Re: IRMIN

--- In cybalist@..., "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...> wrote:

>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: tgpedersen
> To: cybalist@...
> 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.

By the time they were finished with their quality time together after
another day at the office with rape, pillage and general mayhem, the
two words did sound pretty similar.


What's the proof that the Alani called themselves anything
like "ariman"?

No, you're right, it must have been a rhotacizing dialect, north of
the Alani (who BTW ended up with their own kingdom in Portugal).


And what about the double -nn- in <arimanni>?

Because the morpheme <mann-> has an independent meaning in Germanic,
cf. Mannus.

>
> Did Geiseric owe his name to his geyseric temper?

Or to his spear?

>
>
> > 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

Imagine that I should experience seeing an attested asterisked form.
The only attested example I can think of is Averell Harriman, and
that's rather late.


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

Torsten