Re: Pagan, heathen: Are these lexemes synonyms?

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "alex" <alxmoeller@...> wrote:

> Abdullah Konushevci wrote:
> >> So, the only jn~a_ni-s are non-pagans, christians?
> > ************
> > I guess that in the word <heath> should have impact <heat>,

which, I

> > am afraid, was motivation of Alb. <vapë> 'heat' from PIE root

*wap-

> > 'evil, bad' (<evil> is derived from suffixed zero-grade form of

this

> > root *up-elo (see Watkins, wap-).
> > Nasalized form of this root is *wamp-, which could derives

suffixed

> > form <vampir> 'devil', common word in East Europe and South

Europe.

> > It's quite interesting that this word is used in connection with
> > _evil_: <vapë e dreqit> 'evil's heat'. There are in Albanian, I
> > guess, folk etymology of this word <dhampirës> 'sucking teeth',

but I

> > beleive that have much to deal much more with regular alternation

v-

> > /th-.
> > Any suggestions?
> >
> > Konushevci
>
> I can just give you some suplimantary infos from Rom.
> For Alb. "vapë" there is Rom. "vãpaie" with a lot of derivatives,

even

> prefixed with "s". There is too the expresion "vãpaia dracului"

which is

> the same as Alb. "vapë e dreqit", the meaning being the same "evil's
> heat".
> For Vampir there is just "vampir" but I don't remember the word

being

> used in folk. In Rom. Lang this seems to be a neologisms. The words

used

> for "vampir" are strigoi, moroi, and such stuff, nothing related

with

> the phonetical construction of "vampir".
> The word "zamfir" has at the first view no connection for the sense

of

> "dhampir" since it means "safire" or "oriole" and its etymology (

just

> for the meaning "safire") is given as from Slavic "samfirU"; for the
> meaning "oriole" there is an unknown etymology.
>
> Question: does the stop after "m" not become a sonor one as

after "n" in

> Alb.?
>
> Alex

************
To begin with last question. It's true that unvoiced bilabial /p/
become voiced /b/ before the nasal /m/ in Albanian language (cf.
*sleup- 'to slide, slip'> Eng. slop, slip, sloop, Alb. <shemb> 'to
slide, slip', shembje 'slope' from nasalized form of this root
*sleump-). But, I didn't claim that it is Albanian word. Nasalized,
not infixed, form *wamp- of *wap- 'bad, evil' could derives <vampir>,
but, for now, I have no explanation of the suffix -ir. It is much
easy, phonetically and morphologically speaking, to explain it
through Sllavic *(v)o-pyr. PIE *kait- 'forest, uncultivated place',
Eng. heath and PIE ka:it-, German <hell> 'hell, strong light',
honestly speaking, looks very similar.
<vapaia dracului> and <vapë e dreqit>, as you see, both mean 'devil's
heat'. True environment of the devil is, indeed, desert 'very heated
place' and not only for agricultural society, but also for our, as we
can even testify today, no bigger devil than heat.

Konushevci