Re: [tied] Ovid

[Moeller] The name itself. To answer well this question we need to know when does appears first in history such names as wallon and welsh. Are they records and if so from which time?

 

The earliest written attestation of <walha> known to me is on an Old Runic inscribed bracteate datable to the first half of the fifth century. The probable meaning is 'foreign, imported'. The noun <wealh>, pl. <wealas> and the adjective <wylisc, welisc> (hence Wales, Welsch) occur in Old English from the late seventh century onwards, i.e. throughout its recorded history. The word exists in OHG (<walh>, adj. <walhisc>) and ON (pl. <valir>, adj. <valskr>) as well, to make its Northwest Germanic attestation complete. <Walloon> is *walh- Latinised with the suffix -o:n-. Since the prototype *walxaz 'Gaul' > 'Roman, Briton, foreigner' shows the operation of Grimm's Law (from hypothetical pre-Gmc. *walk-a-s = Celtic Volc-), we can accept the word as Proto-Germanic despite the fact that it isn't documented in Wulfila's Gothic.

 

Whether the Slavs borrowed it early from East Germanic or later from West Germanic, the predicted common Slavic adaptation of strong masculine <walh-> is *wolxU, giving with perfect Neogrammarian regularity the forms that are actually attested in all the subbranches of Slavic (including South Slavic vlax-). As opposed to fantastic derivations from Colchis or Vologaesus (why not ancient Indic Meluhha? If you turn the M upside down, you'll get Weluhha), which (1) ignore historical and semantic difficulties, (2) require special explanations involving undocumented forms in poorly known languages plus a battery of ad hoc sound changes, and (3) still leave some questions unanswered, the standard etymology presents no formal difficulties whatsoever, is semantically plausible and explains the known linguistic facts. This is my last word on it. You may save this message for future reference, for I'm not going to repeat myself.

[Moeller] Do not forget, the name "colchi" was a generic name for the population from north and east of the Black Sea. And this does not exclude several hypothesis. One of them should be that the celts who were until Galatia and east shore of the Black Sea could be identified by germanic tribes as the "old volcae" under the name of colchi. I have no basis on what I say now. I repeat myself, i never read  carefully there where someone wrotte about colchis. As a matter of fact I was looking on the net for Laz language and I found several similarities:

 

Hang me if I understand any of this. If you have no basis for a claim, why make it?

[Moeller] > da= sister, romanian has a "dada"= sister

 

A typical nursery term -- no probative value.

[Moeller] > ciogar=dog, romanian has "ogar"= dog

 

This 'hound' word is also found in Slavic and Hungarian. If it is an eastern Wanderwort, it was brought to Europe by the Avars or the Magyars.

 

[Moeller] > seri=evening, romanina has too "seri"=evenings.

 

... an french has <soir> :). From Latin se:rus 'late'.

 

Piotr