Re: Romance brother

> > I thought something like this: the Germani might have called
> > themselves Ermani (< Iranian *aryaman), cf. Alemanni, Arminius...
>
> ???
>
> Why should the ancient Germani have designated themselves by an
> Iranian-derived ethnonym? The ethnonym Arya-/A:rya- and its
> derivatives had no currency outside the Indo-Iranian-speaking world
> (N.B. Celtic Eire is not derived from it!).

It's an idea I've been pushing for some years now: Germanic was a
lingua franca that was born of the meeting between an Iranian people
and some local folk in what is now southeastern Poland, the peoples
known from history as Sciri and Bastarnae, and that that language
spread westward from there. The archives are full of it.

> The standard etymology for Alamanni, cited in most etymological
> dictionaries, is from the Germanic ethnonym *Alamanniz 'all men'
> (from Proto-Germanic *ala- 'all' and *manniz- 'men'). This name may
> indicate that they were a confederation of various tribes. The
> Alamanni were first mentioned by Cassius Dio describing the campaign
> of Caracalla in 213 CE.

I know. Archives.

> Arminius is probably a Latinized variant of the Germanic name Irmin
> meaning 'great'. Cf. the Latin ethnonym (first attested in Tacitus'
> _Germania_) for a group of early Germanic tribe, the Irminones, also
> referred to as Herminones or Hermiones. Pokorny derives Germanic
> Irmin from the -m suffixed form of the PIE root *ar-1; the Proto-
> Germanic form would be *erminaz, *ermenaz or *ermunaz (in personal
> names), with the meanining 'big, great, large, strong, tall, whole
> etc.'

I know. Archives.


Torsten