I wrote:
<<If the Germanic word had originally been something like "Guthalws," Pliny
would have seen <Guthalvs> in his sources, and would have written what he saw
-- not knowing if the <v> stood for a /w/ or a /u/--->>
Piotr replied:
<<However, "-alws" is not a permissible Germanic sound combination. It would
have had to be -alwaz, *-alwiz, or *-alw-o:n- to be phonetically and
morphologically plausible,...>>
Let me stop you there. My Gothic dictionary gives some examples of -ws and
-alw-:
áiws, sm. time, lifetime, age, world
ni áiw, never
alêws, adj. of olives;
saggws, sm. song, music
triggws, adj. true, faithful
af-walw-jan, wv. I, to roll away
wilw-an, sv. III, to rob, plunder, take by force
So why again is -alws or -alw- against all Germanic sound laws?
I wrote:
ESPECIALLY SINCE HE PROBABLY HAD NEVER HEARD THE WORD SPOKEN. We have no
record of Pliny ever making the trip north or even ever hearing a German
speaker.
Piotr replied:
<<...Latinised as -alvus, -alva or -alvo:, if you insist on having a *w in
this word -- quite unnecessarily. Swedish <älv> is a common noun with a known
history. It's never had a *w in it.>>
Well maybe its "known" history in the first century AD should include -alws
then? Or has the train left the station? I certainly be interested in what
a:lv's "known" history was like before 600AD.
More importantly once again you insist that Pliny wrote exactly what he heard
and I must object that he probably heard nothing in German, but got it second
or third hand. So its very possible that what Pliny wrote was an
approximation of whatever the original word was. (I notice in the Gothic
dictionary that the Latin oliva was transliterated as the Gothic ale:w, which
only makes me doubt these literal transliterations of far away places names
and peoples even more - the Goths were right there and the spellings don't
even look close. My point again is that Guthalvs can be interpreted any
number of ways and there is no real way to judge among them.)
<<I can't imagine what Victorian objections Pliny might have had to *-alvus.
The chief meaning of the word in Latin was 'belly, womb'.>>
Lewis&Short includes "bowels" in the primary meaning and a substantial number
of examples refer to the bowels and the Pliny cite relates to constipation.
I'll stop there. A good republican Roman may have avoided even the semblance
of such a reference. And of course whether he would have or not isn't a
simply a matter of linguistics.
Piotr wrote:
<<Besides, Latin alveus means 'river-bed', aptly enough.>>
Just between you and me, I suspect this may be the real ultimate source of
<Albis> et al and it wasn't originally a Germanic name at all.
Steve Long