Re: Germanic versus Latin Place Names

--- In cybalist@..., x99lynx@... wrote:

> tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote (Tue Oct 1, 2002 10:53 am):
> <<Your idea of the relationship between "clerics" and the native

population

> of the Germanic-speaking areas, calqued on the relationship between

European

> settlers and native Americans, is wrong. For one thing, the

Germanic-speakers

> survived and couldn't care less what what some cleric trhought

their rivers

> should be called.>>
>
> No, I don't think so. Actually, right from Theodoric onward, you

see German

> princes needing to find vindication in Classic authorities. And so

you see

> the patronized clerics of the court looking to the sources for

precedent for

> their namings as well as their geneaologies. The whole concept of

a "Holy

> Roman Empire" says that things were not quite what you describe.

I think you're forgetting that we're talking of something outside of
the Roman Empire. As a sign said on the river Eider "Eidora limes
Imperii Romani". And I'm not talking about this prince or the other,
but about the ordinary inhabitant on the kingdom. You won't find an
equivalent in Scandinavia of the Latin and public-school attitude to
the population in general that you describe. We were not conquered by
a people who needed to legitimize the station in society.

And, of

> course, in many cases the clerics (call them scribes if you like)

WERE

> natives or at least Germanic speakers (like Ohtrid and Alcuin) and

were the

> only ones who could write out Doomsday Books and annals that

inventoried or

> mentioned place names -- and of course they would be writing in

Latin and

> learning the early names of places from Latin. This is precisely

why --

> incredibly -- Denmark is "Dacia" in Dudo.
>

Why "incredibly"? Already Snorri tells of an immigration from the
south and so do virtually all other chroniclers in the area.
Disregarding their testimony on the grounds that of course everyone
knows they're lying, because everyone knows that's what they did, is
in my book only the continuation of the line of reasoning those
conquering peoples used to justify their continued running the
country. No king in Scandinavia needed that. Saxo specifically says
that his employer's motivation is to present a history of Denmark to
other countries.

> I think you've missed the point of paralleling Native Americans

with early

> Germanics. Pre-literate people -- except if they are heavily

involved in long

> distance trade rather than relatively sedentary -- do not tend to

give

> uniform names to large geographical formations. For obvious

reasons, they

> tend to have local names for what are the local features of those

formations.

> They tend to call the local river something generic and not

helpful like

> "the river." This should be no surprise. Only administrative

consolidation,

> trade and writing begin to standardize names. And when that

standardization

> occurs, the name picked is often accidental. THIS IS A HISTORICAL

FACT

> REPEATED OVER AND OVER AGAIN.

I am much impressed by your use of capital letters.

Perhaps you're trying to tell me that different American Indian
tribes spoke different languages? I knew that. But the people of
Scandinavia spoke one language. No cause for confusion there.

>It is why America is called America. It is
> anachronistic to think that there was some kind of National

Geographic

> Commission that formalized place names across Northern Europe

before the

> clerics/scribes came in and started to formally attach names to

places that

> were not already on the Roman maps.
>Or to accept the unsaid assumptions of
> insidious neo-platonism and expect that such features had a "true

name" and

> that there was some kind of "universal informant" who could supply

it.


Erh, say what?

Danish quote of the day:

En yndet form for polemik
består i det probate trick
at dutte folk en mening på
hvis vanvid alle kan forstå

Piet Hein

>
> Torsten also wrote:
> <<The struggle between church and state, really a power struggle

between

> Romance and native forces (in England the Thomas Beckett affair)

had exact

> parallels in at least Germany (Canossa) and Denmark.>>
>
> From Theodoric to Alfred to Charlemagne to William the Conquerer,

the

> importance of writing to governing and administrating is clearly

understood

> and that establishes the value of the cleric scribes to the court.

Even when

> these governments move to the vernacular, it is the same scribes

who are

> writing. The "struggle between church and state" or

between "Roman" and

> native tradition was the exception rather the rule for most of the

middle

> ages. One only needs to examine the details of the "Barbarian

Conversions"

> to see kings and bishops working hand in hand. On the other hand,
> standardized place naming had more to do with the bookkeeping of

government

> rather than ideology, and the simpliest way to get at the "true

name" of a

> place (or a people) was in the Classical writers. That's how

Jordanes turned

> the Goths into the Getae.

Of course when they converted their nasty pagan neighbors, king and
bishop would work hand in hand. As long as they fought a common
enemy, they didn't have to figure out who should run their own
country. Valdemar I and Absalon had no problem cooperating. It's
later bishops like Jakob Erlandsen who cause trouble.

And BTW, I assume you have some juicy examples of place names in
Scandinavia being fixed by clerics, scribes or whatever?

>
> Torsten also wrote:
> <<As for Pliny's knowledge of the pronunciation of Germanic, all

he'd have to

> do was ask a house slave.>>
>
> Right, I can see Pliny handing over a copy of Pytheas' book to a

house slave

> and asking him how he'd read Kodanos. We have no evidence that

Pliny ever

> had a Germanic house slave or that he ever spoke to a Germanic

speaker.
It's been estimated that in the 1st century BCE approx one million
slaves were sold in the Roman empire. Slaves were prisoners of war.
In Pliny's time there were plenty wars with Germani. And I
wrote "ask", not "ask to read". Don't use this type of sleight-of-
hand.

>We
> do have evidence that much of his information -- if not all -- was

from Greek

> and Latin written sources.
>
> Torsten also wrote:
> <<As for the Göta Älv opening to a large navigable basin including

Lake

> Vänern: Göta Älv was not navigable past the falls at Trollhättan

until locks

> were built in connection with the construction of the Göta Canal in

the early

> 19th century.>>
>
> You're at the wrong end of the Go:te River-- it only starts just

before

> Trollhättan -- which is also rich in pre-Viking Age archaeology.

The river

> itself has been navigible since ancient times. As far as Lake

Vänern goes,

> that was a simple portage, just like the portages that functioned

for

> millennia along the Danube. I saw somewhere that there were

something like

> 900 horses used in transport from Vänern to Trollhättan sometime

around the

> 15th Century. All this is no obstacle at all to the premise. The

importance

> of the Go:te Alv and its region commercially and historically and

it's

> course, size and position at the entrance to the Baltic is enough

to make it

> "famous".
>
> Torsten also wrote:
> <<You might as well have argued for the Guden å on the Jutland

side,

> navigable on a stretch of similar length.>>
>
> Right. That makes sense too. There are a lot of candidates and I

don't

> think there are any "clear" winners for the Pliny's Guthalvs award.
>

Otto Kalkar: Ordbog til det ældre danske sprog 1300 - 1700

Gud(en): Gudenå
fra Randers broe oc saa langt op ad Guden, som Randers bye behoff
gjøres (1492)
hin klare Guud oc før for lax skal give hval.

> Regards,
> Steve Long

Torsten