Re: Jordanes

From: Daniel J. Milton
Message: 20349
Date: 2003-03-26

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "alex_lycos" <altamix@...> wrote:
> > I guess we don't need to speak now about the credibility of
> Jordanes
> > since I wish just to point to an linguistic issue.
> > I am not aware if somewhere else is found the expresion "leges
> > Bellagines".
> > Questions:
> > - is Jordanes the first which speaks about these Leges
Bellagines?
> > - is the word to divide as "bellagi" ( pl. form)+ suff. "-nes"?
> > - is in this case 'bellagos' the same word as Greek "pelagos"?
> > - does this word make any sense in Latin or Greek?
> > - is the "bellag" a phonetically possible candidate for
> slavic "valax"?
> > regards,
> > Alex
> *****
> Looking for "Bellagines" on the Web, I find one extract from
> Getica XI with the word, plus several discussions in Romanian of
> Jordanes (one of which I suppose was Alex's source) and an English
> translation of a Romanian translation of a book in Latin by a
>Swede published in 1687, which quotes earlier writers' comments on
> Jordanes' "Bellagines" or "Bylagines."
> At the end of the triple translation things are pretty
>incoherent (and who knows how much sense they made originally?) but
>if anyone's interested, look at
> http://www.dacia.org/lundius/clundius-eng.pdf
> Chapter III section 3 (on p. 61).
> Dan
*****
Back in posting 18850, when there was a thread going on "swidden"
I wrote:
"How about deriving "swidden" from "Sweden" (or vice versa)? Isn't
that what etymology is all about? STOP, I'm joking -- don't correct
me!"
Now, in Lundius 1687 I read (in the Latin > Romanian > English
translation) "In vain some endeavour to convince us that Svialand,
the Sveonia region apart from Gothia, derives from Svidia, which
means 'to ravage', 'to burn.'" (p. 11)!
Back to Alex's "Bellagines", "Bylagines": For what it's worth
(probably not much) Lundius cites one Bonaventura Vulcanius as
deriving it from "welbehagen", "well", "very pleasant" and a Paulus
Warnefridus that it means "quarendum" "what should be searched/
wished/ wanted/."
Lundius seems to have written an extremely learned but thoroughly
unreliable fugue on the old "Getae"-"Gothi" confusion. But I
recommend it just for the grandeur of the King's titles in the
dedication. We live in a diminished age when Carl Gustaf is
proclaimed "King of Sweden" instead of the triply crowned "King of
the Swedes, Goths and Vandals" of all his forebears. It's enough to
make me reject the Nobel prize, should I be awarded one.
Dan