--- In cybalist@..., george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote:
>
> *****GK: Is it absolutely necessary, from a linguistic
> point of view, that a word like "Chud'" should have
> been borrowed after the process you mention? Could it
> have been borrowed earlier and then evolved along with
> other similar words? For instance does the loss of
> nasals in most Slavic languages imply that a name like
> "Svyatoslav" could not have existed before as
> "Sventoslav" and then just evolved? Or the switch from
> hard "g" to soft "h" in names like Grigori/Hryhorij?
> Unless such evolution is linguistically impossible I
> would be inclined, on historical grounds to date the
> borrowing quite early.*****
> >
That's all right, an early borrowing is a standard solution. I just
wanted to note that a late borrowing can't be ruled out as well, and
I explained why for those on the list who is not into the
peculiarities of the Old Russian dialects - otherwise I would risk to
be laughed at.
By the way, to what time do you refer that c^udI-borrowing? Again,
Gothic Tiuda, a possible source for *tjudI > c^udI, meant just 'a
people', if I'm not mistaken. What in Iordanes' text makes you think
he or his source refers to the Baltic Finns specifically? I don't
have an Old Russian dictionary at hand at the moment, but if I
recall, the meanings like 'foreign people, not ours' are registered
for ORuss c^udI, too, along with more specific 'the Baltic Finns', so
the semantical evolution 'aliens' > 'non-Slavic people around
_northern_ East Slavic tribes' is normal, since that word belongs to
the _northern_ dilects of ORuss.
As for Ukr. fricative /G/, I've read somewhere that it could be a
rather early innovation, having finished at least by the time
Pol'ane^ began to accept Greek names.
Sergei