--- In cybalist@..., Piotr Gasiorowski <piotr.gasiorowski@...>
wrote:

> Gut + hals? Impossible, since 'good' was <go:d-> in Gothic. It

became <gut> in High German, many centuries later. The 'neck' word
was <hals> already in Gothic (< *xalsaz), and there was never a vowel
between the /l/ and the /s/. I can only offer some tentative guesses:
Pliny's <guthalus> could be related to ME gothelan < OE
*goþelian '(of water) make a low noise', which might derive from
hypothetical *guþla- 'noise (?), bubbling (?)'. Remember that this is
merely a bold conjecture.

>
> Piotr

****GK: Thanks very much Piotr. Would you rule out any Gut + hals
combination? Could the -u- between L and S be a Latinization
of "Guthals"? Anders Kaliff in his "Gothic Connections" (Uppsala,
2001) argues that "the basic meaning of the word Goth-Gut-Gaut (Goet)
is 'to pour out'" (p. 63). Whence "outlet" "outpour" or "outflow" for
the area where a river flows into a larger body of water. So is GUT-
HALS /GUTHALUS in the sense of "neck's outlet" (or something of the
sort) an even bolder and perhaps impossible conjecture? Pity since
the kilometers before the outflow of the Oder into the Baltic would
fit this description pretty well... In any case I suppose that the
frequently made suggestion that "Guthalus" could have something to do
with the Goths (that it is an ethnically constructed hydronym) won't
hold water so to speak?******

>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: gknysh
> To: cybalist@...
> Sent: Friday, September 27, 2002 9:35 PM
> Subject: [tied] Pliny's "Guthalus"
>
>
> The GUTHALUS is mentioned by Pliny in his Historia Naturalis

(IV,100)

> as a river flowing into the Baltic. It has sometimes been

identified

> as the Oder. Some suggest that the "GUT" refers to the Goths. I'm
> wondering if an alternative etymology might be possible, viz.,

where

> GUTHALUS might mean something like "good (sea)neck" in Old

Germanic.

> What do you think Piotr?