--- In cybalist@..., Miguel Carrasquer Vidal <mcv@...> wrote:
> On Fri, 2 Mar 2001 16:25:36 +0100, "Piotr Gasiorowski"
> <gpiotr@...> wrote:
>
> >Germanic names *could* in theory contain the element hu:n- 'Hun
(nish)', since all Germanic languages had the word in question (OE
Hu:nas, Hu:ne, OIcel. Húnar, MHG Hiune). The history of the Huns was
well known to all ("Aetla we:old Hu:num ...") and assimilated into
Germanic tribal legends. In Germanic epics, Attila's kingdom is
anything but barbarian or even exotic. The Huns are just like the
Goths or the Burgundians. Your irony is unjustified. Nobody's career
would be jeopardised for dragging in the Huns.
Torsten:
Yes, but my snide remark had to with explicitly dragging the Huns
onto land in England, since everyone knows that (Romans=British) and
(Huns=Germans), therefore they cannot exist in free form on the
British Isles in free form, cf. mr. Woodson's first answer.
Miguel:
The problem is rather that ethnonyms are not conspicuous as first-
name elements in Germanic. Animal names, on the other hand, are very
often used in this function (Wulf, Ulf, Wulfstan, Cuthwulf, Hrothulf,
Wulfila, Wolfram, Athelwulf, Beowulf, Arnulf, etc., as well as Björn,
Hengest and Horsa, Cubba, Catta, etc.). Hu:n-sta:n is just no less
and no more logical than the common name Wulf-sta:n -- a name was
composed of conventional elements and didn't have to mean much or
serve as a
> talisman.
>
> In Dutch, megalithic monuments are traditionally known as
<hunebedden>
> "Hun's beds". De Vries & Tollenaere's etymological dictionary has
> this to say about the word <hunebed>:
>
> "latere overlevering schreef deze bouwwerken uit de steentijd aan
> reuzen toe; in het 1e deel heeft men wel de naam van de Hunnen menen
> te herkennen, maar men moet uitgaan van een word <Hûn>, waarmee
> vroeger de Saksen en de Franken aangeduid werden; toen dit woord
> buiten gebruik raakte, werd het opgevat als naam van een
> voorhistorisch volk." ("later traditions attributed these Stone Age
> monuments to giants; the 1st part of the word has been linked to the
> name of the Huns, but one has to depart from a word <Hûn>, which was
> formerly used to denote the Saxons and the Franks; when this word
> became obsolete, it was taken to be the name of a prehistoric
people".
>
> Cf. in Kluge's German et. dict. (17th ed.):
>
> "Hüne m. frühnhd. nd. heune, mhd. hiune 'Riese' (diese Bed. seit dem
> 13. Jh.). Dasselbe wie mhd. Hiune, ahd. asächs. Hûni>, Hûn "Hunne"
> (mlat. Hunus, Hunnus, gr. Hoûnnoi). Der Stamm Hûn- in germ.
> Männernamen wie ahd. Hûnprecht, Hûnbolt, ags. Hûnbold, -gar, anord.
> Hûngerðr, Hûnþjôfr ist nicht eins damit, sondern bed. 'Tierjunges',
> bes. 'junger Bär', vgl. anord. hûnn 'Bärenjunges', norw. mundartl.
hûn
> 'junger Bursche'. Auf einen vorgerm. Völkernamen deuten hess.
Hünfeld
> an der Hauna."
>
> =======================
> Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
> mcv@...:
Hauna < Hu:na?. To which one should add German Hünengräber (=Du.
hunebedden).
Anyway, more Humli stuff:
Chuvash Russian Da. OE
xâmla xmel' humle hymel hops
xâmâl (stebel') stem
xam 1 ja sam I myself
2 moj, my own,
svoj, its own
sobstvennyj
xamâr 1 my samy we ourselves
2 nash, svoj our own
xamarla po svojski, the way we do it
kak prijatno
u blizkix ljudjej,
po-nashenski
of which the latter seem to be good for making an etnonym, in which
case one might guess that the Humlungs (or Hundings) were the
followers of the Huns, and the eponymous king Humli a later
invention, so that an army, not a king drowned in a river.
(But I'm not happy with the equation u/a; 'Cuvash' in Chuvash is
<Châvash>. I assume the /â/ is Turkic "i".
My NuDansk Ordbog says of the first gloss that it is probably a
Slavic loan (of which there aren't that many in Danish). Judging from
the -u-, if it was loaned from Slavic, that happened pre-Germanic
stress shift. Is it a Turkic loan? Funny that that word should be
loaned.
And on top of that there is a mound called "king Humle's grave" on
Langeland near a village called Humble (which of course means 'hops'.
Torsten