--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen <jer@...>
wrote:
>
>
> On Thu, 30 Oct 2003, Marco Moretti wrote:
>
> > [...] Perhaps the protoform of Samsø was more convoluted,
> > but it remains clearly non-IE.
>
> Can anyone explain to me where this disproportionate interest in the
> toponym Samsø comes from? I have heard it before where I circulate,
that
> not all placenames in Denmark are Danish, take just Samsø which is
> definitely a substratum name. How can they know? And how do they
think
> their ultimate source made up his mind?
>
> As names of islands go, I see nothing unusual about Samsø; sure, I
don't
> know what it is, but neither do I know where the names of all the
other
> islands come from (I can handle Langeland, but that's just about
it).
This disproportionate interest, as you call it, derives from a
discussion about the nature of pre-Germanic substrata. Surely not all
placenames in Denmark are of IE origin. In general not all placenames
in Europe belong to the language spoken here in recent times.
For example, we cannot say that Italian toponyms like Milano (Milan),
Bergamo, Roma (Rome) are of Latin origin only because in Italy the
spoken language has that origin.
We know the etymon of many of them: "Milano" is form Celtic *Medio-
la:non. It is clearly IE, form the Celtic words *medios, middle, and
*la:non, "plain" (< *pla:nom, cfr. Latin pla:nus).
But many other toponyms are of non-IE origin.
No toponym seems unusual to people of the country. No Italian finds
Napoli (Neaples) unusual, but it is from Greek Nea-polis "New Town".
Placenames are often witness of older cultures. IE is not
autocthonous in Denmark, so Danish must have spoken a non-IE language
before the arrival of some IE influx. Can you deny this??
Your point of view would simply deny the science of toponymy.
Greetings
Marco