From: ravichaudhary2000
Message: 15858
Date: 2002-10-01
>
----- Original Message ----- >> Piotr also wrote:<<*Gauta albiz,
actually.. The former is the genitive plural of the name of the
Gauts. I hope you've heard of them -- the Geatas of Beowulf, and the
people after whom Götaland and Göteborg were named.>><Göteborg was
not named after "the people" -- it was named for the river, in the
18th Century. As far as what came first, the name of the land or the
name of the people, history plainly tells us it could be one or the
other. But for all we know, the "Goutoi", "Gutae" (Ptolemy You're
right about Göteborg. Still, the river's got a name that it connected
with that of the Gauts. It flows through "Western Gautland" and
Hygelac's capital was probably located near its mouth. It's called
literally and transparently "The River of the Gauts", and I see no
good reason to suspect a folk-etymology here. As for the Gauts, who
were a rather famous people, there is really no need to make your own
garbled variants of a name that is attested very clearly since early
times: e.g. <gautoi> in Procopius (6th c.), <ge:atas> in Beowulf and
Widsith, <gautar> in Old Icelandic and <gøtar> in Old Swedish. Since
you have no problems with the methods of historical linguistics, you
should be glad to learn that all therse forms reflect the same
prototype: *gauta- with strong masculine endings (not to be confused,
but alas often confused, with *gut(-o:n)- 'Goth'). Mind you, I'm not
insisting that the name Göta älv is extremely old -- I'm just
clarifying its motivation. For all I know, it may have been given to
the river in the Middle Ages. But IF the name was (etymologically)
the same in Pliny's time, it must have been close to the Proto-North-
Germanic projection of Göta älv, i.e. *Gauta albiz. The Gauts
were "Gauts" and nothing else. The fact that amateurs confuse
references in ancient sources (which were not very clear about the
identity of Scandia) to the "Gut-" people of Gotland (and the Goths)
and the "Gaut-" people of Götaland does not mean that a linguist has
a right to confuse them as well. True, there were 19th-century Anglo-
Saxonists who identified the Geats in Beowulf with the Gotlanders,
the Goths or even the Jutes, but we know better than that now. _I_
have no problem with the modern pronunciation, because I know where
it comes from.
Ravi> Even I request some clarification, Piotr if you would ?
The classical writers refer to the Massagetae and Thyssagetae in The
Jaxartes. Oxus areas, whom some writers identify with the Getae, and
whom the Chinese sources term as Yueh Chi. The Chinese words are
translated as Gaut, ( a reference to De Groot, by WW Tarn or Ngwat,
pronounced Gaut, or Jat.
I have thus seen various writers connect them to the Sakas, or
Sacae, and the Getae of Thracia, and the Goths and Guts, the Juts,
the Jutes.
The Jats in India, are also known as Juts, Guts, Juton, Guton,
All this may very well be similar sounding words, but I am not a
linguist, and would welcome some clarification.
Ravi