Re: yellow

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tolgs001 <gs001ns@...>"
<gs001ns@...> wrote:

> alex_lycos wrote:
>
> >In this space, I mean in Thracian space the name "Albo" for cities

is

> >very good conserved. The new comers, the Slavs and Magyars

preserved

> >in their languages the old meaning of "white".(See

Belgrad/Beograd),

> >Gyula Ferehvar (upps, I am not sure if this is the right name in
> >Hungarian for Alba Iulia)
>
> Gyulafehérvár
>
> >Cetatea Alba It seems that the adjective "white" for cities in
> >Balkans was pretty usual,
>
> Or rather that those "newcomers" brought along their custom
> to call - esp. in their Turkic idioms - independent places/regions
> (and/or of noble clans) as "white" ("ak") and dependent ones as
> "black" ("kara"). Hence B&lgrad=Gyulafehérvár=Alba Iulia (the
> old capital of Transylvania, the see of the "gyula" or "djilas"
> 1000 years ago, that later became the see of the "vayvode" of
> Transilvania); Akkerman=Cetatea Alba=Bielgorod Dnestrovski
> (see the river of Dnestr & the Black Sea); Beograd=Nándorfehér-
> vár=Beograd (Belgrade); Székesfehérvár=Stuhlweissenburg
> (an
> old capital of Hungary).

*****GK: I'm not sure that the Turkic custom explains all of the
above. Bilhorod Dnistrovs'kyj (from 1945) was Cetatea Alba under the
Rumanians (1918-1940, 1941-1944), and Akkerman under the Russians and
Turks. During the period of Moldovan sovereignty (1377-1484) it was
called "Belgorod" (and other Slavic variants) in official Moldovan
documents, and in reports of travellers (beginning with that of the
French envoy in 1421). I know of only one text (from 1470) where it
is called Cetatea Alba (and subject to correction, that also seems
the earliest use of the Romanian designation). We don't know its name
(s) under the Lithuanians (1362-1377), but it is a pretty safe bet
that "Belgorod" was one of them along with the Genoese Moncastro. We
can argue from Idrisi (1154) that the twin cities (Maurocastro/
Cherngrad; and Belgorod) already existed in the 12th c. At that time
the area was under the control of the Slavic Galician state. We have
no information at all about earlier epochs. Neither Cumans nor
Pechenegs were in the habit of founding cities. In any case I see no
argument at all for the Thracian or Getan Alb- being the basis of
today's Bilhorod. It certainly wasn't for the Bilhorod founded by
Volodymyr just west of Kyiv in 991.******

> So, the... evidence that those anonymous ancient Albocensi were
> decisive for the adjective "alb-" being included into the
> vocabulary of the Romanian language is quite slim. I'd rather
> accept what's anyway striking to anybody: alb < Lat. albus,
> alba, album. (How about its opposite... negru & neagra? Does,
> say, "poarta neagra" sound/look like "substrate" words or
> rather like Romance ones? :-)
>
> George