>> a Persian loan (<*wer- 'close, cover, surround')
Then the PIE *wer assumption wouldn't be far-fetched at all. (In modern
German, the <wehr> word family still covers all these, and of course
much more, extended meanings, that isn't covered by Hung. vár (although
it has some military connotation): <wehren> "defend; repel", hence
<Reichswehr> (the German army after WW1 until the 3rd Reich,
<Wehrmacht>: until 9 Mai 1945, <Bundeswehr>: the federal army of the
Ger.-speaking countries; <Abwehr> "defense" (inter alia, it was the
name of the army counterintelligence office in the 3rd Reich).)
>> from early contacts of Mongolian and Turkish tribes with Persian
>> world (even today in Iran is living a big number of Turkish
>> population).
For the Hungarian language, both ancient Scythian and other idioms
related to Persian must've been relevant (e.g. I once read that the
Hung. word for "cart" <szekér> is related to a similar word in
Sanskrit). After all, the Hungarians assimilated important
Turkic-speaking tribes (the upper crust in the 10th c.) and at least
one Alanic population (called in Hung. "a jászok" -> [ja:s] = As,
Ossetians), whose memory is conserved in the toponyms in the Tisza
plains between Debrecen and Budapest: those name places start with
<Jász->).
>> But, this word, to my view, starts to spread during Empire of the
>> Golden Horde, formed from Mongolian and Turkish tribes (from the
>> middle of 13-th century to the end of 14 century), where we for
That'll be too late. Because the Hungarian word was then already fixed
in written inofficial texts as well as in chronicles in Latin, prior to
the Mongolian invasion of 1241. In them, the spelling shows that the
old pronunciation must've been [w], not [v] as today: <uar> or <uuar>.
(Moreover: one Transylvanian Hungarian once told me that Hungarian
linguists also take into consideration the Romanian loanword <ora$> <
<város> as a hint that the modern [v] was in former times the semivowel
[w], because otherwise the Romanian language would have conserved an
initial [v].)
>> (cf. Yeni Varosh, today Novi Varoš) or <eski> 'old'.
>> In Balkan, at most in all cities, that have any castle, the suburb
>> of the castle is known as <varosh>.
Yes, but I'd pay heed to the fact that a big chunk of former Yugoslavia
belonged to the Hungarian kingdom many a century (Croatia approx. one
millennium, and upper Serbia also a long time; e.g. Belgrade was - say
in the around 1450 a Hungarian város, called Nándorfehérvár: <fehérvár>
= <belgrad>, <Nándor> = <Ferdinand>.)
>> It probably predates the
>> occupation of the Balkan by Ottoman Empire.
>> It is attested also in <Varsh•ac> in reduced form and I still
Prior to the Turkish occupation (about 160 years after 1526 or 1541)
and after it Vrs^ac [vr$atz] (Romanian Vîr$etz) belonged to Hungary
(BTW, at the same time an important region for ethnic Romanians.)
>> believe in <Warsz•awa>, for I hardly accept to be it a honoriphic
>> place name, until we haven't any historical sources that prove it.
Really?
>> As a compound element it took place in many place names, like in
>> Slavonia: Vuko•var, Bijelo•var, Daru•var.
Thank you. But, as said above, Slavonia belonged to Hungary since the
10th c. So, methinks it's important to know who influenced whom in
using <var> in name places. AFAIK, Ucrainians and Russians don't have
this, neither do Bulgarians (is this correct?), although these nations
also had to do with the "Turanic impact".
> Those 'war's sure got around. Danish placenames Varberg (now in
> Sweden), Vordingborg, Oringe (< 'warth' "guard(post)").
To this word family also belong Germ. <Warte>, <Wärter>. (<guard> is
also of German, namely Frankish origin.)
> Vennemann would connect *w-rt- to a Semitic root with the same
> meaning.
<kopfkratz> Hm.
> Torsten
g