Re: Ramsons [was: Felice Vinci's "Homer in the Baltic" theory: lingu

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

>
> On 2009-06-08 16:55, tgpedersen wrote:
>
> > Interesting move. That would undercut any attempt to introduce
> > Uralic elements in Polish onomastics such as you do here too:
> > http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/18081
>
> Uh... did I claim *weis- was Uralic?

I don't think I said that?
But both places you are providing an interpretation other than the *w(e)is- "poison; green" one which also, as it happens, is a root (*wis^a-, with the same meaning) in Finno-Permian.

> But never mind Uralic, my proposal concerning the wisent word does
> not invalidate the reconstruction of *weis- as in Lat. vi:rus etc.
> or its hydronymic connections.

Which also is a etc etc; see above.

> > BTW, how come the rule -s-R- -> -ks-R- in Wisl/a vs. Weichsel
> > occurs also in Lith. (tukstantis) and Finnish (one of the
> > declinations has nom. -s, gen. -ksen, Sibeliuksen, Nurmeksen)?
>
> Babik (2002) devotes five pages to the Wisl/a in his book on the
> oldest layers of Polish toponymy. According to him, the cluster
> -stl- is in all likelihood original (Lat. <-scl-> and later forms
> with <-sl-> being secondary)

What are his arguments?

> and the -x- in Weichsel (first attested in the late Middle Ages)
> may reflect an epenthesised -k- of Baltic (Old Prussian) origin or
> some sort of hypercorrection/folk etymology in German.

German -chs- is pronounced -ks-, as you probably know.

> Babik regards the name as too old to be safely attributable to any
> known linguistic group;

If the same development occurs in Finnish and Lithuanian, and the latter are known to be newcomers in their present area, perhaps on should assign Wisl/a to a Finnish or substrate-to-Finnish group.

> he even doubts if it's etymologisable at all.

That makes sense, since his *wistla would be unique.

> I wouldn't bee so pessimistic. The traditional etymology
> *weis-tlah2 doesn't look bad to me.

*tlax- meaning?

> > And also, since the *wis- root means "green" besides "stinking;
> > toxic", as an epithet of rivers it perhaps just meant "full of
> > duckweed etc"?
>
> I've never seen any conspicuous quantity of that stuff in the
> Vistula. It's a big and relatively fast-flowing river.

Along its entire course? Seems eg. the Volga was named thus in its upper course.


Piotr