Re: [tied] "Irmin" and Hermes

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

From: x99lynx@...

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Monday, May 13, 2002 11:59 PM

Subject: [tied] "Irmin" and Hermes

> Doesn't Latin <-duri> and Greek <-dori> also point 'unambiguously' to Latin and Greek forms?  I mean this word is a "loan", even if it is a word from a native Germanic language.  If nothing more, we should acknowledge the final suffixes, which are not Germanic.

 

The Romans and the Greeks automatically substituted their own plural endings -- <-i:> and <-oi> for Germanic *-o:z, and <-es> for *-iz in consonantal stems (e.g. *-o:n-iz --> -o:n-es). They never quoted Germanic tribal names with the original Germanic inflections, which means that they realised full well that *-o:z was a plural ending. The important part in -duri/-doroi (sic!) is -dur-/-dor- = Germanic *-dur-, treated like a thematic stem (*-dur-a-). The inflections are predictable and can be ignored.

> I think at this point one important question is:  if we take <-duri> as being a literal transcription of the last part of "Hermunduri", then shouldn't we take the first part literally too.

> If that's the case, then we should assume that what some Roman was hearing was <herm-> not <erm->.  It seems that the Romans were quite capable of distinguishing <er> from <her>.

 

The available evidence from Latin itself shows the opposite: <h-> was already being lost or had been lost in most varieties of Latin, and confusion between h-ful and h-less forms was widespread. In native words, tradition suggested the etymologically right spelling, but in loans there was no such help examples of dropped or erroneously inserted <h-> could be quoted at some length. At the time and area in question, Germanic *x was still a rather strong fricative, transcribed <ch-> by the Romans. In the local Germanic languages there was no glottal /h/. The fast that the Romans wrote <hermun-> and never *<chermun-> proves that the Germanic elements was in fact *ermun- and that the Lat. <h-> was mute.

 

> The distinction in transcripted sounds was also of some consequence.  The -h- in placed in Hermunduri does not appear to be casual.  Hermes had an important meaning.

 

> ... The best example is the "irmansu:l", which Widukind identified as coming from a "hermis" -- a column (or columns) topped by a god.  This was an important usage of the Hermes word and it applied no matter what god was portrayed.

It's very likely that the Romans understood the epithet *ermVna(-guda) = Irmin(got) = Wodan/Odin, 'the great (god), the world god', or however we translate it, as referring to Hermes on account of the phonetic similarity (just as you have done). This would explain the consistency with which they used the preudoetymological <h-> spelling, and the early identification of Wodan with Mercury ("deorum maxime Mercurium colunt"). But this is just a folk-etymology for which the Romans are responsible; it proves nothing about the origin of *ermVna-.

 

Same with Irmansu:l. Once you know that Irman is a god's name (actually a commonly used epithet rather than the actual name), Irmansu:l will mean 'Irmin's ("Mercury's/Hermes's") column' to you rather than the etymologically correct 'huge/world  pillar'. It's also possible that the Germani themselves came to understand the term as "Wodan's pillar" = Scandinavian Ygdrasill. The association with "hermis" is again secondary (based on the supposed etymology of *ermun-, and so essentially stemming from the interpretatio Romana of Germanic religion).

 

Piotr