[tied] Re: Vanir,etc.

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Piotr Gasiorowski"
<piotr.gasiorowski@...> wrote:

>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Marco Moretti" <marcomoretti69@...>
> To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2004 9:46 AM
> Subject: [tied] Re: Vanir,etc.
>
>
> > Well, I have found Georgian (dialectal) /vani/ "home". It is
> > suspected to be a North-Caucasian loanword. It has nothing to do

with

> > the Vanir, whose central meaning must be something
> > like "bright", "divine" or "king".
>
> Not that I want to defend Torsten's comparison, but how do you know

in

> advance what Germanic *wan- _must_ have meant? (The singular was

likely just

> *wanaz; the <-ir> ending in Old Norse was the suppletive plural of
> tribal/collective names, cf. OE -e). If you compare it directly

with Greek

> (w)anakt-, how is that better from Torsten's Caucasian matches?

I consider Anglo-Saxon /wanum/ "bright", that must be ancient and non-
IE. It's a rare word, but I think it's suitable. So I'm oriented on
the semantic sphere of "light", "divinity". It's better than
Torsten's comparison because it is based on a real, existing Germanic
word without any credible IE connection.
The singular was surely /*waniz/, not /*wanaz/, because -ir is an
ending for the -i- stems (IE *-ejes).
I'm not so sure of a direct connection with Greek /(w)anakt-/ but it
looks good and quite probable.
Torsten's arguments are based only on whim.

Marco