--- In
cybalist@egroups.com, "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...> wrote:
> No, perhaps I didn't express myself clearly enough. The only area
where *da:nu- still meant 'river' about the time when the Germanic
languages were formed was the Iranian-speaking or Iranian-influenced
lands. The historical river Tanais was of course the Don, and
Danastris was the Dniester, both running where expected. If the Danes
were to have received their name from the Don or the like, you'd have
to explain how they ended up as one of the North Germanic tribes.
>
> A new thought: the river name Tanew in SE Poland MIGHT suggest that
the earliest Germani preserved the IE term *da:nu- (VERY speculative,
this, but not impossible); on the other hand, Tana(w)i- can't be
their translation of the Iranian name of the Don -- it's simply too
old (Herodotus, ca. 440 BC), and the vocalism doesn't quite work.
Germanic is not the only group with a Grimmian phonation-mode shift
(Armenian is another, and some people think Thracian or "Cimmerian",
whatever the latter really was, had something like it too).
>
> At the other end of Indo-Europia, *da:nu- occurs as a river-naming
element in the parts of Europe settled by the Celts; *Da:neu-jo-
s 'the (Upper) Danube' is of course the most celebrated example. No
matter how old this element is, it would't work as the etymological
source of *Dani- -- a badly matching root vowel, a different stem-
termination -- not enough substance for an argument one might wish to
invest much enthusiasm in.
>
> Piotr
>
>
Well, you wouldn't want to invest too much enthusiasm in it unless
you were Danish, of course.
One reason why they might end up on the Danish islands would be that
they had to, because they were driven out. If you are driven out of a
country and you have a boat, because that is the tool by which you
live, you sail to an offshore island where you are safe, and try to
continue your business there. That's what the Venetians did.
On an experiment made recently, a reconstructed Viking boat
(continuing a long boat tradition) had a draft of 1.5 meters with a
50 ton cargo, That is the perfect instrument for coast hugging- and
river trading).
Probably as well you stopped me here. Then I won't get into the
account (I forgot from where) that when the Trojans were defeated,
they went to the sea of Azov and founded a place named Asgard (*as,
cf Old Norse and Etruscan/Lemnian, *gard, cf. Slavic, Old Norse and
Semitic). Also that one of the sea peoples was named d-n- or
something. (And I haven't even gotten to the Dani tribe of New
Guinea;-)). Me and linguistics is like Beavis and cappucino.
BTW, aren't the Iranian languages Grimmian-shifting? fshumans, "rich"?
Torsten