Of course the derivation works the
other way round (I understand it's just a banal slip, but let me straighten it
out for the sake of clarity): *xanxistaz > hestr and *xangistaz > Hengst.
Thanks, Torsten, it's a stimulating idea. Vernerian alternations between
etymologically related Germaic words are not unheard-of: German Hase : English
hare, for example, or Gothic aihan : OHG eigan, OE a:gen 'to own'. The
question is whether Ing (*ingWaz) is a word of this type, derived from
hypothetical *inxWás (pre-Germanic *enkWós?) via Verner's Law. If so, a
possible [- Verner] variant would have yielded *inxWaz > *i:hWaz >
hypothetical Gothic *eihs, OE *e:oh, OHG *îh, Runic *îhwaR, ON
*ýr.
Now what's really uncanny about this
conjectural reconstruction is that it looks for all the world like the
problematic name of the thirteenth rune, usually glossed as "bow" or "yew",
though the actual 'yew' word should not have any medial aitches (< PIE
*ei-wo-) and despite being a near-homophone of the name of the rune has
slightly different attested reflexes (OE i:w/e:ow [m.], OHG îwa).
I think this idea is worth pursuing. It
would give us Ingvar = Ivar plus a novel hypothesis about the name of Rune 13.
Any guesses about *énkWos ~ *enkWós?
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, February 16, 2001 4:03 PM
Subject: [tied] Re: Ingvar and Ivar
What we need is a Gmc. alternation ng/nothing. The
one that comes to my mind is *hang-ist-(>Scand. hest-
"horse")/*hanh-ist-(>German Hengst "stallion"). A g/h (Verner?)
alternation?