tgpedersen wrote:
>
>>but the other objections remain valid (no early attestation, a
>>different attested name in the Middle Ages, a convincing modern
>
> etymology).
>
>
> 'convincing' is the operative word here. There's no doubt a linguist
> should be convinced be a convincing etymology. Or are you trying to
> sneak a circular faith-based judgment in the back door so that you can
> use it as a standard argument against e.g. a proposed Nordwestblock
> pedigree for late-documented words in Germanic?
No, I have no such ambition. I don't wish to make it an axiom that any
word attested only in recent times must be of recent origin (although
the lack of such attestation should always make one cautious rather than
serve as an excuse for giving free rein to one's fertile imagination:
"No evidence? Hurrah! Anything goes!"). No. I simply mean that in view
of the tangible evidence of the mill's having been owned by the nearby
Cistercian monastery the etymology of Abtsmühle and Abtsbach is
plausible and "convincing" in the most ordinary sense of the word. Given
(1) the complete absence of early attestation of "Aps" vel sim. in the
area, and (2) the documented early existence of a different name for the
same object, the conclusion is that the hydronym in question isn't
likely to be old and the proposed transparent etymology is almost
certainly correct. It's still a hypothesis, of course, but a very solid
one in comparison with the Illyrian/Old European etymology, which was
based on nothing at all except the modern form of the name and its
superficial similarity to other "Apses" elsewhere.
Incidentally, many such stories have been reported in recent toponymic
literature. Babik's book alone contains numerous other examples where
the historical evidence has been ignored or mishandled. This doesn't
mean that the "Old European" school is wrong about everything, but it
does mean that their methodological standards leave a lot to be desired.
Piotr