Re: Fw: [tied] Latin versus *Proto-Romance

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

>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <tgpedersen@...>
> To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, February 05, 2003 4:28 PM
> Subject: Re: Fw: [tied] Latin versus *Proto-Romance
>
>
>
> > Which means, I suppose, it would work if North Germanic society

was

> two- (or several-) tiered, which is also what the story says?
>
> First, we are talking of West Germanic, more likely, and secondly,

why should the word for the _lowest_ stratum of freemen have been
borrowed with the meaning 'king' (superior to *kUne~dzI <--
*kuningaz)? Just because there were some humans less important than
the churls?

>
> Piotr

I thought you had your division from the story where (is it?) Balder
talks to the three representative families.
May I answer your question with a question: Why should a king with
the status of Charlemagne be named as a lower freeman? Possible
answer: because the Carolingians were usurpers. He might have been of
another class, or ethnos. You assume 'freemen' were one class. Not
necessarily so.

Torsten