The varians are due to the varying quality
of the suffix vowel -- a frequent phenomenon in Germanic. Pre-Germanic
alternation of the type *-mon-/*-men-/*-mn- resulted in the Germanic variants
*-man-/*-min-/*-mun-, levelled out dialectally in various ways (cf.
*-ing-/*-ung- etc.). *er-min-a- > irmin- with the regular raising of
*e (thus often in West Germanic; also OE eormen/yrmen < iurmin <
*irmin-); *er-man-a- > Goth. ermana- (as in Ermana-ri:ks); *er-mun-a- >
ermun- (> ON jörmun-).
The gloss "common, general" bends the
meaning towards the concept of sharing or companionship, thus bringing it closer
to IIr. *aryaman-. But the latter is a social concept par excellence, and
there's nothing conspicuously social about the use of "irmin". It does seem to
mean "universal" in some instances, but in the sense "pertaining to the universe
or the earth, worldwide", not "shared by all".
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, May 17, 2002 3:45 PM
Subject: [tied] Re: "Irmin" and Hermes
No doubt the OE list "eormen" things was quite
enorme (another scribal error?), but was <ermana-> what the lesser Goths
said too? In the end they (presumably) came up with the <irmin> of
<Irminsul>. The Latin translation seems to have been equally formulaic;
from your examples one gets the impression "common, general" would have been a
more suitable one, which would fit in nicely with some meanings of
<aryaman>?