Re: [tied] kuningas <-> knyaz

From: Sergejus Tarasovas
Message: 8175
Date: 2001-07-30

--- In cybalist@..., "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...> wrote:
> There are additional problems. Just how native is Baltic -ing-?

As a Slav to a Slav am giving you a parallel: what would you answer
to a question 'how native is Slavic *-Isk-?'. You'd probably answer
that the formant is extremely productive in nearly all Slavic
languages and doesn't show any specialization expectable for the
loan. The same argument works for the Baltic -ing- as well. The
formant is *extremely* productive both in Modern and Old Lithuanian,
as well as in toponymy. *No* specialization is registered - it's used
to form adj. from subst., the meaning is as general as 'having the
quality of'. I don't give any examples - it would be of no relevance
and would actually end up in copying here many thousands of words.

>Isn't it (or at least aren't some instances of it) of (Proto-)
Germanic origin? What about ethnonyms like <jótvingai> 'Jatvingians'
< *ja:t(u)v-ing-, so strikingly similar to Germanic ones? We are
dealing here with an old convergence area where linguistic traits
have diffused for millennia (note the *-isk-/*-Isk-/*-is^k- isogloss).

There are *no* Baltic ethnonyms formed with the -ing- suffix. The
example you gave is a classical chimera. Let me tell the story.
In the beginning 20th c. Kazimieras Bu_ga analyzing *Russian*
chronicles came across the ethnonym Jatv'agy (Acc. pl.) and supposed
it reflexes unknown Baltic *ja:tvingas, coined a Lithuanian word
<jo'tvingas> (nobody knows why not, for instance, <jotvi`ngas>),
which was not accepted and changed to <jo'tvingis> (God only knows
why) by Lithuanian-speaking community.
The eminent linguist was wrong. All the registered Baltic languages
don't know ethnonymic usage of the suffix -ing-. *Ja:tva: (or, after
merely phonetic developement *-tvV- > *-tuvV- in some Baltic
dialects, *Ja:tuva:) looks like a normal hydronym (> toponym), a
deadjective from *ja:tva: (f.) 'having the quality of running
(forward)', eventually from PIE *ya:-t-u (gen. pass.) 'the same' <
*ya:- 'go'. Normal (I am not aware of any exceptions for that model)
ethnonym from *Ja:t(u)va: would be *ja:t(u)vi:s (cf., eg., *Le:it(u)
va: > *le:it(u)vi:s > Old Lith. lietuvy~s > Lith. lietu`vis), which
sould be rendered as *jat(U)vI in Old Russian. The most plausible
explanation of the Old Russian -'ag- is that this formant (indeed of
Germanic origin and only ethnonymic by its function in *Old Russian*)
was added to give pejorative meaning (cf. Old Russian kUlb'agU,
bur'agU, modelled after var'agU) - Jatvingians often (and
successfully) made war against their neighbours East Slavs.

Sergei