Re: [tied] Re: Kuningaz

--- Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...> wrote:

> There's must have been some finer semantic
> distinctions once upon a time. Both terms (and more)
> were current among the Germani. <�iudans> survives
> in Old English as poetic <�e:oden> 'leader of the
> people, lord' (applied also to Christ). Tolkien fans
> will recall the title "Theoden". Then, we have
> *ri:k- (ultimately from *h3reg^-, but borrowed from
> Celtic), passed on to the Balts (Old Prussian rikis)
> and found in Gothic royal names (Ermanari:ks, of
> course).

*****GK: Not Ermana:riks? Ermanari:ks sounds Thracian
or Scythian (but then he was the "Golden Scythian").
Anyway on a more serious note, I find it quite
interesting that Gothic "reiks" does not mean "king"
with the strength of "rex", but just "chief",
"notable", "power", "magistrate", "great". Too bad
Ammianus M. did not use Gothic terms when speaking of
Gothic rulers but translated these into Latin. I
suppose the Greuthungi kings ("rex") would have been
"thiudans" (sing.) such as Ermanaric, Vithimir,
Videric. The ruler of the Tervingi however, Athanaric,
is a "iudex" (perhaps a "reiks"?) What then of the
"duces" such as Alatheus, Saphrax, Alavivus, Munderic?
Perhaps they were "kuningaz"? If memory serves I think
Procopius referred to the numerous leaders of the
Antes and Sclavini as "reguli" (= "knyazi"?). Will
think about this some more.******

>
> Piotr
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
> To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Thursday, January 24, 2002 2:40 AM
> Subject: Re: [tied] Re: Kuningaz
>
>
> >******GK: Is *kuningaz attested, or reconstructed?
> I
> >checked out a couple of Gothic dictionaries and
> didn't
> >find it there.******
>
> The Gothic for "king" is <�iudans>. Some of the
> oldest attested forms
> are ON <konungr>, OE <cyning>, OHG <kuning>. None
> quite as
> archaic-looking as Finnish <kuningas>, though.
>
> =======================
> Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
> mcv@...
>

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