Shivraj wrote:
> Also could the Varangians of Constantinople be the root of this
> word [viz., Persian farangi/firangi, Arabic faranj/ifranj etc.]?
> Similar words like waregangi were also in use in Italy by the
> Lombard kings.
I will divide my reply in two parts.
A) varangos :: farangi
Greek Varangos (pl. Varangoi) -- the name after which the Viking mercenaries (mostly from Sweden) were known in the Byzantine Empire during the 10th and 11th centuries -- and New Persian farangi 'a European' are phonetically quite similar to each other indeed; this notwithstanding, the chance that the term farangi referred to the Varangian palace guard of Constantinople rather than to the 'Franks' seems very slim to me. Through a Web search I have done this morning, I could just find a couple of authors who mention this possibility in passing; all other historians support the Frank --> farangi thesis.
The term of self-designation of the Varangian Rus (Old Russian Varyag < *vareg-), whatever its Old Norse form may have been in that time (maybe not yet Wæringr/Wæringi, which is attested only later in Old Icelandic and Old Norwegian literary works), could in principle have been transmitted to Islamic Persia as a loan word ('farangi' or the like) via the trans-Caspian trade route probably used by the Varangian merchants themselves; in this case, Arabic faranji/ifranj ('a European') too would probably have been borrowed from the same source -- thus, not from Greek Frankoi, pron. <frangoi> as I have been claiming. I am not persuaded by this hypothesis anyway, as it is my conviction that the historical impact of the 'Franks' (meant as Western European mercenaries and crusaders) on Near Eastern Arabs -- who, according to the consensus view on this topic, transmitted their word for 'Franks' (faranj), also via the Persian and Turkic forms borrowed from it, to India, SE Asia, and as far as Ethiopia -â" was far more momentous, profound and durable than that of the Varangian Rus. Moreover, Arab writers, who learnt the word in Russia, knew the Varangian Rus as <varank> (also Bahr Varank 'Varangian Sea' = the Baltic). The latter circumstance indicates that the Arabs had a word for the 'Franks' (faranj) differing from that for the Varangian Rus (varank). This leaves little room for the hypothesis that New Persian farangi was a loan from Old Norse Wæringi (vel sim.).
Another odd idea I've met with during my search today is one by which the name 'Varangian' itself is derived from the name 'Frank'. A.A. Shakhmatov (1864-1920), a Russian philologist and historian, suggested that the Russian ethnonym Varyag was a corrupted form of the name Frank, which would have come to Russia from the Balkans via the Turkic-speaking Avars. A Byzantine scholar, J. Hermans, recently revived this theory by citing an eleventh-century Byzantine work in which the phrase "Frangos i Vrangos" ('Frank or... [?]') is attested. Hermans says the editors made out of "Vrangos", "Varangos" and takes this as evidence that Greek Varangos (Varangian) was a synonym of Frangos/Frankos -- see at
http://tinyurl.com/kv593r
This suggestion is, of course, utterly unlikely. The Frankoi and Varangoi are cited as discreet ethnic entities in a large number of other Byzantine sources. As to Shakhmatovâs "Avaric" theory, I see it has been long dismissed as implausible by the scholars.
B) wæringi :: waregang
The formal and semantic identity of the name wæringi/wæringr (whatever its unattested Old Norse predecessor) with the Langobardic term waregang, which is first attested in the Edictum Rothari (642 CE), is now the prevailing view among the scholars in the field (thanks, Shivraj, for pointing me to this).
http://tinyurl.com/ncfgk9 (see especially notes 21 and 22 on p. 248)
"The name Varangians has been interpreted in various ways... There is now a general agreement that the derivation is from a Germanic form *waragangja- composed of *wa:ra- âvow, confidence (in), faith (in), agreementâ and a form *gangja- based on the Indo-European root *ghengh 'to go'. This type of formation is present in other Germanic languages and is particularly well attested in Old Norse."
The form is attested in West Germanic not only as waregang (Langobardic), but also as wargengus (Old French, from Old Frankish) and wærgang (Old Saxon). It was once thought that such terms could translate something like '(an immigrated foreigner) seeking protection' , i.e. a foreigner who has taken service with a new lord by a treaty of fealty to him. This older etymology has been now updated by suggesting that the in Old West Germanic tribal laws the term *wa:ra-gangja -- which, in the new hypothesis, is though to have also been current among some North-Germanic-speaking tribes of southern Sweden (the future 'Varangians') -- denoted a stranger who enjoyed a recognized personal freedom of movement (indeed, *gangja- means 'goer, one who goes/travels') across the domain of a tribal ruler by virtue of his high individual status. It was, therefore, a term arising from the juridical sphere. E. Ebel (_Die Waräger. Ausgewählte Texte zu den Fahrten der Wikinger nach Vorderasien_, Niemeyer, Tübingen, 1978) has proposed an etymology of *wa:ra-gangja as 'one who goes/travels thanks to an agreement (with the king)'. This is precisely what the Varangians did in Russia and in the Byzantine Empire; and note that the idea of 'going' is always present in the Old Norse formations in â"ingi, to which also the name wæringi belongs (see, again note 22 on p. 248 at
http://tinyurl.com/ncfgk9).
Regards,
Francesco