Re: Tor/Tur/(e)

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" wrote:

>>>>> [...] As for what *tur- in Turicum is, none of us can say.
>>>>
>>>> Well, a 100% safety would be excessive, but since:
>>>> a) the city was founded by Romans in 15 B.C. and called
>>>> "Turicum";
>>>> b) first inhabitants were Celtic lake dwellers;
>>>> c) "dur" means `water` in Celtic;
>>>
>>> Thus, in the local Celtic, /d/ > /t/, but no change in /k/?
>>
>> "-icum" is the Latin ending. Whick /k/ are you referring at?
>
> <-acum> is a Celtic ending. It was used also in new towns founded
> by the Romans, even with Latin roots, eg. *Juliacum > Jülich. I
> assumed <-icum> was a parallel Celtic suffix.

It was more or less something like that (up to some minor
phonetical changes from Celtic to Latin). So why would that /k/
(from the suffix) change from Celtic to Latin to make you wonder
about?!

>>>> d) there were no "Thor"-inspirational sources in immediate
>>>> vicinity of the city at Roman establishment: Alamans came
>>>> centuries later;
>>>
>>> Circular.
>>
>> No. That's what history says.
>
> Your argument is circular, not your recounting of historical facts.

Of course not. Read again. The only people involved in Turicum
early history were Celts and Romans. None of them had a god called
"Thor". _Maybe_ they had some knowledge about existence of a
Germanic god called "Thor", but that's not an inspirational source
for placenames. Celts were calling their equivalent god with a
different name, so -- at most -- they could have used their own
name for geographical fun.

>> If you think local Celtic population were responsible for
>> propagating the cult of a foreign god just for making a nice
>> placename, you have to bring out some more stuff than a vague
>> sound similarity.
>
> Why foreign? Snorri has Thor move about also outside Thrace.

That doesn't make it neither Celtic nor adopted. It is still a
foreign name one might be aware of, or not.

>>>>> I'm just observing that the element *tur- is all over the place.

[...]

>> Well, according to your fitness criteria ("element *tur-" -- BTW,
>> there is no need of *), I can make similar cases for placenames
>> containing say initial "element tar-" or "element ter-". A short
>> string of characters as "tVr-" has little meaning in itself (if
>> any meaning is to be considered). See also above.
>
> The reason I concentrated on *tur-/*tor- is the Hermun-duri/Turingi
> name. Those ethnonyms state that they were a 'tur' people, whatever
> that means. I think the Shahname talks of one part of the world
> taken by the Turan people?

The rub ain't there. Too short and very common strings of phonemes
are by far the worst misleading departure point for any reasoning
unsupported by other facts. In principle, one could advocate that
the sequence "tur-" from "Turicum" might come from any "tor/tur"
word used around year 15 B.C.. Since people known to have something
to do with foundation of the city are Celts & Romans, assuming a
different origin for its name without any clue about meanings is
an unsupported speculation.

>>>> Outside Germanic area, why on earth should a geographical unit
>>>> name containing the initial _string of characters_ "tur-" or
>>>> "tor-" assigned a particular meaning to that string (as
>>>> "element"), and further assumed that meaning has to be related
>>>> to "Thor"?! That sounds pretty bad for usual pertinence
>>>> standards in linguistics. Not every "tur" ("tor") in the world
>>>> has something to do with your favorite matching god name (for
>>>> instance, Romanians have "tur" as legitimate word meaning
>>>> `trousers' posterior` but I wouldn't relate it even for a
>>>> joke with the mighty Thor...).
>>>
>>> Last someone went ballistic I think my favorite God's name was
>>> Odin?
>> [...]
>> [...] your {favorite _matching_ god name} (for placenames with
>> initial "tor-/tur-") must be Thor.
>>
> Your logic has won me over.

It's no logic stuff, just simple English text reading.

>> [...] Were you despotical ruler of (say) Germany, would you
>> call a new city "Allahstadt"? :-)
>>
> No, "Kreuzberg" is OK. No reason to rock the boat.

"Kreuzberg" is perfectly OK, especially taking into account the
simple fact that Germans are mainly Christian people, so "Kreuz"
is a symbol of their own religion. Unlike "Allah" or "Buddha".

Regards,
Marius Iacomi