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

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Mate Kapovic wrote:

>> 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.
>
> But Latin creatione- and Romanian crÄ?ciun have CrVC- and not CVrC-

which

> is what East Slavic i vouching. *That* is why it is not possible to

derive

> Slavic *korc^un7 from some offspring of creatione-.

Slavic *korc^un7 meaning _what_ exactly? I already hinted out there
are
different roots, one of Romance origin related to `Christmas` and
others
Slavic, meaning `to step` (as you put it) and `short`, having produced
more or less homonymous words. You want at any cost to relate those
Slavic
words having something to do with `feast`, `Christmas` or `winter
solstice`
with your favorite Slavic root -- it doesn't fit well.
For Russian (and East Slavic) that Slavic root had already produced
words
with different meaning `sudden death`, `evil spirit` and so on; it is
very
plausIble that they influenced by analogy the word for `feast` or
`winter
solstice` which had a different origin and meaning. [I have to point
out
also that these derived meanings are to be encountered only in East
Slavic.]

> Piotr's idea about Hungarian is, as I showed, very unlikely possible
> because of numerous reasons (including accent, -ará- in Hung. etc.)

.

Well, it is not to be dismissed so fast (as pointed out by George, a
Hungarian "a" without stress mark is to be read [O], the stress
pattern
did not prevent Romanians to modify it in most Hungarian loanwords and
I fail to see why on earth some Slavs couldn't have done the same).
But
I agree it's not

> semantics in Slavic shows it has both sacred and non-sacred meaning

... perfecly in agreement with what I wrote at B. Did you read it
with
care?!

> and it has a plausable etymology.

Well, with some distorted assumptions, yes, it could seem plausIble.

> So there is no reason to assume it is borrowed from Romance. For

Romanian

> I accept the possibility of mixing with creatione- or smth.

So kind of you. Actually I think the mixing really occured, but not
in
Romanian -- in (East) Slavic. There were already almost similar words
with
different meaning having attracted by analogy also the Romance
loanword.

>> 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.
>
> You have obviously not read what Sergei and I wrote.

I obviously did. I did not want to write a similar A' scenario for
the
second root you both provided since it would not have been essentially
different from the first one, A. The arguments would be similar, only
the asserted starting point even further from final supposed meaning.

> The *right* etymology is *kork7 "to step".

I perfectly agree that this should be the right etymology for a
Slavic
"*korc^un7" with a meaning not related to `Christmas` or any kind of
festive celebration.

Regards,
Marius Iacomi