Re: [tied] Re: Various Germanic tribes etc

----- Original Message -----

From: tgpedersen

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Saturday, March 09, 2002 10:43 AM

Subject: [tied] Re: Various Germanic tribes etc

> To which you with your amazing skills I trust have a good answer.

 

To reassure you, yes I have, but it doesn't take any amazing skills. Gmc. *xazd- is quite well known. ON haddr < *xazda- < *kos-dH-o- means 'long headhair'. Cf. OE heordan (pl. of *heorde < *xizd-o:n- < *kes-dH-) > ModE (regional) hards, hurds 'tow, parts of flax separated in hackling'; harden, Sc. harn 'coarse fabric made from hards'. Extra-Gmc. cognates include Sl. *c^esati 'to comb', *kosa 'long hair, braid' (< 'something combed', = Baltic *kasa:), *kos-mU or *kos-men- 'lock, tuft', and even Hitt. kis- 'to comb'. The PIE root is *kes- 'comb, separate by combing'. The Hasdingi are 'descendants of *Hasda (*xazdo:n- "he who wears his hair long", cf. Lat. Caesar and capilla:ti: for semantic parallels)'.

 

 

> I have it from a competent authority that even in the misty past it was possible for a people to change their language. As for the (a priori) likeliness, we will probably never agree. ("Possible", he asked.) Who were the Haddingjar BTW?

 

You are surely familiar with the story of Hadding (Hadingus) and his adventures in the underworld, reported also by Saxo, as well as Saxo's mention of "the two Haddings (duo Haddingi)" among the sons of Arngrim; in the Edda the term "Haddings" (Haddingjar) sometimes refers to heroes or warriors in general, and sometimes seems to be a tribal name. <Hartunc> occurs among OHG heroic names. The Heardingas are mentioned in Old English (_The Rune Poem_) as worshippers of Ing somewhere in the East; the common noun <hardingas> 'heroes' occurs in _Elene_, and the personal names Harding and Harda underlie a number of placenames in England (though in the latter case confusion with *xard- 'hard' is possible). Now all these names are regular cognates of *xazding-, with *-zd- > OE -rd-, OHG -rt-, ON -dd-. The form <Hasdingi> represents the same name in an East Germanic dialect that did not rhotacise its zeds.

 

Piotr