Re: [tied] Re: Pliny's "Guthalus"

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 15941
Date: 2002-10-05

 
----- Original Message -----
From: tgpedersen
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, October 05, 2002 1:40 PM
Subject: [tied] Re: Pliny's "Guthalus"

> Are you thinking of the Narva river? It has Germanic connections also, Danish /nor/ "inlet, lagoon". Any connection with the Neuri (talking of river peoples)?
No, the name Nrowa is no longer used (I think it was replaced by Utrata about the 18th century), and only the diminutive Nrówka > Mrówka has survived as the tributary's name. The Utrata empties into the Bzura, which in turn is a western tributary to the Vistula. But the name Nrowa appears to be related to that of the Narew (a major eastern tributary of the Vistula system; the name, Old Polish <Nari> = Nary <-- *Naru:s was borrowed from West Baltic during the Middle Ages). There are other *nar(u)- hydronyms in the Baltic area, e.g. lith. Narupe, OPr. Narus. Nrowa < *norwa < *norwa: might very well be the same name (only borrowed much earlier) with the regular feminine ending added to *noru-. Any connection with the Neuri (*nerw-oi?) could only be proposed with extreme speculativeness. Is the Danish word related to West Germanic, *narw-a- 'narrow'? The latter can also mean the narrow part of a river, strait, etc.
 
Piotr