Craciun, Romanian for Christmas

From: Dan Waniek
Message: 28920
Date: 2003-12-29

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski
<piotr.gasiorowski@...> wrote:
> 29-12-03 12:54, Mate Kapovic wrote:
>
> > I think this loan must be older, already in Proto-Slavic
(*wa:tra:). We have
> > it in Bulg vatra, Czech older and dial. vatra, Slovak vatra,
Polish dial.
> > watra, Ukr. vatra and Croat vatra. But also there are Russian
Church Slavic
> > obatriti seN "fire up", Russian vatrushka "roasted pasta or smth
like that",
> > Ukr vatrity "to burn".
> > Some tend to connect it with IIr (like Avestan a:tarsh etc.) but
it is not
> > so plausable as we would expect prothetic *j- here, not *w- (*v-
). Also,
> > Albanian has votrë, votër.
>
> The prothetic /v-/ is of Albanian origin: pre-Albanian *a:tra: >
*otrë >
> Geg votër, Tosk vatër (a regular development) --> Romanian
vatrã
> (whether substratal or borrowed more recently). There can be
little
> doubt that the word spread throughout the Carpathian thanks to
> Daco-Romanian speakers (Polish dialectal <watra> is found _only_
in the
> mountains). <ob-atriti se~> might be a separate case (perhaps an
> isolated survival of an inherited word -- at any rate it calls for
> separate examination). As for *a:tra: 'hearth, a fire'), it
reflects the
> old instrumental noun *h2ah1-trom from *h2ah1- 'burn' (femininised
in
> pre-Albanian). Iranian shows reflexes derivatives of the related
> masculine agent noun *h2áh1-to:r 'he that burns' --> 'sacred
fire'
(Av.
> a:tar-/a:þr-, etc.).
>
> Piotr


Piotr,

In the wonderful circumnavigation of the original thread, I see some
interesting semantic suggestions not attacked so far.

01. We've missed the Kerc^i Straits (message # 28859).

02. There also is a spectacular bird known in Russia under the name
Krac^un (all details in message # 28885).

03. Finally, I find this wonderful Homeric r(a/kos.

What are we to do with all these in the exhaustive Craciun context,
now complete with all sorts of cheese, seasonal transhumance and
watra ?

Truly, sine-ke/rastos-ly yours,
Dan