> The members who know Hungarian would probably be better respondents,
> but if 'város' is not borrowed from Iranian then it is related to
> *uras - bull/gardian of heard.
>
> Peter P
I suppose <vár> < PIE *uer (thus being related inter alia to Ger. Wehr.
(My memory doesn't help me, but I must've read this somwhere some
time.)
The main & original thing is <vár>. <Város> is the suffixation of it:
with -<vowel>s [S], in this case -os [oS]. So the "burg, fortress"
turns to a bigger entity: a city, i.e. <város> ['va:roS]. (Hence, e.g.
Józsefváros = Josefstadt, Újváros = Neustadt.)
The idea of "burg, fortress, castrum" is also contained in the reflexes
built with the suffix -<vowel>d or -da, AFAIK used in modern Hung. in
toponyms (either staying as such or in combination with another word,
e.g. name): <várda> ['var:dO] and <várad> ['va:rOd], which has been
"translated" into German as Wardein. (In medieval Latin documents várda
also as Uarod.) In this list there are more of such place names:
http://www.radixindex.com/placeindex/placeindex_va.shtml
[One of such Wardeins is Hung. Nagyvárad/Rum. Oradea
(Mare)/Grosswardein/medieval Lat. Waradinum, about 11 km East of the
Hungarian-Romanian border, on the road E15 between Budapest and Cluj
(Kolozsvár/Klausenburg), which was an important Cath. bishopric in the
Hung. kingdom; there lived the Italian friar Rogerius who wrote the
most important account (for the region) on the Mongolian invasion in
1241: "Carmen miserabile".]
Also compare with some Romanianized toponym Vãrãdia, e.g. Vãrãdia de
Mure$, in the Arad county (i.e. the southern neighbor of the Bihor
county whose capital is Oradea/(Nagy)Várad/Grosswardein).
So: <vár, város, várad, várda>. (But caution: <vár> also means
"he/she/it expects/waits or is expecting or waiting (for)".)
George
PS: one of the Corvidae birds family is called in Hungarian <varjú>
['vOrju:], namely "crow; cioarã; sorrë; Krähe".