Re: Thracian, etnonym's etymology

And what if the town of Trakai was placed in Latvia? Would it then be related to Latvian trakais (loony, nut-case; word probably related to Russ. дурак-durak 'fool')? What a great discovery, Thrace/Trakia the land of lunatics?

Please, don't take my above joke too serious but I think you should be a little more careful before you put forward similar uncorroborated, and I personally believe, unprovable assumptions.

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--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Aigius" <segijus@...> wrote:
>
> I think that name can be related to Lithuanian word TRAKAS, meaning
> GLADE, UNDERBUSH, UNDERGROWTH. Also compare with name Trakai the old
> capital of Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

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> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Joao S. Lopes" <josimo70@> wrote:
> >
> > What would be the etymology of Thracia (place) and Thrax (people)?
> Is it the place name after the people, or vice versa (chicken-egg
> dilemma)?
> > The Thracians appeared in Attic myths as a kind of fictional
> northern people (or pre-people), linked to Boreas and Ares). Could be
> thrax mean something like "north"?
> > Could be do:ros and thrak- two divergent (dialectal) forms of the
> same pre-Greek word? If we see do:ros as *dorHos, thrak- could be a
> cognate, from an older proto-form *drx, *trx-, *Trk- (T = th).
> > a- ANother possibility is relate them to Anatolian root *tarXu-
> (cf. Tarhunza, Tarquinius, Tarkhon).
> > b - Alternatively, Do:ros could be a "Macedonoid" cognate of PIE
> (dHersos, dHorso. dHrsu "strong, bold, dareful")
> > c- or... maybe they came from root *dHwer- "door, outside",
> something like the "outside people" ?
> >
> > JS Lopes

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