Re: Alanic horseman

"Attila" as "little father" at least in Gothic, seems to me to pose no problems:

-Wulfila has "ATTA unsar"="Our Father..."

- "-ila" as a diminutival suffix couldn't be better attested, esp. in personal names: Totila="little dead man", Wulfila="little wolf" etc.

"Ata"=father is present throughout the Turkic spectrum, but we know that such words usually originate in children's language.

Of course,we have no way of knowing if the Huns themselves actually called him that.

                                  Cristian

 

2008/2/7, Rick McCallister <gabaroo6958@...>:

"Daddy" sounds more like a folk etymology unless he
was also a rapper

--- Patrick Ryan <proto-language@...> wrote:

> It is quite probable that <Attila> is a popular
> European transformation of
> the originally Mongolian (or whatever) name that has
> nothing to do with its
> original meaning.
>
> Patrick
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "fournet.arnaud" <fournet.arnaud@...>
> To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, February 06, 2008 4:02 PM
> Subject: Re: [tied] Re: Alanic horseman
>
>
> >
> >
> > I just know of two possible Hunnic words for the
> horse, but not of
> > words for its rider. Both are based on the
> linguistic analysis of
> > Hunnic onomastic material proposed by O. Pritsak
> in _Harvard Ukrainian
> > Studies_ 6 (1982) at
> >
> >
>
http://www.huri.harvard.edu/pdf/hus_volumes/vVI_n4_dec1982.pdf
> >
> > Best,
> > Francesco
> > ============
> > The paper is very informative
> > especially as a compilation of forms.
> >
> > but,
> > I have some trouble buying
> > a certain number of explanations.
> >
> > Attila in particular
> > out of *es- *tïl "great ocean"
> > *tïl does not seem to exist at all.
> > Starostin has da:l for ocean
> > And mongolian is dal°i
> > It should be
> > *es-da:l- in Turcic
> > or
> > *ix-dal°i in Mongolian
> >
> > Phonetically, it's much worse than
> > att-ila "little father"
> > with vowels in the right place.
> > and consonants as expected.
> >
> > Arnaud
> >
> >
> >
>

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