--- In cybalist@..., S.Tarasovas@... wrote:
> Why Dnieper? (Why Slavs?)
>
> Sergei
Why Dniepr?
Saxo says himself that some of his sources are old poems. As I
understand Jon Galster he is saying that the Danes used to live along
(on?) the *d-n- rivers, until they had to leave (the "Dan and Danp"
argument, BTW Danp would have been ON *danpr in the nominative), and
that Saxo didn't know that and that he tried to reinterpret the poems
in terms of then (and present) geographical postion of the Danes.
This means of course that JG has to establish the presumed Danish (*d-
n- ish?) presence in the Ukraine by other means, and then show that
Saxo can bereinterpreted to fit that presumed presence
(assuming "reasonable misunderstanding" on Saxo's part). In this case
this might mean assuming that the sea in 5.7.1-5.7.6 was really the
Black Sea.
Another example of a similar misunderstanding: The Lejre chronicle
tells that the cruel king Adils of Sweden conquered Denmark and to
mock the Danes he put a dog to rule Denmark on his behalf. But one
day when the dog sat in council it saw some dogs outside fighting; it
jumped out to join the fight but was bitten to death.
If Adils of Sweden is Attila (of Scythia?) then obviously the
chronicler misunderstood his source (poems?) substituting *hund- for
*hun- (the misunderstanding being helped by -nd- > nn in Danish). In
Denmark, about 35 place names begin with hun- (eg. Hundborg "dog
castle"??, Hundige "dog dike"??).
Why Slavs?
The closest I ever came to saying that was when I assumed the
Ruthenians were "some kind of Ukrainians", which you immediately
protested against. If you think they were Germanic, that's fine with
me. But if they lived so close to the Baltic then, how and when did
they move to their present position (if it's the same people)?
Jon Galster mentions two more *d-n- river names in support of his
theory: Düna (supposedly the "exit route" for the Danes into the
Baltic) and Døne, an old Danish name for the Eider river, found on
Langebek's map (whoever he is).
To which I add: *danu- > *døn- by u-umlaut (hence ON dönsk "Danish"
>? Polish dun´sk- "Danish" (n´ from Dania?)). In East North Germanic
(Danish and Swedish) (as opposed to West North Germanic) u-umlaut is
rare (because of regularisation of paradigms?) but does exist (Da. sg
barn, pl børn "child", famously *aluth- > Da. øl "bier").
Torsten