The *Peraunos god...

From: Joao S. Lopes
Message: 48770
Date: 2007-05-29

http://www.bookrags.com/Perun
The root per-/perk-, meaning "to strike, to splinter," is common to Indo-European languages. Close relatives to the Slavic name Perun are the Lithuanian Perkūnas, Prussian Perkonis, Latvian Pērkons, Old Icelandic Fjo̜r-gynn, and Greek Zeus keraunos (from a taboo *peraunos). Common nouns derived from the same Indo-European root—Sanskrit parjanyah ("cloud, thunder"), Hittite peruna ("mountaintop"), Gothic fairguni ("oak forest"), Celtic hercynia (from silva, "oak forest"), and Latin quercus (from *perkus, "pine" or, earlier, "oak")—suggest prehistoric ties between Indo-European thunder gods and clouds (i.e., rain), oaks, oak forests, and mountaintops. The veneration of the Slavic *pergynja (Russian peregynia, Polish przeginia), meaning "oak forest," is attested by Russian literary sources. West Slavic and South Slavic personal names and place-names with the root per- are mostly linked with "oak," "oak forest," and "hill": Perun gora (Serbian), Perunowa gora (Polish), and Porun, the name of a hill in Istria. The word for "Thursday" (Thor's day) in the Polabian dialect is peründan, which literally means "lightning."

These variations of the root: *Peraunos/PerkWu:nos/Perka:n-/Pergen-/Perun-/Pergu:n- may represent anomalous developments of an original *Perh2(3)wnos. The forms with -k- maybe contaminations of *perkWu- "oak", those with  -g- may be crossing with sperg- "to spray".
And Hittite tarhunza (cf. tarquinius?) Is this tarhu an odd variant of *parhu-?
Or we may assume a more complex form *tperHwnos, with metathesis *pterHwnos>*tarhun- and *tp>p giving *perhUn- (cf. Latin populus, Slavic topolI, Greek ptelea<*ptel-, pelea<*tpel-)
May Perseus fit into this root *per-k-?

Joao SL

__________________________________________________
Fale com seus amigos de graça com o novo Yahoo! Messenger
http://br.messenger.yahoo.com/