Re: The Wends and the Venedi

----- Original Message -----

From: Guillaume JACQUES

To: cybalist@eGroups.com

Sent: Tuesday, January 25, 2000 9:57 PM

Subject: [cybalist] Re: The Wends and the Venedi

Guillaume writes: Although there was indeed a name such as veneti before the breton migration in Brittany, I thinnk it will be evident to anybody that the modern breton word Gwened (ar Bro Gwened, the county of Vannes, that sits in the very place where Caesar says the veneti were), is related to welsh Gwynedd. So what relation is there between Gwened and Veneti (it is also obvious that there is one) ? Is there a brythonic (celtic ?) etymology for Gwynedd / Gwened ? If the name of the Volcae (home address: Gallia Narbonensis) is now found on the map from Walachia (southern Romania) to Wales, I wouldn't be surprised if some other names proved equally mobile. Caesar's Veneti were a Celtic tribe, but their name may well have been inherited from the Veneti proper. At any rate both derive from the same IE root *wen- 'wish, desire, love' (Skt vanati 'desire, gain', vanas- 'desire (n.)', L venus). This root had so many secondary meanings (e.g. Welsh gwenu 'to smile', or Indo-Iranian and Germanic 'gain, win') that it's difficult to say what *wen-e-to- was originally supposed to mean. In Celtic *wen- produces derivatives meaning 'family, descent, relation' (OIr fin, fine), so the Veneti were perhaps 'family members' = 'our folks, compatriots' in their own language (cf. Germanic *thiudiskaz 'of the people' > deutsch, Dutch).   The Celtic (Celticised?) Veneti gave their name to the town of Vannes (their capital in Brittany), as well as to the department of Vandée. As Guillaume points out, Breton Gwéned and Welsh Gwynedd reflect the same ethnic name. As far as I know, this is THE generally accepted etymology.   According to the late Polish linguist Tadeusz Milewski there are good reasons for assuming that the Venetic homeland was located in the vicinity of Bodensee (Lake of Constance), known as Lacus Veneticus in Roman times. Some of the hills and mountains of that area have "Venetic" names (Wenneder Berg near Reutlingen in Baden-Württemberg, Venetberg between Landeck and Imst in Tirol, or the Großvenediger massive in the Hohe Tauern = ancient Mons Veneticus). Remember that the Italici arrived in Italy in the latter half of the second millennium BC, crossing the Alps. Like the Celts, they originated from "Transalpine" Central Europe -- very likely the upper Danube basin (Bavaria, Bohemia, northern Austria). If Venetic represents a northern subbranch of Italic, the language of the Italici who remained in the north after their cousins had colonised the Italian Peninsula, the Veneti had an excellent strategic position for controlling the trade routes between the Baltic and the Adriatic. We should probably give them some of the credit for the development and spread of the Urnfield and Hallstatt cultures.   (-; Some of the Veneti must have crossed the Atlantic and ended up in Southern California. There is a beach resort called Venice on Santa Monica Bay (conquered by the city-state of Los Angeles and annexed into it 75 years BP), and another seaside Venice in Florida (south of Tampa). Fort Lauderdale is known as the Venice of America. Can it be a matter of chance that Hollywood, FL, is located a stone's throw from Fort Lauderdale, while Hollywood, CA, is only a few miles inland from Litus Veneticum (Venice Beach)? It must have been the Veneti who brought the first holly bushes to America ;-)   Piotr