--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski wrote:
> 29-12-03 00:20, Mate Kapovic' wrote:
>>> 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 crãciun or anything in between which has -raC- or
>> similar go to Slavic *-orC- which is primary as attested by
>> East Slavic polnoglasie (Russian koroc^un)? There is no way
>> possible, as I see it.
>
> It isn't _absolutely_ impossible. I was considering a Hungarian
> filter as a possible source of false pleophony (/kra-/ --> Hung.
> /kOrO-/ --> East Slavic /koro-/. I admit, however, that the
> evidence produced by you and by Sergei looks decisive.
Actually this is another possibility.
The word "crucial" in the above text would be perfectly justified
if one does not admit the alternative explanations of polnoglasie as
given by you (Hungarian intermediate) and Bernecker (reconstruction
by analogy in Russian). While these possibilities are not refutable
ab initio, I tend to agree with Mate on this point and to consider
the ancient Russian form as crucial evidence.
The question is: "crucial evidence" for _what_ exactly?
The answer is: for presence of the word in Russian (Slavic) before
this phonetical phenomenon (polnoglasie) occured.
That does not imply the word was genuinely Slavic but only it got
in the language(s) earlier than polnoglasie.
So Mate's "crucial evidence" is not a decisive argument for the word
being Slavic. One has to look for other kind of evidences.
I think the right and essential question here is the one about the
original meaning of the word. If one gets the correct answer to this
question, the origin of the word gets cleared.
The Slavic origin hypothesis (Weigand, Kniezsa, et al.) asserts a
meaning `winter solstice` for the Slavic original word, derived from
another Slavic word meaning `short(er)` through `shorter daytime`
associated to winter solstice.
The Romance origin hypothesis (Bernecker, O. Densusianu, etc.) starts
from a Balkan Romance word meaning `Christmas` derived from a Latin
word meaning `creation` the only survivor from an expression similar
to Neo-Greek "Hristougenna".
Let's see how these hypotheses fit with linguistical facts.
A. Slavic origin.
Slavic people get in the Balkans where they find a Romance-speaking
population already Christianized (as discussions on cybalist already
proven). They have a word meaning `winter solstice` and local Romance
speaking population, impressed by almost coincidental moment of the
year when they are celebrating Christmas, find perfectly nice to use
Slavic word to design not the `winter solstice` but `Christmas` (since
despite being early Christianized, they didn't have a specifical word
for that feast, or they had something and they felt unhappy with it).
Timing of the operation would obviously be as early as possible since
the unique word for `Christmas` in _all_ Romanian dialects is
"crãciun"
with all its phonological versions -- so the new word should have get
into all proto-dialects, replacing without any trace any eventual
Romance word meaning `Christmas` and never assuming its original
Slavic
meaning of `winter solstice` in Romanian.
Some centuries later, Slavs get Christianized too and -- guess what
--
they picked up not only the official word(s) for `Christmas` (the ones
mentioned in one of my previous posts -- [boZic^] and so on), but at a
popular level they identified `winter solstice` with Christmas just as
proto-Romanians did (or maybe inspired by them) deciding that
<krac^un>
would be a perfect name for `Christmas`, mostly in areas near their
potential inspirational source. And, as if that was not enough, they
also decided to call other feasts -- not linked to solstice, as one
can see from the data -- with the same name.
Nevertheless, this did not prevented Hungarians (at Christianization)
to pick the word "karácsony" as unique word meaning `Christmas` and
nothing else -- no `solstice` nor `(some other) feast` (and this
meaning
of `other feast` must have been early developed in Slavic since in
that
Russian Novgorod Chronicle the word already refers to a summertime
period
not coincidental with solstice). By an incomprehensible preference,
early
Hungarian documents mention the linked personal name only with respect
to
Romanians, not Slavs or Hungarians: "Karachyno Olako" (a.D. 1339) or
"Nicolaus et Valentinus filii Karachun Olaci nostri" (a.D. 1366).
All these sound somehow odd to me. Let's have a look at the other
way.
B. Romance origin.
Slavic people get in the Balkans where they find a Romance-speaking
population already Christianized (as discussions on cybalist already
proven). Balkan Romance already has a word for `Christmas` derived
from
Latin "creatione(m)". Slavs are still pagan at this moment, for them
there is no reason to identify Romance Christmas celebrations with the
birth of a guy having no room in their ancient rites. They see people
making some feast around some moment of the year, so they adopt the
word <krac^un> with the only meanings allowable: `(big) feast` and
`feast around/of winter solstice time` -- since winter solstice is a
very ancient pagan rite they know. The word spreads among Slavs with
these primary non-Christian meanings and has plenty of time for being
subjected to polnoglasie.
Some centuries later, Slavs get Christianized, and also an official
name for Christian festive moments of the year. But those neighboring
Romanians realize that Romanians use this word for `Christmas` feast,
so they are gradually starting to use it with this Christian meaning.
Hungarians got the word from their neighbors Romanians (and possibly
Slavs who were already using it with its original Romance meaning) and
made use of it only with this meaning of `Christmas`. Naturally, the
first attested person names in Hungarian documents containing this
word refer to Romanians.
From my point of view, B is sounding _much_ better than A.
Starting from an original meaning of `winter solstice`, there are
some
supplementary intermediate steps in order to generate modern Slavic
meanings referring to feast days different from winter solstice and
the
very precise Romanian and Hungarian choice of only one of the derived
meanings looks amazing.
Instead of that, starting with an original Romance word meaning
simply
`Christmas` naturally leads to its early adoption in Slavic with a
shifted meaning and also explains Hungarian precision of choice (for
the Romanians never had to choose).
I agree that the word spread in South Slavic and in East Slavic at an
early moment (still leaving aside Czech, Polish _and_ Belarussian,
since
meanings in Belarussian are not linked with `Christmas`, `feast` nor
`winter solstice`). The issue has been subjected to further confusion
by homonimy with true Slavic words with different roots and meanings.
Either `which steps, treads, strides` or `short(er)` > `winter
solstice`
do not fit well semantically for `Christmas`. It is still true that
Slavic word is mostly used for `Christmas` in regions close to Romania
and Romanians; it is not the regular word for this feast but some folk
word linked to what Slavs have seen to Romance population (that
includes
Slovenian too -- I have to remind about all Romance names along the
Dinaric mountains left by Balcan Romance now assimilated by Slavs, and
about Istro-Romanians).
In conclusion, my guess is still B.
Regards,
Marius Iacomi