Re: [tied] *kuningaz

-----Original Message-----
From: george knysh [mailto:gknysh@...]
Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2002 3:51 PM
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [tied] *kuningaz

--- Sergejus Tarasovas <S.Tarasovas@...>
wrote:
> On (a). If by Slavic forms you mean /.../
king-words, they are a normal development of
> *kUnIngU, which is in turn
> borrowed most likely from Proto-Germanic.

*****GK: In that case we are looking at a time frame
prior to 200 AD. This would fit in well with the
notion that the term was brought eastward by the
carriers of the so-called East Pomeranian/Yastorf
cultures, and thus before the Goths. This would be
new, since most of the literature still associates the
borrowing with the Gothic expansion. I wonder if there
is any way of deciding whether Finns, Balts and Slavs
all borrowed the term more or less
simultaneously.*****

 

I would like to cancel my 'most likely' and change it to 'may be'. As Piotr wrote, 

 

>Slavic *kUnINg-U may have been borrowed from Gothic (*kuning-s)

>or from some very early form of West Germanic >(*kuning).

 

If your point is to find linguistic arguments pointing to the time of the borrowing more or less unequivocally, my impression is that there are no such arguments -- Proto-Germanic, early West Germanic or Gothic are all equally possible.

Or what? :)

 

The Baltic evidence is controversial, that's why some scholars state the source was Gothic or even Proto-Germanic, while

others insist on Middle High German. There are no obvious Proto-Germanic loans in Baltic in general, and only for two or three lexemes Proto-Germanic origin is not impossible. Note, however, that _if_ Lithuanian gu`das '1. Belarusian 2. (dialectal) foreigner' is indeed a Germanic borrowing, it must reflect pre-Grimm Germanic (actually, Proto-Germanic) form *gudas, so the borrowing must have occured long before 0 AD, which could point to rather early Balto-Germanic contacts.

 

As for Finnish, as Piotr put it,

 

>The form of Finnish <kuningas> is more primitive than the expected Gothic *kunings. In is also very different from ON >konungr. The most likely source would be Proto-Germanic itself.

 

Sergei