--- In
cybalist@egroups.com, "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...> wrote:
> Connected in what way? Whatever its origin, Germanic dani-
certainly does not derive from anything like PIE *da:nu- (as the
river word is shakily reconstructed). Do you mean that the name of
the Danes is a post-Grimm's Law borrowing from some language of the
Pontic area (Sarmatian?)? How does that square with the external
history of Scandinavian, Iranian, "Ruthenian", etc.?? I'm confused.
>
> Piotr
Well, I'm confused, too. But how about this as a counter-argument:
names of peoples are usually thought up not by the peoples
themselves, but by their neighbours. Therefore, Grimm has no say over
me (elegant, huh?). Herodotus calls Don Tanais. Pytheas mentions that
he sailed (from Massilia) along the coast of the ocean (!) to Tanais.
What is the sound the Greek writers here render as "t"?
But you are right that if the ethnonym was "passed on" in the people
itself, I would now be a Tane.
Early Germanic was in contact with Finnish. Some saga mentions the
Harfatha montains, obviously the Carpathians, and obviously a pre-
Grimm's law borrowing.
As for the logistics: Several places in the North Americans Midwest
have the name of Portage's (e.g. Portage des Sioux, I think it's a
suburb of St. Louis). This is where a people carried stuff from one
river system to another, with or without canoe.
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Torsten Pedersen
> To: cybalist@egroups.com
> Sent: Thursday, January 04, 2001 11:52 AM
> Subject: [tied] Re: etruscan
>
>
> Also, but now I'm getting very speculative, some have
> connected "Dane" with *dan- "river" (as in Don, Dniepr, Dniestr).
> This would then be a river people doing trade through Russia. Saxo
> Grammaticus mentions conflicts between Danes and Ruthenians.
> Ruthenians in this context are Ukrainians.