Re: Geats

--- In cybalist@..., "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...> wrote:

> Now, where did you really dig it from? A second-hand Internet

source,

> wasn't it? The Classical Dictionary (_Lempriere's_ BTW) was

published

> in 1788, and though I haven't got a copy at hand, the quotation

looks

> mighty suspect to me. Well, even supposing that it does come from
> that exotic source... What historians have ever written about this
> King Odinus character? What historical, linguistic or any other
> evidence is there for placing Asgard in Scythia? It's all pure
> fantasy. I've seen people confidently identifying Odin with Adonai,
> blissfully unaware of any formal problems. Talking of which, ca. AD
> 70 it wouldn't have occurred to anybody to Latinise Odinn as Odinus
> for the very good reason that the loss of *w- before *-o(:)- is a
> much later North Germanic phenomenon (Odinn is a Norse version of
> Woden/Wodan). Vodanus, perhaps?
>
> Piotr

I think I suggested once in

http://www.angelfire.com/rant/tgpedersen/Shibbolethisation.html

that the North Germanic loss of /w/ before /o/ and /u/ was not a
phonologigical process, but a generalisation within inflections of
the zero grade, where West Germanic generalized the (-e- or) -o-
grade, thus West *wo- and North *w- > *u- (> *o).
Anyway, the source for Odinus is obviously Snorri (which you seem to
have discovered also) and by his time any "Wodan" would be known
as "Odin".

The date I've seen is 70 BC, at which time Pompey was introducing
civilisation north of the Black Sea. A good time to move.

Torsten