Re: Etymology of "Warsaw"

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...>
wrote:

> On 9/1/04 8:38 PM, Sergejus Tarasovas wrote:
>
> > Interestingly, the traditional Lithuanian name for the city is
> > Várs^uva, which is percepted like a typical Baltic toponym made

with

> > the (collective etc.) suffix -(u)va ~ -ava (for the variance,

cf.,

> > eg., the vacillation (Lith.) Daugavà ~ (Latv.) Daugava in the

name of

> > the same river) by a speaker of Lithuanian. Not that *wars'(u)

wa: ~

> > *wars'awa: would make a helluva good sense in Baltic, but we

still do

> > have OPuss. <warsus> 'lip' (probably continuing the same *wers-
> > 'upper, outstanding' as Slavic *vIrxU and Lith. virs^us/Latv.
> > vìrsus, but with the "right" o-grade), so can a West Baltic
> > substratal thing be completely excluded?
>
> It's a priori less likely than a straightforward Polish (or, to be
> precise, Mazovian) etymology. Warsaw is not a particularly ancient

or

> historically outstanding place, as Polish towns go: the capital of
> Poland was moved there from Kraków in the early 17th century; it

became

> the capital town of the dukedom of Mazovia about two centuries

earlier;

> until that time it had been an inconspicuous little town that had
> gradually absorbed several older (and not necessarily less

important)

> settlements -- all with purely Slavic names, such as Jazdów,

Kamion and

> Bródno. The name Warszowa goes back to the 13th century; the

modern form

> Warszawa is very young (17th c.)
>

PIE *wer-s- "rain" ?

Torsten