"Men" ??? (was Crimean Gothic)

Cristian Mocanu crismoc at smart.ro
Thu Apr 26 19:04:24 UTC 2001


              The list of Crimean Gothic words is very interesting in many
respects. But I was intrigued by "menhus" "meat" for which Diamond invokes
Hung. "hus". Indeed, "hus" with accented "u", pronounced approx. "hoosh" is
Hungarian for  "meat". But what about "men"? Any hints? As far as my
knowledge of Hungarian goes (It is not my first language but I speak it, we
hear it in the streets etc. but I wouldn't know many archaisms) Hungarian it
is not.
              As for the rest of the etyma, they seem to be consistent with
the fact that a linguistic enclave is at the same time conservative and
innovative. We have numerals that seem to come directly from Ulfilas and
Turkic loanwords. But then again some look too much like Ulfilas'Gothic,
some others too "Hochdeutsch". Do we know anything about that informer and
how he came to know those etyma?
                             God bless,
                                Cristian



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