>
>
> I was puzzled by all these river names beginning in *gH-wdH- "pour"
(Göta Älv, Gud-en-å, God-acrus (=Warnow), Guthalus (=Oder?). How
about: the reflexes in Germanic of this root in Germanic
meant "river" or "mouth of river" (-ujscie, -münde, -mouth), thus the
names are River This or That or The Other, and *gaut- etc
were "peoples of (mouths of) rivers"?
--- In cybalist@..., Piotr Gasiorowski <piotr.gasiorowski@...>
wrote:
> I don't know about the rest, but Göta definitely derives from ON
gaut- and thus (if it has anything to do with pouring) presumably
from the PGmc. root *geut- < *g^Heud-, i.e. PIE *g^Heu- with the
extension *-d-, as in Lat. fundo, fu:di: (*g^Hund-, *g^Houd-). The
Germanic derivatives of *g^Heud- are quite numerous, and include
first and foremost the strong verb *geut- 'pour, flow; melt, cast
(metal)' with the complete apophonic paradigm (OE ge:otan, ge:at,
guton, goten, ME yeten, = Ger. giessen, Goth. giutan, etc.). Eng. gut
(OE gutt < *guttuz < *g^Hud-nu-s) also belongs here, as do, more
interestingly for this thread, terms for 'stream, channel,
watercourse': Eng. (dial.) gote, OHG (u:z-)koz < *gutaz < *g^Hut-o-s.
I have not found *gaut- with the meaning 'mouth of a river'; OHG
u:zkoz 'outflow' is close semantically, but based on a different
grade of the root.
>
> I think the idea that the names *gaut- and *gut- could be connected
with metallurgy deserves to be taken seriously. Old English has
ge:ota 'founder' (in <le:ad-ge:ota>) < *geut-o:n-, synonymous with
ge:otere (cf. Ger. Giesser), both derived directly from the present-
tense stem of the verb, but such productive formations are of late
origin. *gut-i-z 'pouring out, casting' (OHG guz > Ger. Guss, OE
gyte) might have produced its own derivatives, and *gaut-a-z might
easily represent a pre-Germanic substantivised adjective *g^Houd-ó-
s 'one who founds' (the type of Skt. bodHá- 'conscious,
understanding' < *bHoudH-ó- or Gk. loipós 'left over; descendant' <
loikW-ó-, cf. ON -leifr, OE -la:f [in nouns] < *laibaz 'survivor,
heir').
>
> Piotr
>
>
I have one problem with that: What would those people cast iron for?
All iron then was wrought iron, it passed through the hands of a
smith. I suspect the meaning "cast" is late, it is used today in that
sense in German and Swedish (both nations with plenty of iron ore);
in Danish (we have no iron ore except low grade stuff found in
bogs) /gyde/ means "spawn" (of fish) and nothing else
(except /udgyde/ "pour forth" -> "talk nonsense").
Torsten