Re: [cybalist] River names

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

From: Sergejus Tarasovas

To: cybalist@egroups.com

Sent: Friday, April 28, 2000 11:34 AM

Subject: [cybalist] River names

Piotr wrote: 

  River names, at least in Europe, are in most cases simple epithets describing the visual appearance ("White", "Shining", "Dark")...

So you think Šventoji means 'shining'? Of course it's the main meaning the PIE root, but both Lithuanian švent- and Slavic *svęt- consistently show the only meaning 'sacred' (which is a semantic derivative of 'shine', undoubtedly). May be you are aware of facts that support the hypothesis that n-infixed (where -n- indicates state, so 'brightened'>'sacred') variant of PIE *kwet- could have retained it's direct meaning?

Sergei

No, it's a real counterexample. What I said refers to a clear majority of cases, but there's no denying that cases like "the Holy River" can occasionally be encountered. Anyway, this is still an epithet, even if a sacral one, rather than a theonym. A river name derived from a known Slavic god or goddess would be a different thing altogether.

Piotr