Re: [tied] IRMIN

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

From: tgpedersen

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Thursday, April 18, 2002 1:17 PM

Subject: Re: [tied] IRMIN

> We're talking New Persian or Ossetic here, right? Thus, in those languages consistently /æ/: <ælan>, (æ)liman, in Alanian /a/: *<alan->, *<alaman>

 

Ossetic can be regarded as Modern Alanic. The change of unstressed *ya > *i is rather old, apparently older than lambdacism, and therefore pre-Alanic. What we write <a> in the first syllable of <alan-> is a substitute for *æ, the weak counterpart of *a. In most cases it stands for the schwa-like reflex of Iranian (short) *a in open syllables in that subbranch of Iranian.

> But still, isn't it an extraordinary coincidence? I see the Alans and
their Germanic-speaking allies sitting at the campfire around a big
pot of cowboy coffee, singing:
"
You say ariman
we say ariman
and both words mean the same
and yet they are not related
"
> (actually it sounds much better in the Alanian)

 

You make them similar. What's the proof that the Alani called themselves anything like "ariman"? And what about the double -nn- in <arimanni>?

 

Did Geiseric owe his name to his geyseric temper?

> And BTW: *hariman. Note the asterisk. Not attested.

 

Don't blame me for the Langobards' illiteracy in their own language. We only have the Latin form, hence the asterisk. *xarja-mann- is independently attested in Germanic and it means exactly what it should mean in that context -- a fighting man, a member of the rulers "hari" (<hær> in your native tongue).

 

Piotr