[tied] Re: Vanir,etc.

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Michael Smith"
<mytoyneighborhood@...> wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Marco Moretti"
> <marcomoretti69@...> wrote:
> > > Or it is the kingdom of Vani. That was not so difficult?
> >
> > If your theory were true, we should find some Kartvelian

substratum

> > items in Germanic. But we found nothing similar! I analyzed in
> depth
> > hundreds of bizarre non-IE Germanic roots, succeeding only few
> times
> > in getting some useful matchup with something else. Even Basque
> > comparison is not productive. So I dismiss any idea of connecting
> > Vanir with something Kartvelian.
>
> If anything, I would think it more likely that Scythians who
> had been around the region of lake Van had migrated to N Europe, as
> archaeological evidence shows, and that this would explain why the
> Jews designated N Europe as "Ashkenaz." But even this is highly
> unlikely.

In any case, there are some interesting Scythian loanwords in
Germanic: English /path/, German /Pfad/ < /*patha-/ < Scythian
/*pa(n)thano-/ and English hamster, German Hamster < /*xamstara-/ <
Scythina, probably via Slavic.
These borrowings were apparently made after Grimm's Law.
What etymon you give to /Ashkenaz/?

Marco