On 2007-12-10 05:12, ualarauans wrote:
> The explanation of Torun' from (East) Germanic cited by T. Czarnecki
> is rather obscure as Piotr has pointed out. Probably you are right
> about some other source for the Polish toponym. The name of Thor can
> be reconstructed for Gothic as *Þunrs or something like that. No
> traces of a dropped nasal (and why?) in Torun' as far as I can see.
> Or should we assume a metathesis of some sort? *þunaraz > *torunI? I
> think all this is very very shaky, to say the least.
One additional problem is the late attestation of the name. Although
there are traces of early settlements there, <Torun, Thorun, Thoron,
Thorum> etc. are first recorded in the 1230's/40's in the documents of
the Teutonic Knights, who founded the city and built their castle there
in 1230-1231. For all we know, they may have (re)named the place as
well, and one theory has it that Torun' was named after Toron Castle in
Lebanon (which the Knights had bought but never occupied). But the
Polish village of Tarnowo/Tarnów is mentioned already in 1222, 1230 at
the same location, and it is perhaps the most likely source of the name.
The Old Polish word <tarn> (now <ciern'> from paradigmatic levelling)
means 'thorn' (prototypically with reference to blackthorn bushes) and
is etymologically the same thing as its Germanic equivalent; it comes
from *tIrnU < *tr.no-.
Piotr