Re: I, Hercules [was: A "Germanic" query]

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: tgpedersen
> To: cybalist@...
> Sent: Tuesday, February 26, 2002 12:56 PM
> Subject: [tied] Re: I, Hercules [was: A "Germanic" query]
>
>
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: tgpedersen
> > To: cybalist@...
> > Sent: Monday, February 25, 2002 12:59 PM
> > Subject: [tied] Re: I, Hercules [was: A "Germanic" query]
> >
> >
> > And since you brought up that subject, I came across this website
> > looking for something else
> >
> >
> > http://www.arminco.com/hayknet/tapan.htm
>
> --- In cybalist@..., "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...> wrote:
> > The page only shows that having a PhD in chemistry does not

qualify

> one for linguistic or historical research, even at

the "knowledgeable

> amateur" level (of course linguists and historians should not
> pontificate on matters chemical). The imagination boggles at the
> author's analysis of the name "Gilgamesh" in terms of (Modern!)
> Armenian elements.
> >
> > Piotr
> >
> >
> As I understand your raisonnement, it is:
>
> 1) NN has said something wrong
>
> 2) Whatever NN says is wrong
>
> 3) The article is wrong
>
> which is a fine example of the application of induction and
> deduction. Now I think I recall Sir Karl criticizing the principle

of

> induction, but I might have misunderstood him.
>
> The story went like this: Snorri says Thor was known as Asa-Thor

and

> Oka-Thor, so I thought: Aha, Thor is known from both Alan and
> Armenian sources and the last name might have to do with Vahagn >
> *WaGn- . To my surprise I find this guy postulates an Armenian god
> Asatur.
> And while I'm at it: Someone criticized that *WaGn would be *Vakk-
> in Norse. But one of Odin's names is Vak-r

--- In cybalist@..., "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...> wrote:
> C'mon, Torsten, I gave just one particularly illustrative example
of the man's abysmal ignorance, as anyone who visits the site may see
for himself. There is a level below which things are not worth
discussing. The article is thoroughly and grotesquely wrong, so
perhaps you could save your fine logic for something really worth
defending.
>
> Piotr
Alright, I'm willing to change 1) to read

1) NN has said very many things wrong.

I was hoping someone would prove the man wrong based on their
understanding of Armenian folklore, but that was not to be.

>
> P.S. *Vakkr and Vakr are two different things. The epithet <vakr>
means 'vigilant, alert', from ON vaka 'wake'.

Yes, I know. But I see the lists of Odin's names as, metaphorically,
an entry in an old Mithridates: These are the names by which the
surrounding peoples once knew and worshipped Odin, in some of those 25
(?) languages king Mithridates spoke, of which we know probably only
a fraction. Under those circumstances you'd expect some folk
etymologization on some of the entries.

>
> The names Vahagn and Vahram/Vr.am are Armenian versions of Iranian
*vrTra-jan-/-gna- 'dragon-killer' (Av. v&r&Tra-jan-/-Gna-; the first
element has variants like *va:ra-).

I know. Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen explained that some postings back.
Furthermore, Vahagn was later identified with Heracles (which means
that if borrowing has taken place, those Germani that worshipped
Hercle (the Vangiones?) might have known him under the <WaGn-> name.
I was talking not of where <Vahagn> came from, but where it had gone
to, so its ancestry is not really decisive here. Fan-out, not fan-in.
And with all this contact between Iranian and Armenian speakers,
who's to say they'd never been at war? Or that they never exchanged
hostages? The Armenians, I read somewhere, trace their ancestry to an
old kingdom of Van, around the eponymous lake, also known as Urartu.
BTW Vakhtang, which I referred to earlier, is Georgian, not Armenian.
>
> P.
>
>
>
Torsten