Re: PS Emphatics

From: george knysh
Message: 52273
Date: 2008-02-04

--- Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...> wrote:

> On 2008-02-03 20:46, george knysh wrote:
>
> > 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?
>
> Slavic *sU-trava 'meal' can be ruled out definitely.
> The yers were
> certainly full vowels in the 5th century and would
> not have been dropped
> by any foreign borrowers.
>
> It can't be related to any of those *str(a)iB- words
> just discussed,
> since PGmc. *i, *ei, or *ai wouldn't be reflected as
> anything resembling
> "a" in Gothic. The word might be Hunnish (if
> "Hunnish" means anything in
> linguistic terms), but perhaps the most reasonable
> etymology of <straua>
> is a Gothic one, referring to the verb <straujan>
> 'strew, cover' (Lat.
> struo: is from the same root). What they covered the
> tumulus with is
> anyone's guess, any kind of ceremonial decoration
> would fit the bill;
> some interpreters suggest that it was a funeral
> pyre.
>
> Piotr

****GK: Jordanes' text is not easy by any means. He is
describing a series of ritual acts, allegedly
performed by Huns only. He mentions (1)a silk tent on
a plain, where Attila's body lay in state. He then
mentions (2)a tumulus, which is NOT identical to the
spot where Attila was eventually secretly buried.He
finally mentions (3)the burial spot, Attila's three
coffins (what that means I don't know), and various
objects buried with the warlord. Now the "strava"
ritual is connected with (2). The tumulus could have
been some commemorative kurgan, either created for the
occasion, or already there, and having royal/sacral
connotation. We don't really know. What seems
important to determine with respect to the "strava"
ritual is the meaning of Jordanes' "commessatio
ingens", which Mierow has translated as "intense
revelling". What does "commessatio" actually mean? I
have not found it in my Oxford Dictionary of Classical
Latin, nor in my admittedly incomplete Dictionary of
mediaeval Latin. But one on-line dictionary defines it
as "eating together",i.e. we are back to some sort of
wake or ritual common feast around a tumulus
symbolizing the resting place of the dead monarch...
What kind of "cover" (Gothic or Romance) could be
involved? I've never heard of such a ritual. But a
feast is another matter,were it not for the linguistic
difficulties. Jordanes, a Romanized Goth was writing
in 552, perhaps quoting Cassiodorus,perhaps someone
else, perhaps speaking for himself. Might Torsten's
query ("how do we know what transpired in a Gothic
borrowing from Slavic?") provide an answer? "Cover"
just doesn't seem to cut it, somehow, funeral pyre or
whatever (or piles of swords on the mound)...Finally,
is there any way "strava" could refer to some Turkic
root? Somehow I doubt that too.****


>
>



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