Re: Odp: Carniola et al.

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 1084
Date: 2000-01-23

 
----- Original Message -----
From: Tommy Tyrberg
To: cybalist@eGroups.com
Sent: Saturday, January 22, 2000 5:24 PM
Subject: [cybalist] Re: Carniola et al.

At 06:44 2000-01-22 -0800, you wrote:
>    Maximilian Hartmuth writes: 
>  
>>  for the people in the region not of Germanic origin. Sorry if this has
>>gotten too long, and wasn`t really on a main-topic of discussion.
>   
>This is not entirely off-topic. Getting familiar with European geography,
>and with the various ethno-linguistic groups is a part of IE studies. At
>least, its more on-topic than we've been lately. We have not really
>discussed the Sorbians of Germany, and am interested in how they get called
>'Wenden'. I am fond of these old European geographical names. Carniola,
>Styria, Istria, Carinthia. They bring up all sorts of lush Franz-Joseph-era
>associations, romantically populated by Gypsy barons and merry widows. Of
>late, I'm enamored of Livonia and Ostrobothnia. These geographic place
>names are as exotic and faraway for me as is probably Iowa is for the
>Europeans reading this. As for "Windisch", "Wenden", etc, "Vend", are we
>speaking of Vandals? The kings of Sweden used to style themselves as King
>of the Swedes, Goths and Wends. I'm forget where we put the Vandals, but I
>think they are classed as East Germanic, along with the Ostogoths and
>Visigoths. But I might be wrong. Mark. 

"Vend" is an old Germanic term for slavs. The Swedish Kings called
themselselve "svears, göters och venders konung", however despite the fact
that parts of Pomerania (part of the old Vendish area) was Swedish
1648-1814 the use of the title was due to rivalry with Denmark. Sweden and
Denmark/Norway was in Union in the fifteenth century and the Danish Kings
kept calling themselves Kings of Sweden long after this, so to retaliate
Swedish kings took over part of the Danish Kings traditional title as King
of the Vends! By the way this title goes back to the 12-13th century when
the Danes conquered pparts of the North German Coast, including Rügen.

The Slavs had colonized this area back in the 6th-7th centuries when it was
probably partially depopulated since the previous East Germanic inhabitants
(Goths, Vandals etc) had removed themselves. A few Vends apparently even
crossed the Baltic and settlet on the Danish island of Lolland to judge
from a group of place-names there (e. g. Tillitse).
Vandal and Vend might after all be the same name in different guises. Such name-sharing is a common phenomenon. The French are linguistically a Romance nation but "ethnonymically" they can be identified with the Franks (a Germanic tribal name). Modern Britons are mostly Germanic-speaking, but their name is Celtic if not pre-Celtic. Modern Bulgarians inherited their name from the Turkic Bulgars, the Slavic Silesians from the Germanic Silings, and the Slavic Macedonians from the Hellenic ones. The name of the Celtic Volcae was applied by the Germani to the Celts in general, then by the Anglo-Saxons to the Welsh, by Germans and Poles to Italians (Italy itself is called Włochy in Polish), and by all the neighbouring nations to the Romanian Walachians.
 
One popular story is that the Veneti used to establish settlements in central Europe as far north as the Baltic, possibly in order to control the amber trade (they also had a reputation as horse dealers). It is certainly true that the Mediterranean end of the Amber Road was at Aquileia (such a famous centre of trade between northern and southern Europe in Roman times that it earned the name "Second Rome"), in the land of the historical Veneti; it's also true that the archaeological cultures of the upper Elbe and the Oder basins, as well as the southern coast of the Baltic (in the Hallstatt period) show features which link them to northern Italy (e.g. house-shaped and "facial" funerary urns like those known from Etruria). Ptolemy's Ouenedikos kolpos (Wenedic Bay) is generally identified with the Bay of Gdansk. With something like *Wenetoi as a starting point it's easy to arrive at Jordanes's 6th c. Uenethi/Venethae (apparently synonymous with his Sclaveni 'Slavs') or mediaeval German Winidi, Wenedi, Winadi '(Western) Slavs'. The name doesn't seem to have been applied by any Slavic tribe to themselves; nor does it have a Slavic etymology (while its connection with PIE *wen-e- 'to love' seems evident), Perhaps the Germani transferred the name of the Veneti, their erstwhile neighbours in Central Europe, to the Slavs who replaced them.
 
Some scholars conjecture that the Vandals are another link in this name-trading chain. This seems fanciful to me, as the phonological difficulties look insuperable. I must admit, however, that geographically they would fit in rather well. Does anyone in this list have an opinion about this problem?
 
As for the origin of the Vandals, Mark, they lived in the valley of the Oder about the 5th c. BC (having possibly arrived there from Jutland). Between the 1st and the 4th c. AD they expanded towards the Danube. The main Vandalic groups at that time were the Silings (in Silesia) and the Hasdings (on the Tisa).
 
Piotr