From: stlatos
Message: 59284
Date: 2008-06-17
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "stlatos" <stlatos@> wrote:As in:
> > Whatever the origin, I can't believe in arguments that take *xorv-
> > from 'horn' instead of related to *xorn- from PIE 'move (cattle)' >
> > 'watch, protect (cattle)'.
> I didn't get that?
>
>
> Torsten
--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
> This is what Gol/a,b has to say in The origins of the Slavs about the
> origin of the etnonym of the Croatians:
> c.) The third traditional etymology proposes a Slavic origin of the
> ethnicon. According to this hypothesis *XUrvaté // *Xorvaté is related
> to Lith. arvúotas 'armored' ('geharnischt'), which in its turn comes
> from árvas 'armor' ('Harnisch, Panzer, Rüstung'); so *XUrvaté would
> mean 'the armored.' But there are serious formal objections to this
> etymology. First, Lith. árvas does not continue any *ks- which would
> result in Slavic x-, but rather represents primary IE *k'orHwos, a
> substantivized adjective from the IE stem *k'erH-u- 'horn,' and it has
> obvious correspondences in II'. languages, for which see below (cf.
> here also Gr. kórus n. 'helmet'; Fraenkel, 965, and Pokorny, 574).
> In this connection the primary meaning of Lith. árvas would be
> 'horn-armor,' a type of armor well-known to the ancient East European
> peoples.
etc.
The Baltic and Slavic words, if related, bypass all the specific
objections to a common origin from *kYoru- if from *s.er- 'move
(cattle)' > 'watch, protect (cattle)', as in traditional *ser- with
definite derivatives in Slavic that supposedly inexplicably change s >
x (or from compounds, etc.).
The suggestion of 'horn armor' is unnecessary, since 'helmet' would
have been the older meaning, extended in one branch, if the rest of
the theory were correct. I don't believe it anyway.