From: alexandru_mg3
Message: 52238
Date: 2008-02-03
><<strawa>> is not at all, a meal
>
> --- tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>
> > DEO says something like
> > Da stræbe, Sw sträva "strive" (but regular),
> > supposedly loans from MLG
> > streven "be stiff, stretch intr.; toil"
> > corresponding to Dutch
> > streven, Germ streben "reach up, stretch or direct
> > oneself; turn in a
> > certain direction [cf. Da. stræbepille "buttress"]",
> > from Gmc.
> > *striBa- etc. Now why is it so certain that the
> > English word is from OFr.?
>
> ****GK: Here's where I jump in with a question I've
> wanted to settle for along time. First let me quote
> the relevant passage (Mierow's translation) from
> Jordanes (258): "When they had mourned him [Attila-
> GK]with such lamentations, a strava, as they call it,
> was celebrated over his tomb with great revelling.
> They gave way in turn to the extremes of feeling and
> displayed funereal grief alternating with joy." The
> favourite interpretation of "strava" is that it refers
> to some sort of foodfest (indeed some linguists
> thought the word was Slavic). I wonder. The activities
> described by Jordanes need not indicate a meal, but
> something else entirely. Any chance that this ordanes
> "strava" is related to stra:va above?****
>