PIOTR WROTE:
<<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.>>
Again, with a great deal of respect, let me suggest that this view is
incredibly ethnocentric and does not reflect the facts we are given.
Just as a matter of basic logic: it is FAR MORE LIKELY that Germanic speakers
would know Latin than Romans would know Germanic. By the third century AD,
apparently Germanic-named auxiliaries are writing inscriptions across Europe
and Asia in Latin or Greek - the name Hermarianos (with the -h-) apparently
shows up in a Greek inscription in Arabia about 200 AD. (The one that first
supposedly shows "Gothth-".)
We have no evidence that ANY Romans wrote or even knew Germanic in or before
the time of Tacitus. We have no evidence of literate or learned Romans
living among Germanic speakers. We have LOADS of evidence of Germanic
speakers of some consequence living among Romans (including Marobodus,
evicted by the Hermunduri themselves, in exile in Ravenna for about 20
years.) We have NOT a sentence in Germanic recorded in Latin for six
centuries after the Cimbri appear. BUT we know that Celts and Germans were
reading and writing Latin and we even have evidence from Caesar that Celts in
eastern Gaul had been customarily writing in Greek for some time.
All of this points in the exact opposite direction. It says that it was not
the Romans who were so thoroughly familiar with Germanic suffixes, but rather
that the Germanics were so thoroughly familiar with Latin. It is only the
conceit of 19th century northern European scholars that has the Romans being
scrupulous with Germanic roots and suffixes. It is most likely it was the
other way around.
If anybody it was Germanic speakers who knew *o:z was genitive plural and how
that should translate into Latin. And also it was probably Germanic speakers
who made sure the -h- was there when they spoke words like Hermunduri and
Hermiones, just as those words appear in Tacitus. And that also would apply
to the -h- in Boihaemi, as well as Tacitus' Harios, Helveconas, Helisios and
Nahanarvalos -- "the most powerful of the Lugii." (Note also that Tacitus
apparently DID NOT "automatically" substitute -i for the <os> in some of
these names.) And of course Tacitus did not use the -h- in such names as
Arminius, Aravisci or Arsacis, Eborium, Ernagium, Asciburgus, etc.
PIOTR ALSO WROTE:
<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 fact that the Romans wrote <hermun-> and never
*<chermun-> proves that the Germanic elements was in fact *ermun- and that
the Lat. <h-> was mute.>
Please. The fact that the Romans of this time wrote <hermes> and never
*<chermes> or *<ermes> proves what? And what evidence do you know of that
the Roman -h- was mute in the 1st Centuries BC-AD? And why in the world
would the "Romans" start off using an -h- in a German word when they were
quite capable of starting words - lots of words - with <er->?
What the -h- proves on its face (without any kind of contortions that makes a
significantly placed character meaningless) is that some Germans were using a
glottal or less "fricative" /h/ and that the sound was not the same sound as
the transcribed <ch->. Instead of assuming that Roman and Greek writers were
adding superfluous H's to a whole slew of Germanic names, one might assume
that at least some Germanic speakers were adopting and approximating a Latin
sound -- along with using Latin words when speaking to Romans. That makes a
lot more sense.
The <ch-> is interesting in itself. Probably 95% of the Latin words that
start with <ch-> come from the Greek, with a smattering from the Vulgate that
might be an approximation of a Semitic sound (e.g., Chanan, Canaan).
Tacitus' use of the <ch-> applies to three or four tribes and stops dead with
the Chatti and never appears again as he moves eastward, though plenty of H's
continue to appear with regard to Germanic names, including the Hermunduri.
PIOTR ALSO WROTE:
<<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.>>
What "varieties" of Latin are you speaking of at the time of Strabo or
Tacitus? I don't think this is accurate. A very common mispelling in Roman
inscriptions interchanges <c> and <g>, but no one claims that represented a
sound change. It would have been natural of course for the Greek <h> to be
dropped, but even that was rare in texts like Tacitus'. Is there one example
of the <h> being dropped from <Hermes> at this time? Is there even one iota
of evidence for the supposed <ermunduri>? If anything a new word for a
people beyond the border that did not have -h- could have been associated
with a word like Lat <eremus>, Gr. <eremos>, desert, immeasurable, vast,
unexploited lands beyond the border, and left without an -h-. This whole
argument is terribly forced. It sounds like scholars was working very hard
to turn old Irmun into a native word. (Also the later Romance loss of -h-
would explain the loss in later Germanic.)
PIOTR ALSO WROTE:
<<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).>>
Where is this epithet? Where does one go to see it? If the Romans heard
<hermon> (-guda?), they would have thought it was a Greek-style pillar
dedicating the area to a local god or to Terminus or one of those hybrid
hermae - like <Hermathene>. I think it would have been up to the Germans to
explain that *ermVna was a native god, which of course they never did.
What <hermon->/<irmin> probably referred to was the pillar or image on a
pillar of a god, whose presence in early Germania meant a Roman border or
Roman road. Even Grimm admits: "The Saxons may have known more about this;
the Franks, in Upper Germany, from the 8th to the 13th century, connected
with irmansûl, irminsûl the general notion of a heathen image set up on a
pillar.... the Irman-pillar had some connection, which continued to be felt
down to a late period, with Mercury or Hermes, to whom Greek antiquity raised
similar [sic] posts and pillars, which where themselves called Hermae, a name
which suggests [sic] our Teutonic one.... On behalf of Mercury there would
speak the accidental [sic], yet striking similarity of the name Irmansûl or
Hirmensûl to Ermhj and erma = prop, stake, pole, pillar, and that it was
precisely Herme's image or head that used to be set up on such ermata, and
further, that the Middle Ages referred the irmen-pillars to Mercury." (Grimm
of course was trying to create an early Germanic pantheon, when it is just as
possible that each tribe had its own local god who represented an ancestral
claim to the land and its borders - ie., a Hermes.)
PIOTR ALSO WROTE:
<<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-.>>
Actually, the pseudoetymology may be all Germanic. There is no real evidence
for a god named anything like "Irmin" - certainly not a pan-Germanic god. No
one even mentioned such a god until the 19th Century - Hirmin was "Hirmis" in
Widukind. To the early Germanics - who made no images according to Tacitus -
the embodiment of a god was probably something like the "hermae Jupiter
Terminalis" - the hermes that marked Roman borders, roads and gates. The
fact that any god could have a <hermo:n> or <hermaeum> would not have
escaped them, long before 7th Century Saxons. The Roman/Greek source of the
name would have been obvious to them, and that would have been their reason
for using it.
PIOTR ALSO WROTE:
<<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'.>>
Actually, Hermes definitively did mean pillar, a pillar with a god on top.
The commonly used "epithet" indicated that pillar embodied a particular god -
that's PRECISELY how it was used in Latin and Greek. "Huge/world" is not an
accurate translation of "immensus" which applied to indeterminant distance
and the lack of borders. What "Irminsul" probably meant symbolically was the
capture of Thuringian territory and RIGHT-OF-WAY by the Saxons - it was
probably a latter-day "hermae Jupiter Terminalis". But it is also possible
that it meant I suppose a "very tall pole that you could see an immeasurable
distance from if you were the god on top."
PIOTR ALSO WROTE:
<<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).>>
Actually a borrowingio Germanico of Greek and Roman religious and
governmental terminology. As Richard Fletcher commented in the Barbarian
Conversions, the fact is we know next to nothing about early Germanic
religion. But I think we can have severe doubts about the Germanic origins
of "Irmin". Unless there was a much earlier transfer of the Hermes word from
Germanic to Greek.
It would have been hard to argue that "Christos" and "Mithras" -- gods found
in a number of inscriptions associated with Germanic-type names -- were
independently originated Germanic gods, though I'm sure its been tried.
However, somehow, another obviously foreign god name (and one with a much
better claim to early Germanic adoption) has managed to take on a life of its
own. But then again if there is a Black Athene, why can't there be a more
sophisticated Germanic Hermes?
Steve