Re: Uralic Loanwords in Germanic

From: johnvertical@...
Message: 65821
Date: 2010-02-08

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "stlatos" wrote:
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, johnvertical@ wrote:
>
> > > I'd also add, if you did take Piotr's message seriously, that he once was open to the consideration that F Suomi << Indic *ks.oom 'earth', which is similar in its lack of certainty and its need for assumptions to my *kantli:x \ *kantla:x >> kítharis \ kithára: (in this case, I'd say the former was actually much less likely than the latter, since F Suomi < suo + maa 'swamp land' or 'fen land' is nearly certain).
>
> > You seem to be tossing "nearly certain" around lightly. *so:mi < *so:-ma: is certainly not "nearly certain" in the sense of being the accepted option, nor in the sense of being problemless (no regular process based on this etymology explains the final *-i, and Finland Proper is not particularly swampy).
>
>
> The stem is Suoma-, and several Finnish words ending in -i have stems with -a- (this is because of an old nom -y

No, words from *-Vj have stems with -i- (but may derive from a root in -a, which I suppose you meant). The stem here is however -e-. "Suomalainen" may have been influenced by "hämäläinen", while I see no motivation for turning *soomi- into *soome-.

(And even if we would assume *so:ma as more original, a number of contesting etymologies still apply, of which *so:-ma: is not the least problematic.)

> (corresponding to Old Japanese words in -e with compounds in -a-)).

Are you bringing this up as a parallel or as some sort of a Ural-Altaic scenario?


> The 'fenland' meaning explains the names in Gmc.

An original exact correspondence between "Suomi" and "Finland" is not required. ("Finn" appears quite a bit more widely than in this compound, which also makes me think "fen" is not correct here.)


> > (Which is not to say that *ks.o:m sounds any better - but not really much worse either. This should yield **ho:mi.
>
> That depends on when it was borrowed. ks > s could have happened at the start of a word at any time;

Not after ruki.

Anyway, Piotr's clarification of having referred to an older *g´ho:m works better.

John Vertical