Re: [tied] Re: Historical implications...

15-06-03 17:21, alex wrote:

Thus , the slavic "sve~tU" could be represented just as "sfentu"
"sfânt". Assuming there was no nasal in the Slavic word,

There IS nasality in the Slavic word. [e~] = nasalised [e] (as in French <fin> or <cinque>).

then it remains
to think more about the connection made by other shcolars between sfynx
and sfânt.

Oh, &*#~+ !!!

But the shortly form of santa ist stã: Santa Maria = Stãmarie and the
short form of sântus is Sân (Sân Nicolaul)
Both of them does not reflect Latin sanctus since expected is
*sãmptu/sampta

The word 'saint' is used as a kind of proclitic before names, and may easily be affected by phonetic simplification. I suspect *santu- always existed as a byform of <sanctu->. As for further simplification, compare English <St.> /s&nt, sn.t, sn./. The fact that St.John and St.Clare are pronounced "sinjun" and "sinclair" when used as surnames, or that the island of St.Helena is "sentileena", doesn't mean that Latin sanctus is not the ultimate source of <saint>.

Piotr