Amber

From: tgpedersen
Message: 58962
Date: 2008-06-01

from Endre Bojtár:
Foreword to the Past,
A Cultural History of the Baltic People. p. 31-33

'The Baltic terms for amber are the following: Lith. gintaras
(dialectal gentaras); Latv. dzintars, dzitars; Pruss. gentars
(although that is to some extent a reconstructed form, see Toporov
1975-90/II, 211). Their etymology is yet to be deciphered (the Russ.
jantar is a later transmission from the Baltic language, see
Zinkevic^ius 1984-94/I, 163). It is related to the Hungarian word
gyanta 'resin', which is "a loan-word in Hungarian, but neither its
direct source nor its direct transmitter is sufficiently clear" (Benkö
1967, 1120). V. Voigt gave a good summary of the problem, although
there he only considered the probabilities of a Balto-Finno-Ugrian
encounter connected to the coast, describing the views of B. Larin and
J. Mikkola (Voigt 1971). In his later article he wrote about a
Baltic-Hungarian convergence at the Dnieper-Dniester between the third
to fifth centuries, at which point the Hungarians would have borrowed
the Baltic word (Voigt 1980, 80). It is also possible that the Baltic
tribes came into contact with the Hungarians only a few hundred years
later through trade with the Khazars.9
However, the most likely theory is that the Baltic and Finno-Ugrian
tribes met in the Oka basin near the Volga and the Kama in the mid or
early second millennium BC. In this case the word is one of the
strongest pieces of evidence for the location of one of the Baltic's
Urheimats. Jarndar, the Mari word for "transparent, glassy', and
jandar the Chuvash word for 'glassy, glass pot' point toward that —
notice that it is the same shift in meaning as glaesum > Glas ! ("The
word does not give a Baltic impression and is obviously borrowed, even
if from ever so early times, from a language which the amber traders
spoke" — J. Mikkola 1938,35). Whether the Balts took over the word
from the Finns or the Hungarians, or the other way round, the
procedure happened in the (pine)forest zone and when much later the
Balts reached the sea they simply transferred the name gyanta (resin)
learned previously to a similar material seen there (for example that
lets out the same scent when burning), i.e. amber.
Another document is nearly half a millennium younger than Tacitus'
notes. It also connected the amber of the Baltic Sea to ethnicity and
again to the Aestians. There is a letter of response to the Aestians
from Theoderich the Great, King of the eastern Goths (Ostrogoths)
written in Ravenna, the then city of the Emperors (493-526 AD). It is
now in the archives of the Roman Flavius Cassiodorus (485-578 AD) or
Senator, as he was actually called (Wattenbach-Levison 1952-63/1, 74).
Completely out of the blue an Aestian delegate visited the proconsul
of the eastern Roman Emperor, conqueror of Italy, and handed over a
set of amber as a present to him.10 The Gothic King was uncertain of
the purpose of the present. He had only heard about the existence of
the 'barbarians' from the accounts of Cornelius (Tacitus) written down
hundreds of years earlier. From the quill of Cassiodorus, the
scholarly Roman chancellor, came the answer: "The arrival of your
delegates informed us of your wish to enter into acquaintance with us.
That you who live on the shores of the Ocean wish for friendly
relations with us seems to us an extremely pleasant and worthy
request. We are also pleased that our name has reached you at such a
distance although we did not seek you out. Keep kindness in your
hearts for me whom you know and whom you sought out with good wishes
from an unknown land, since boldly setting out among so many peoples
presumes an urgent desire. Besides wishing the same to you we hereby
inform you of our grateful receipt of the gift of amber which the
bearer of these words brought to us. It seems from the accounts of
your delegates that this light material is washed onto your shores by
the waves of the Ocean, but where it comes from is, according to their
words, unknown to you despite that it is you, among all peoples, who
collect it in your homeland. In the works of a certain Cornelius
(Tacitus — E.B.) it is said to be sap that seeps from a tree on an
island in the middle of the Ocean (ex arboris succo) and so it is
called succinum which then hardens with the heat of the sun. The soft,
light colored material becomes an extinguished metal which shines at
times in shades of yellow and red at others glitters with a fiery
light. The changing tides of the sea clean it and the waves throw it
to you on the shore. We felt we had to inform you of this so that you
would not believe that which is a hidden secret to you is unknown to
us. Nonetheless, come to us more often in such a way opened by your
love, because it is always a good thing to win the favors of rich
kings who, albeit only through a humble present, will soften to a
better humor and thus strive to offer greater praises. We shall pass
on sundry messages through your delegates through whom we inform you
that we are sending you something that shall fall close to your
hearts" (Cassiodorus V, 2).
The letter has a very modern tone.11 The civilised world with
developed techniques educated the barbarians who deliver raw material
which they know nothing about.'


9 "It cannot be considered unexpected that the Hungarian term for
'amber' resembles the Baltic name, if we take into account the unique
situation of Pannonia that it owed to its role as a transit region on
the amber route" (Toporov 1975-90/II, 215). This statement does not
stand, given that it was in the first and second centuries that
Pannonia played this role — at a time when the Magyars were nowhere to
be seen in the region.
10 The Aestii took all the trouble to establish contact with their
distant relatives (who had forgotten about their kins), either (?)
because they carried a Germanic consciousness even in the sixth
century, or they were actually Germanic — since after the Goths had
advanced to the south-east the Germanic tribe of the Gepids stayed at
the Vistula estuary for a long time (Lakatos 1973,47).
11 B. Schumacher's presumption that the letter was perhaps never sent,
but was simply a "chancellery exercise of style" ("kanzleimässige
Stilübung"), is completely unfounded (Schumacher 1958, 8).'


Oh, so it really meant "resin"? Then perhaps this is relevant:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/51978
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/51970
Let's propose *gWentá-/gWantá(-r)- "resin". The poor Aestian probably
said that this was gelled resin, but that the Aestian's didn't know
from where it was washed onto their shore. That earned him a
condescending lecture from Cassiodorus (its tone is modern alright).

So *gWentár- glasó- "jelled (frozen) resin" (approx.!)?


Torsten