Re: [tied] *kuningaz

-----Original Message-----
From: george knysh [mailto:gknysh@...]
Sent: Friday, February 01, 2002 2:49 AM
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [tied] *kuningaz

*****GK: It would depend to some small extent from the
date assigned to the emergence of Slavic as a distinct
IE language family. What's your take on this?***** 

 

It depends.

I'm inclined to support the theory of early Proto-Slavic being actually an aberrant West Baltic dialect. I've seen 500BC proposed as a date of East(Central)-West(Periferal) split. I also sympathize to the theory that it was some external impulse that triggered Slavic ethnic explosion and forced them to leave swamps and forests for something looking much like the culture of Roman provinces (*banja, *rusalIje/*rusalUka etc) -- exctly what the Balts did not do. The Gothic 'activities' fit neatly as the impulse. Thus, the date in question would be somewhere between 500BC and 0AD.

An alternative theory denies Slavic-from-Baltic of Balto-Slavic scheme and ascribes all the similarities to convergent processes. In that case, the question you ask is about the split of the PIE family in general -- the question I just can't answer.

 
> 
> The Baltic evidence is controversial, that's why
> some scholars state the
> source was Gothic or even Proto-Germanic, while
> others insist on Middle High German. There are no
> obvious Proto-Germanic
> loans in Baltic in general, and only for two or
> three lexemes
> Proto-Germanic origin is not impossible.

*******GK: What's the view on Latvian "kungs"?***** 

 

I meant _all_ the Baltic evidence, i.e. Lithuanian, Latvian and Prussian.  Latvian ku`ngs is a direct counterpart of Lith. ku`nigas. Yes, they slightly differ semantically ('master' and 'priest'), but, at any rate, both Proto-Germanic (or an early Germanic dialect) and Middle High German are equally possible candidates to be the source.

*****GK: How late is the Lith. word "kunigaikshtis"?
The senses given "prince, sovereign, grand duke" sound
much closer to East Slavic "knyaz'" than
"kunigas"******
 

I vaguely recall having read something on that. If I'm not mistaken, kuniga'iks^tis is supposed to mean 'lords's son/descendant' (cf. 'prince' vs. 'king') first. I have no idea how old it could be.

 
Note,
> however, that _if_
> Lithuanian gu`das '1. Belarusian 2. (dialectal)
> foreigner' is indeed a
> Germanic borrowing, it must reflect pre-Grimm
> Germanic (actually,
> Proto-Germanic) form *gudas, so the borrowing must
> have occured long
> before 0 AD, which could point to rather early
> Balto-Germanic contacts.

*****GK: This is a tricky one. It seems that *gudas in
the sense of "Slav of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania" is
first attested in 1546. Pritsak has a theory that the
word was coined in the 7th-8th c. when the ancestors
of Lithuanians encountered the north-moving Slavs who
had been part of the Gothic realm and kept this term
("Goth") as a self-designation. I find this quite
implausible on historical grounds, and perhaps you
would on linguistic ones. But if *gudas is not a
Germanic borrowing (I find it difficult to imagine
what Germanics would be doing in the area SE of
Lithuania prior to 0 AD), what would be the
alternative?*****
 

The problem about this theory, as Piotr pointed two years ago on this list, is that if the word were _borrowed_ (whether by the Slavs or the Balts) after ca. 0AD (a more precise date depends on the dating of Grimm's law) it would have taken the form *gUtU in Slavic and *gu`tas in Lithuanian.

The only possible way to save that theory (which is not Pritzak's and first occured in the 19th c.) is to suggest that the word was _borrowed_ before 0AD (the proto-Goths being NW of today's Lithuania) and then _applied_ to the Slavs later.

Baltic etymologies have been also proposed for Lith. gu`das; the most plausible one explains it from onomatopoeic *gud- (cf. Lith. dial. guduo'ti 'speak unclear, murmur' and Slavic *go,gniti, *go,de^ti etc).

 

Sergei