Re: Town, Zaun, and Celtic Dun-

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "andythewiros" <anjarrette@...> wrote:

>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@> wrote:
> >
> > > Any possibility of onomatopoeia?
> >
> > You don't really mean that?
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onomatopoeia
>
> I'm not knowledgeable in this area, but isn't it possible that people might acquire nicknames that might be onomatopoeic representations of some distinctive quality they have, such as chubbiness, height, colour, etc.?

'Onomatopoeia or onomatopœia, from the Greek onomatopoiía (omo,a for "name" and poiéo: for "I make"), is one or more words that imitate or suggest the source of the sound they are describing.'

What is the sound of chubbiness, height and colour?
I don't understand what you mean.

> In OE times couldn't actual given names, as opposed to nicknames,
> arise by this means?

Well tell me what chubbiness, height and colour sound like, and I'll answer that.

> > > It's also interesting how the OE names mentioned above
> > > sometimes have sound combinations that probably would not occur
> > > under normal Germanic sound-laws: Putta, Pœtt as examples.
> > > Perhaps onomatopeia or mere improvisation has something to do
> > > with all these names.
> >
> > I don't think Putta pottered about more than other people and if
> > he did, he probably didn't make any matching sound. As for
> > 'improvisation', what is that?
>
> I basically meant making up names out of thin air. I think this is
> what happens when African-American parents name their daughters
> 'Lakeesha' or 'Jawanda' and names like that.

See below.

> > And why would English 'improvisations' lead to the same names as
> > Illyrian or Etruscan?
>
> Pure coincidence.

So could in principle the rest of linguistics, then.

> But I'm definitely not against the substrate idea, or the foreign
> origin (Illyrian, Etruscan, whatever) idea.

That would be a substrate in England and NWEurope. Question is whether that substrate came with the Saxon etc invaders or already existed in Britain, the latter would explain why there are so few Celtic loans in English; the loans are there, but they are not Celtic. The best candidates for such words would be words of non-Germanic structure (eg. in p-) which also occur in the insular Celtic languages, *plus* in Breton where a loan of them from English would be unlikely.

>
> > Substrate seems to be the best solution, whatever effects that
> > might have on the Anglo-Saxon self-image.

Torsten