I wrote:
<<then what what was really spreading was the concept of that river with a
standardized name -- a pre-existing "Classical" name that underwent
metathesis.>>
Piotr wrote:
<<A pre-existing Germanic name. It's your assumption that it was "Classical"
in any sense (except that the Romans had heard about it).>>
Not exactly. My assumption is precisely that Elbe was not a standardized name
until the Romans got a hold of it and wrote it down. I think you're saying
that the Elbe was standardized among most(?) Germanic speakers before
writing, which is just as much an assumption. I think that it is a better
bet that the Elbe became the universal name for the river because Classical
writers wrote it down as the name of the river and (inadvertently)
established it as the official name throughout the region and far beyond the
immediate vicinity of the river. And later medieval scribes preserved that
name as the "official" name in common usage -- or even despite it -- over the
centuries.
I also wrote:
<<Rivers with many names are an anthropological commonplace in areas much
smaller than Europe. The leap is to formalize a single name along the whole
river and, just as importantly, to those beyond contact with the river.>>
Piotr replied:
<<My point is that early Slavs without a state or a central administation and
without clerks (let alone cartographers) were perfectly capable of
standardising the name (and many other geographical names) -- the leap you
ascribe to the efforts of clerks and administrators.>>
Once again I'd ask how standardized or widespread the name was among the
Slavs before writing. I may have been unclear about why I was asking this.
Let me try again.
For all I can understand, a small group of western Slavs adopted the Elbe
name (probably from people who had it standardized in writing SINCE Classical
sources). The name was later altered by metathesis. Then, hundreds of years
later, it was spread from that relatively small group -- by writing, in
Slavic -- and still in time for further development in individual languages.
What is wrong with this scenario? Do you find Laba in any Slavic form
attested before say 1300 AD? Do you find anything that says the spread of
the word in writing throughout Slavic DID NOT come long after the word was
Slavicized on the banks of the Elbe?
I don't doubt that some western Slavs may have left the Elbe and moved east
and brought the name with them. But I don't think you have evidence of that.
I don't think the fame of the Elbe spread among most "pre-literate" Slavic
speakers. I suspect strongly it's appearance in Croatian or Serbian or
Russian would have come with learning and writing - not by pre-literate
word-of-mouth. I don't doubt early Czech or Polish soldiers for HR
Empire-types may have fought on the Elbe and then went home knowing the name
-- but I doubt the Slavic name entered the bulk of Slavic languages that way.
I don't see why Slavic traders would spread the Slavic name of the Elbe
either (except maybe if there was a product that carried the Elbe name with
it.)
Piotr also wrote:
<<I don't doubt for a moment that a name of a river -- perhaps one of many
given to it at different times by different peoples -- can become
standardised and replace any preexisting alternative names. One could easily
cite several instances of such a process even from one's own backyard. My
contention is only that the process was possible in preliterate "barbarian"
societies, and that no Classical geographers were necessary for it to
happen.>>
I'd concede "not necessarily." But my contention is that learning and
writing is an immensely more probable explanation in most large scale cases.
And that the powerful and long-standing influence of the Classical
geographers would apply in a good part of Europe when it came to
standardizing such names.
And all this goes back to what you said about Pliny getting the river names
right. My point was this was no surprise because it was probably Pliny and
the other classical writers who probably FIRST named them, inadvertently, in
the "official", universal, standardized sense.
Regards,
Steve Long