--- Piotr Gasiorowski <
piotr.gasiorowski@...>
wrote:
>> The ethnonym <Terwingi> is based on Germanic
*terwa-
> < *derwo-, meaning 'tar, pitch' in the historical
> languages, but its etymology (ultimately from the
> PIE 'wood/tree' root) suggests an earlier meaning
> like 'pinewood (and its products)', cf. Lith.
> derva`, which nicely combines both meanings.
>
> Given the semantics of the suffix <-ing-> (usually
> 'descendants of ..'), <Tervingi> looks like a
> totemic name -- 'the Pinewood Tribe'. Slavic
> *-(j)an- forms territorial names ('inhabitants of
> ..'), so *derv-jan-e is possibly based on the
> collective *dervIje 'grove, wooded place' rather
> than *dervo 'tree' itself (they didn't live in trees
> like squirrels, did they?).
*****GK: In the texts known to me *derv- (or drev-,
derev-) is followed by an L rather than a J. Does that
make a difference? Note also that the name of the
territory inhabited by the "D(e)revlani" (I think
Porphyrogenitus renders it as "Dervleninoi" where the
Byzantine B is a V) is attested as "Derevska zemlya"
or simply "Dereva" (locative: "v Derevakh". The
etymology offered by Abbot Sylvester is that the
Drevlani were so called because "they lived in the
woods").===== But since you mention squirrels (:=))
this is a grand opportunity to ask about a group
mentioned by Herodotus as living on the West-East
trail travelled by Aristeas: the Iyrcae. They also
inhabited woodlands, and were noted as climbing trees
where they waited for their prey. Can you make any
sense of "Iyrcae" in an IE dialect, or should one look
to other languages here?********
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