:

>
>
> Dear Johann,
>
> The reconstruction *druhtiz is a zero-grade nominal derived from the
> verbal root *dreug-, the latter from PIE *dhreugh- and so its kinship with
> Russian 'drug' (zero-grade) and Lithuanian 'draugas' (o-grade) is indeed
> generally accepted. The meaning of the verbal root *dreug- is, according to
> Kroonen's etymological dictionary, 'to do a duty(?)', and thus *druhtiz
> would appear to be mean, at least originally, a 'group bound together to
> meet some obligation or to perform some duty,' cf. OE 'dreogan' 'to do,
> work; to endure, suffer.' (The presumably secondary sense of 'to suffer,
> endure' in the OE verb would seem to stem from the fact that meeting an
> obligation is often unpleasant.)
>
> Gothic 'drauhtiwitoth' occurs only once in the phrase 'driugan
> drauhtiwitoth': (1T1,18) "ei driugais in thaim thata godo drauhtiwitoth"
> 'so that you may fight the good fight...' From this single instance, it is
> really impossible to discern the full semantic field of the noun.
>
> It is also possible that 'witoth' here, which otherwise normally means
> 'law,' may have preserved an earlier meaning hinted at in some of its
> cognates: OS witod (adj.) 'destined' and ON vitathr (adj) 'known, proved,
> marked out,' OHG wizzod (n.) 'law, order, divine will.' The word 'witoth'
> itself appears to be a PIE t-stem created from the root of *wid- a primary
> perfect root with the sense 'know, have seen', thus *wid-ot-. In light of
> the foregoing, drauhtiwitoth then may have meant broadly something like
> 'obligation to be part of a retinue, especially an armed one.'
>
> Edmund
>
>
> ---In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, <anheropl0x at ...> wrote :
>
> I wouldn't have guessed their was, given my years of Latin and Germanic
> languages studying. Even the "source" given in the wiki looked sketchy. But
> I'd like to think that somehow a similar meaning was given, or something
> akin to a friendship, be it militaristic or not. Some attribute Russian's
> друг to have the same root as this *druhtiz. But as far as meaning, it's
> fairly obvious it didn't get so far in the Germanic languages. It remained
> fairly militaristic.
>
> Also, I do have a slight bone to pick with drauhtiwitoþ, at least the
> translation. Given the secondary word is witoþ, would it not be noteworthy
> to incorporate its meaning into the greater word? Effectively war-law,
> something like set rules for waging war or fighting for a particular army?
> Think perhaps Geneva Convention, but without it being as modern nor
> international of course. Or an army's or nation's particular way of waging
> war. What do you think?
>
> On Mar 20, 2015 3:12 PM, "edmundfairfax at ... [gothic-l]" <
> gothic-l at yahoogroups.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> Dear Johann,
>
> Sorry. My question was rhetorical. There is in fact no evidence. The early
> Germanic cognates do not allow one to reconstruct the specific meaning
> 'comitatus;' at best, one must settle for 'host, retinue (of some kind)',
> although 'comitatus' certainly could be subsumed in this broad semantic
> field:
>
> Gothic: drauhti-witoth 'military service'
> ON: drott 'household, people; host of the king's men, bodyguard of a king'
> OE: dryht 'people, multitude, army'
> OFris: drecht 'wedding entourage'
> OS: druht-folk 'army'
> MHG: truht 'troop, squad, platoon'
>
> Edmund
>
>
>  
>



-- 
*Glaðliga ríða Noregs męnn til Hildar þings.*
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