05-11-03 17:13, Egijus wrote:
> One of the leader of Gallas in Aquintania is noted by Cesar as being
> Calesd "Litavicus". On the gallic coins before Roman conquest there
> are coins inscripted with "LITA" and "LITAV" etc.etc.etc
PIE *pl.t&2-w-i(a)h2 'something flat, earth' (cf. Skt. pr.tHivi:) gave
Celtic *litawia: 'coastland' (cf. Welsh Llydaw 'Brittany', Gaulish
Letauia). The Celtic name is of course derived from that of the country
and means '(a person) from the coast'. I've seen it claimed that the
name of Lithuania (Lietuva < *leituva:) might be of Celtic origin, but
an "etymology" like that, based only on superficial similarity and
unsupported by any historical arguments, is bogus. The Baltic name is
quite obviously a collective derivative of the rivername *leita: (from
*leih- 'pour', with numerous Baltic cognates meaning 'pour', 'rain',
etc., see Pokorny #1136). This particulatr correspondence between Celtic
and Baltic is false.
> I'm not familiar about Galia. I can only write here that in
> Lithuanian language word GALAS means END and word GALIA means POWER,
> MIGHT.
Celtic *gal(i)a: also means 'power' (hence the ethonyms Galli and
Galatae), related to the verb *gal-ne- 'be able'; cf. Welsh gallu
'power; be able'. It's one of those several interesting lexical
isoglosses that link Celtic with Balto-Slavic. They seem to be early
loans (from Celtic into Baltic and Slavic rather than the other way round).
Piotr