Re: [tied] Re: The Scythian Brothers

At 5:25:41 AM on Saturday, January 10, 2004, tgpedersen
wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, g <george.st@...> wrote:

>>>> I'll restate my case, for clarity:

>>>> 1 : *?Leib-prinz, first-born, the crown prince, the
>>>> formal heir

>>>> 2 : Erb-prinz , second-born, the heir-on-stand-by,
>>>> substitute

>>>> 3+: prince charming, with no obligations, but with xwarena

>>>> Of course, there ain't no such thing as a ?*Leib-prinz
>>>> in German. German <leib> is "body; midriff section",
>>>> ultimately related to <Leben> "life". But Duden has,
>>>> among other things,

>>>> Leib-arzt personal physician to the sovereign
>>>> Leib-garde, -wache personal guard to the the sovereign
>>>> Leib-eigen serf

>>>> Isn't it as if as the implicit object of these
>>>> "professions" there is a sovereign, so that this might
>>>> have been another sense of <leib> once?

>> What is more, hehe, is that there are names such as
>> <Leibbrand(t)>/<Leip(p)rand> (chiefly in Southern regions
>> of the 'Reich'), as modern variants of the old
>> <Liutprand>. E.g.:
>> http://www.cousinconnect.com/p/a/0/s/LEIBBRANDT (Also cf.
>> Lüppertz, Lübbers, Leiprecht, Leiper(ch)t - for which I
>> suppose < <liut>+<beracht>.)

Yes.

>> (In the examples above, <leib->/<Leib-> simply means:
>> "belonging to/concerning the body;" hence <Leibgarde> is
>> verbatim <bodyguard>. And <Leib> is first of all <the
>> body>; "midriff section" is a secondary meaning. Cf. the
>> Christian notion <der Leib des Herren>; then <bei
>> lebendigem Leibe>; <Gefahr für Leib und Leben>; <bleib
>> mir vom Leib!>; <Leibesübung>; <Leibesvisitation>
>> "personal/body search" & al. phrases & locutions.

>> OTOH, <Leib> can be misleading, since it is at the same
>> time a relic of the older form for __<Leben>__ "life":
>> e.g. <Leibgedinge>=<Leibrente> "life annuity" (in French
>> <pension viagère>); <Leibgericht>, <Leibgetränk> - in the
>> latter two <Leib-> means __<Lieblings->__,i.e. the
>> "preferred" (beloved!) food & drink.)

> All true, but my point was that maybe the Leib- in
> Leibwache etc is a forgotten cognate of Northern English
> dialect <lave> "heir" (presumably of immobile property,
> the 'Erbe' would then be mobile property). Thus, a third
> meaning.

Actually, <lave> is 'the rest, the remainder', as in <an a'
the lave o't> 'and all the rest of it'; I've not seen it
specialized to 'heir'. It's from OE <la:f> 'what is left'
(though de Vries takes it to be a borrowing of the cognate
ON <leif> 'Erbschaft') and hence cognate with the place-name
generic <-leben>. The OE could also mean 'relict, widow',
but I don't believe that a sense 'heir' is recorded.

<Leib> is from OHG <li:b> 'body; life', cognate with OE
<li:f> 'life, existence', ON <líf> 'life; body'. It's
related to the 'leave' group, but not part of it.

Brian