I'm still thinking of these names.
I don't think that the form *perunU can be of Baltic origin. How would you
get from Perku:nas to Perun?. I agree one would expect inherited
Slavic **perUnU/*perynjI < *peruno-/*peru:n-jo- (given the known IE models),
but the suffix *-un-U is Slavic and produces deverbal agent nouns (Polish biegun
'runner, [formerly:] courser, fugitive', piastun 'caregiver'); *per-un-U may
therefore be a folk-etymological rationalisation of unanalysable **perUnU as 'he
that strikes' (= lightning personified).
Baltic Perku:nas is routinely explained as
*perkWu-h1n-o- 'he of the oak' (thus also in the EIEC), but something of this
kind could at most be true of its Germanic counterpart *fergu:na-, as *perkW-u-
'oak' and its non-theonymic derivatives seem to be completely absent from
Balto-Slavic. A very ancient western cultural loan into Baltic would account for
Perku:nas.
A new thought has just occurred to me. What
do mountains have in common with oaks? They are big. Hittite parku- means 'high,
tall'. I've seen it etymologised in various ways, but why nor simply *prkW-ú-,
hence the noun *perkW-u- '*tall tree, oak' and the Germanic "mountain" word
(Gothic ferguni, OE firgen). I wonder if there is any good evidence for the *kW
at all. What about reconstructing simply *prk-ú-, *perk-u-s,
*perk-u:n(j)o-?
I suspect *perk(W)u:nos (_not **perkWnos,
Glen!_) was once a North European oak/mountain deity who came to be confused
with *perunos the rock/thunder(?) deity and merged his functions with the
latter's. The merger of deities because of their similar-sounding names is
nothing unusual; it happened to the West Germanic counterparts of Frigg and
Freyja, for example.
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2001 8:05 PM
Subject: [tied] Re: Poets, linguists and countrymen. Lend me your
ears...
Possessives like Slavic *Peryn'I 'of PerunU'(<*peru_n-i-) look like
vrddhization of **PerUnU, not PerunU. In my opinion, this deity (at least his
name) was rather borrowed by Slavs from Balts than constitute their common IE
inheritage.