Re: [tied] Goths and Germans

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 3526
Date: 2000-09-02

 
----- Original Message -----
From: João Simões Lopes Filho
To: cybalist@egroups.com
Sent: Saturday, September 02, 2000 12:44 AM
Subject: Re: [tied] Goths and Germans


I've seen it repeated by various sources, too. This solution explains neither the quality nor the quantity of Latin short /e/ (the word is far too old for any kind of umlaut to operate here) -- nor, for that matter, the length of /a:/. There would be further problems involving the declension type (*gaiza-mann- 'spearman' would have been a consonantal stem, while the Latin word is always thematic). It seems to be a learned kind of folk-etymology.
 
Piotr
 
 
João: I knew the version that GERMAN came from GAIZ-MANN- "javelin-man".