Re: [tied] Re: Etymology of "Warsaw"

On 9/6/04 8:20 PM, petusek wrote:

> I found an interesting piece of information at
> http://www.dunainfo.sk/dunajskastreda/sk/priroda.htm (written in Slovak). At
> the beginning of Xth century - in 907 AD - the city was called
> Brezalauspurg, and as decades and centuries passed by, its name stabilized
> as "Pressburg", however some people thing the word is of Hungarian or even
> Turkic origin (but I do not know what these assumptions are based on).

Based on zilch, it seems. Bratislava has had several different names;
the current Slovak one was, I suspect, artificially remodelled at one
point to connect it with the name of Bratislav (Braslav), a Pannonian
ruler who lived ca. AD 900. His name has nothing to do with 'brother';
the first element is the verb stem *borti- 'fight, strike'. But
Brezalaus-purg, Pressburg etc. are surely derived from Predslav (=
Preclav --> Brezalau), a different Slavic name (*perd- = 'before'). In
neither case is there anything Hungarian or Turkic about the name.

Piotr