LL-L "History" 2010.03.14 (01) [EN]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 14 March 2010 - Volume 01
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From: Jonny <jonny.meibohm at arcor.de>
Subject: LL-L "History" 2010.03.13 (03) [DE-EN-NDS]

 Beste Luc and Ron,

concerning Hanne's story about the 'Ring des Frangipani' we came upon this:

(Jonny):
 Nee, weit gefehlt: ein österreichisch-kroatisch-ungarischer Duodez-Fürst
von der schlechteren Sorte, verdeutscht auch "Frankopan" ('fränkischer
Herr'??).

(Luc):
No apparent link with the Franks as far as I can see. The "Frangipani"
family was named after the act of breaking the bread (proof of being a
devout Christian?), "frangere il pane" in Italian.

(Ron):
In later, Slavic-speaking times the folk etymology of "Frankish lord" may
have arisen.

This 'Franko-pan' to 'fränkischer Herr' was just a slight idea of mine;
their official title was "Ban" (of Kroatia), which was roughly on the level
of a 'Markgraf' / 'margrave'.

But - if they were of Italian origin - I wonder: why did they use Middle
(High) German? Just as a very simple, intimate type of cryptography,
as shown in the inscription *"myt wyllen dyn eygen"?* I suppose it was their
mother tongue!
There are some more indications within the book showing that they partly
felt as "Germans", in special as far as their language is concerned. German,
so you will read there, was their "private" language, 'for women's use only
;-)', because the Ladies were not well educated in Latin. For official
purposes they used a 'modernized', middle-aged, somehow Italianic
sounding Latin (or was it Old Italian?).

Mysterious story, unexplainable Balkan!

Allerbest!

Jonny Meibohm
Lower Saxony, Germany

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: History

Thanks, Jonny.

Middle German?! For some reason I was assuming that it was Middle Saxon
("Middle Low German") and that that was the reason for which we are
discussing this on Lowlands-L.

Jonny, it's by assumption that the Croatian branch spoke either Old or
Middle Italian or Dalmatian. Dalmatian is a now extinct Romance language
that dominated what nowadays is (mostly coastal) Southern Croatia. (For
instance, it was the language of Ragusa, today's Dubrovnik.) Apparently,
many Italians lived there as well.

Please also bear in mind that Northwestern Croatia has been having a lot of
contact with both Italy and Austria (as well as Hungarian), and that
Croatian minorities have been present in both Italy and Austria for a long
time.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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