----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, April 06, 2000 3:55
PM
Subject: [cybalist] Balto-Slavic gud-
I actually meant
*gud-a:n- + -išk but the Lithuanian reflex
of *a: slipped in. Thank you for the exact parallel. These
etymologies (whether they involve botany or something else) make much more
sense than anything I've seen so far. As for the Goths, they don't seem to
have lived on the coastal plain or on the Gulf of Gdańsk, but at some distance
from the Baltic, in the southern part of Pomerania, northern Wielkopolska
(Greater Poland), Kujavia, etc. At any rate new maps of Gothiscandia
based on up-to-date archaeological evidence place them there.
I've found another
Gdów in Poland, some 20 km southeast of Kraków and pretty far
from either Northern Polish "Gothiskandia" or the recently discovered later
Gothic settlement area near Hrubieszów. I'll check if there is an accepted
etymology (mind you, it may turn out to be nothing special, e.g. a dialectal
distortion of *wIdow-I (possessive of 'widow';
wdowa may be pronounced gdowa in Polish
dialects, and I don't even know if the gen. of Gdów is
Gdowa or Gdowia, if I did that would settle
the matter). I haven't located Gdzew yet (though Mazovia is my country); it's
probably an inconspicuous village.
Cheers,
Piotr
Why
not *gud-a:n- + -išk-, which is a
direct parallel to a real name of village in Lithuania (Vilnius district):
Gudoniškės<*gud-a:n-išk- (yes, my list
was a simplified one, can you believe?). As for Gdynia, this could well may be
from *gud-o:n-ia:, as Slavs often rendered (close)
o: as y in borrowings, and the suffix
-uon- (<o:n), including combinations
-uon-ė (<o:n-ia:) is a reality in
Lithuanian toponymy (up to 70 examples), but we can also consider
*gud-u:n-, cf. REAL examples like Gudžiūnai
(<*gud-j-u:n-) (one of them near Jurbarkas, close to
former Prussian border) from my
list.
Please note that this doesn't imply I agree with that
botanical meaning of the *gud- in these
examples.
Sergei
