Re: [tied] Etymology of "Warsaw"

On 8/30/04 2:33 AM, petusek wrote:

> Hi everyone!
>
> What should be the etymology of the Polish capital city name?
>
> (This is what Polish Wikipedia says:
> http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warszawa
> Nazwa miasta pochodzi od formy dzierżawczej imienia Warsz, czyli
> Warszowa lub Warszewa. Popularna etymologia
> <http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymologia> ludowa wywodzi nazwę od imion
> rybaka Warsa
> <http://pl.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Wars&action=edit> i wiślanej
> syreny Sawy <http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sawa>)
>
> {i.e. Warszawa < proper name Warsz, that is Warszowa or Warszewa,
> popular folk etymology says there was a fisherman Wars and a .... siren
> Sawa}
>
> One of my ideas is that Warsz- (if one admits, that it might be an old
> "conservated", "frozen" form of a Slavic proper name) could (in a way)
> be < OS *vIrchU < IE *wers- "an elevated place" ... :-) somehow :-) What
> do you think? Better ideas?

The Wiki etymology is OK. It's a typical possessive toponym; the
earliest recorded versions of the name suggest something like Warszewo
or Warszowa (still Latinised as Varsovia), from the name Warsz, which I
think is a hypocoristic form of (attested) Warcisl/aw, itself an Old
Mazovian reflex of *worti-slavU (etymologically = 'restore-fame'),
without metathesis. With metathesis, and a different possessive suffix,
cf. Wrocl/aw from *Wrocislaw' < *wortislavjI.

Piotr