Re: Odp: Odp: Odp: IE Lithuanian-Mediterranean connections

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

From: Sergejus Tarasovas

To: cybalist@egroups.com

Sent: Thursday, March 02, 2000 4:43 PM

Subject: [cybalist] Re: Odp: Odp: IE Lithuanian-Mediterranean connections

 

You're really setting me up against the wall, Piotr; the more so, these are neraly exactly the same questions I ask to myself. Of course, if my only aid were to die hard, I would say that

1. there could well be some intermediaries (Turkic-speaking?) who changed the quality of the e:

Hm, then Indo-Iranian > Turkic > Slavic in order to give the Balts an idea for naming amber? However, I'm not aware of any Indic or Iranian roots remotely like *e(:)nu- with the meaning 'burn', 'shine' or the like. Perhaps you've got such a candidate (or a Turkic word for "amber" that may have served as an intermediary).

2. as for Russian change *e- > *o in anlaut, this change, as you well know, is rather inconsistent, and there're a lot of exceptions, explained only to some extent (like Russian jiozh, jedva, jele, jel'/jiolkij, jiorsh etc).

True enough (function words like jest' don't undergo the change either, though concrete nouns normally do), but what you NEVER find among such words is back-mutation giving ja rather than jo; and while we have jantar- in both Russian and Polish, *jontar- is completely non-existent.

The Baltic origin seemed suspicious to me mainly because of lack of the Baltic etymology.

But as far as I can see there is no convincing NON-BALTIC etymology either. Until you convince me there is one, the theory that gintaras (dzi:tars, dzintares, etc.) is a local (Baltic or substrate) word should be regarded as the null hypothesis, IMO.

Yes, that is the case just because in Old Russian combinations like velar (k,g)+ front vowel (e,i etc) were prohibited and had to be replaced (je<ge being rather traditional, like in GeorgIjI>JurgIjI etc, here I=yer' after Piotr). But at the same time (early Old Russian) the combination -inC- (C - any consonant) was prohibited as well, so in the case of an early borrowing something like *jatarI would be expected. To accept Russian jantar' as a borrowing from Lithuanian we have to accept that there was a period in Old Russian developement, when the yers have already fallen (thus allowing -inC), but the combinations like ge haven't come convenient yet. I have to consult some sources to accept or reject this.

The replacement of ge, ke by je, ce [tse] in Slavic has more to do with the traditional Mediaeval pronunciation of Latin and Greek loans than with Slavic phonotactics. Quite certainly "ge > je" has no basis in the normal phonological developments in either Polish or Russian. In non-Graeco-Latin loans (such as those involving the Germanic prefix ge-) I'd expect the simpler and more natural replacement of ge, gi by gU, gy.

 

For Lithuanian gint- to become Slavic jVnt- the word would therefore have had to be regarded as Latinate. And perhaps it was! Here's my hypothetical scenario for Polish: gintaras > quasi-Latin (learned) *gintarus or *gentarus > Polonised *jętar (ę = eN, i.e. nasalised [e]) > dialectal jaNtar (with a nasalised [a])> Modern (regional or literary) Polish jantar. The Modern Russian word may owe its form to the influence of Polish, but Old Russian jen(U)tar' could be an independent attempt to assimilate Latinate *gi/entarus. Note that in this narrative your postulated jen(U)tar(I) is no longer aberrant and may be accepted at face value!

 

What I can't check at the moment is whether amber is actually called *gintarus/*gentarus in any Mediaeval Latin texts. If it were, this would be clinching evidence for my proposal.

Peter wrote:

Despite all the linguistic difficulties, a northern origin for the amber words is a priori more likely. Unless, of course, Sergei has an ace up his sleeve.

 

To give the answer that would cater both Piotr and Martin, I have to consult some sources (and check with some people), and this may take a week or so, so I would ask for a timeout.

Take your time. I'll be looking forward to your answer. It's a very stimulating discussion and I'm glad you've brought this amber piece back to our attention. As a child I also collected grains of amber on a beach east of the Vistula Delta, just a few miles from the location of Prussian Truso :). There were lots of them (not enough to make one rich, but one could fill a small jar with a week's collection), and the village where I was spending my holiday was called Jantar.

 

Piotr