Re: [tied] Re: etruscan

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 5409
Date: 2001-01-10

I assumed it was *dan-i- on the basis of OE Dene (also Denisc, Dene-mearc, etc.), which, however, is a collective noun. I'll need to take another look at the various Germanic variants of the name to see in what form the original stem can be recovered.
 
The "a" of "Danube" is shortened in English, but the Latin name (borrowed from Celtic) was Da:nuvius. The IIr reflexes point to *da:nu- as well. Iranian *a: would have given late Scytho-Sarmatian *a, which seems to be reflected as Slavic *o in stressed syllables but reduced *U in pretonic syllables, hence *don- alternating with *dUn- > modern dn-.
 
The full name Tuatha Dé [sic! = "Goddess's"] Danann is, as Chris Gwinn pointed out some time ago, a rather late literary invention. Anyway, if some Proto-Celts had named _themselves_ after a river (be it the Danube, Donwy, or anything with *da:nu- or *da:neujo- in it), I wouldn't be surprised at all. Many Slavic tribes, for example, derived their names from hydronyms. But you seem to claim that somebody else named the Danes in that manner (*dan- can't be a Germanic reflex of *da:nu-), and that they accepted the foreigner-given name, which people are reluctant to do, on the whole.
 
Piotr
 
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: Torsten Pedersen
To: cybalist@egroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2001 11:52 AM
Subject: [tied] Re: etruscan

 
I looked up Danes in my little NuDansk Ordbog. It says O.Ic.
pl. "danir", Old Danish "dan". So where does the *-i of your *dani-
"Dane" come from? Old Icelandic has dönsk "Danish" where ö is an u-
umlauted a (if that's not part of the inflection). North Germanic
forms of "danish" or "Denmark" (Danmark) do not show umlaut.
If the wovel of *da:nu- is long, whence the Dn- of Dniepr and Dniestr?
What shortened that wovel in Don and Danube? If it is silly for a
people to call themselves a "river people", does "sea people" make
sense? If "river people" a designation for a people that has settled
on a river, does a "sea people" live by the the sea to enjoy the
view? If naming yourself by *da(:?)nu- makes no sense, how about the
Tuatha te Danan? If you can't lump Celtic and Germanic etnonyms
together, how about Cimmerians, Cimbri and Cymru?
I need another cup of coffee.

Torsten