Re: [tied] The Vidivarii

----- Original Message -----

From: george knysh

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Tuesday, August 27, 2002 12:59 AM

Subject: Re: [tied] The Vidivarii

> 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?

 

No. Dialectally in Slavic an epenthetic *l appears in the clusters *mj, *bj, *pj and *vj, hence e.g. zeml'a < *zemja or korabl' < *korabjI. *dervjan- is the Proto-Slavic reconstruction of what appears historically as Drevl'an-

 

> 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").

 

A territorial name, as I said. Thanls for the details. I'll address the squirrel question tomorrow :)

 

Piotr