On 2008-02-05 00:05, george knysh wrote:
> ****GK: You don't find Maenchen-Helfen's analyses of
> Hunnish names relevant? He found piles of Turkic roots
> (also some Iranic ones), and he was not a kook. Have
> his views been convincingly superseded? Not that that
> helps with "strava"****
Names are only names, especially if you don't know their meaning and the
people who bore them were almost certainly a very mixed lot,
linguistically and ethnically. We both have Greek names, which doesn't
make us Greek. To quote M.-H. himself (for whose analyses I have a deep
respect):
"Tutizar was a Goth and Ragnaris a Hun, but Tutizar is not a Gothic name
and Ragnaris is Germanic. The Byzantine generals who in 493 fought
against the Isaurians were Apsikal, a Goth, and Sigizan and Zolban,
commanders of the Hun auxiliaries. Apsikal is not a Gothic but a Hunnic
name; Sigizan might be Germanic. Mundius, a man of Attilanic descent,
had a son by the name of Mauricius; his grandson Theudimundus bore a
Germanic name. Patricius, Ardabur, and Herminiricus were not a Roman, an
Alan, and a German as the names would indicate, but brothers, the sons
of Aspar and his Gothic wife. There are many such cases in the fifth and
sixth centuries. Sometimes a man is known under two names, belonging to
two different tongues. Or he has a name compounded of elements of two
languages. There are instances of what seem to be double names; actually
one is the personal name, the other a title. Among the Hun names, some
might well be designations of rank. It is, I believe, generally agreed
that the titles of the steppe peoples do not reflect the nationality of
their bearers. A kan, kagan, or bagatur may be a Mongol, a Turk, a
Bulgar; he may be practically anything."
> P.S. I take it that if "strava" was a Gothic term it
> would not have been borrowed into any Slavic dialect
> and contemporary Slavic "strava" is purely
> coincidental?
Yes, it's pure coincidence. Contemporary <strava> comes from the verb
*traviti 'eat up, consume, digest' etc.
Piotr