Re: [tied] RE: etyma for Crãciun,RomanianforChristmas

Mate Kapović wrote:

> I will deal here with kracˇun more extensively. As I said, I didn't
> have time before.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Piotr Gasiorowski" <piotr.gasiorowski@...>
> To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Sunday, December 28, 2003 9:45 PM
> Subject: Re: [tied] RE: etyma for Crãciun,RomanianforChristmas
>
>> Among the evidence discussed so far, East Slavic -oro- is a strong
>> argument in favour of original *-or-, and therefore in favour of
>> Slavic origin, but as far as I'm concerned, it would be premature to
>> rule out alternative explanations.
>
> For me, this is *crucial* evidence. How could Latin creatione-,
> Romanian crăciun or anything in between which has -raC- or similar
> go to Slavic *-orC- which is primary as attested by East Slavic
> polnoglasie (Russian korocˇun)? There is no way possible, as I see
> it.
>
>> Yesterday you wrote: "But there is no such word in Croatian or
>> Serbian. Only as somekind of a name not necessarily related, not in
>> the meaning Christmas". That's a bit vague. Does it or doesn't it
>> exist in Croatian?
>
> It does. I wrote that before I got hand of the other data some of
> which I cited.
>
>> If it does, what does it mean there?
>
> In Croatian it is a name and something like a (door) latch. There is
> also a verb zakracˇunati. The semantics is probably from something
> like "bent, twisted" which is the meaning attested in other Slavic
> lgs.
>
>> To decide either way I'd have
>> to examine its forms and meanings in those Slavic languages that have
>> it. >
>
> Here we go:
> except Croatian there are also Bulgarian kracˇun "Christmas Eve; 8th
> or 21th of July; sommer/winter solstices", dialectally also "big
> foot". Slovene kracˇun "wedge", Slovakian kracˇún, kracˇunˇ
> "Christmas", Old Russian korocˇun7, korocˇjun7 "prechristmas fast",
> Russian karacˇun "solstices; 12th of December; st. Spiridon", dial.
> karacˇun "Christmas ceremony", "Christmas fast", "sudden death",
> "evil spirit, demon, child that crawls". Ukr. kracˇun, kerecˇun,
> krecˇun, gerecˇun, grecˇun "a bun made on 24th of December",
> Belorussian dial. (Polesie) karacˇun "something bent; bent wood;
> short man; man with twisted legs". Also Albanian kërcun "log" (cf.
> Croatian Badnjak "Christmas Eve"~ badanj "log").
> Semantics "which treads, steps, strides" (> "big foot" etc.) > "death,
> depart", "leaving, going from the sun to the winter etc." also "a new
> step, a step into smth new, a new beginning".
>
> So we have the word in various meanings (which would be very strange
> if it were a late loan from Romance) in Croatian, Bulgarian, Slovene,
> Slovakian, Russian, Ukrainian and Belorussian. The semantics itself
> is a point to its Slavic origin, I think and the connection with
> *kork7 is pretty clear. Also, polnoglasie proves there was a primary
> *-orC- here. I think this word is Slavic and it was loaned into
> Romanian but I am not a Romanian expert so there may be some mixture
> with Romance offsprings of Latin calatione-, creatione-. I don't
> know. But in Slavic lgs I think it is definitely not loaned.
>
> Mate

It appears to be definitely a loan into Slavic. I just advice you to
take a look at the ending of the word. It appears to be not a generaly
Romance ending , but a typically Romanian one "-c^un".I should have
expected for Slavic here an "c^on" or " c^o~".
You like to deal here with the root which can be as well in Slavic too
but the form of the word presents the Romanian patern with the same
ending in ALL the Slavic language which is mostly unusual.
The semantic appears to be "to split" if one think that "crac", "cracã",
"crãc^it" are the non-nasalised form of the root (the nasalised forms
are "creangã, crâng". All these words shows a point of splitting "in
two". The meaning of Craciun can be the day where the year change (after
the old tradition), thus the day where we have the split: one year goes,
the another come.
As Mr. Iacomi pointed our, in Slavic the word is appearing in the
regions where the Slavs are intermingled or are living togethere with
Rom. comunities. I see none mentioned here the word appears as personal
name and in a lot of toponyms as well.
I should have just a question here: the slavic examples you gave, do
they present the affricated group "c^" or the "c" you wrote here is to
understand as "ts"?

Alex