Re: Attila (Was: Alanic horseman)

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

>
> > Of course they did. Most influential of them were East Germanic

or

> > at least could speak East Germanic. As to commoners of different
> > origins, they did probably adapt it to their particular idiom. I
> > wonder what was the proto-Slavic form? Something like *otIlI?

Which

> > would eventually yield Polish *ociel and Russian *otel', if I

don't

> > mistake...
>
> It was a nasal stem, so from the strictly formal point of view it

should

> have been something like **atilo:N/**atilen- > **otIly/**otIlen-,
> perhaps eventually levelled out to **otIlenI.

But cf. Slavic *lIvU "lion", presumably < Go. *liwa, nasal stem. Or
is it a wrong etymology?

> But if the Slavs
> understood the meaning of the name, they might have used their

native

> *atiko- > *otIcI, just replacing the Gothic diminutive suffix with

a

> Slavic one.

Yes, that looks quite plausible. But, are we sure Slavic *otIcI is
not from Go. *attika, with another diminutive suffix attested in
Gothic PNs (cf. Go. [H]ildico, Burg. Givica etc)?

About the –il-. Slavs have *kotIlU < Go. katils and *osIlU < asilus.
They ended up as Pol. kociol/, os'iol/ and Russ. kotël and osël
respectively. Wouldn't the expected reflex of *otIlU be ociol/ and
otël then?