From: george knysh
Message: 52432
Date: 2008-02-07
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, george knysh****GK: Weren't we talking about the upper crust?****
> <gknysh@...> wrote:
> >
> > [...]
> > > Of course they did. Most influential of them
> were
> > > East Germanic or
> > > at least could speak East Germanic.
> >
> > GK: These "barbarians" were multi-lingual.
>
> I think only few were in fact multilingual. Somehow
> it's difficult
> to imagine a whole horde of linguists devastating
> Europe
>****GK: Priscus mentions Hunnish before Gothic in the
> BTW, Priscus wrote (46.5-10):
> XUGKLUDES GAR ONTES PROS THi SFETERAi BARBARWi
> GLWSSHi ZHLOUSIN H
> THN OUNNWN H THN GOTQWN H KAI THN AUSONIWN, hOSOIS
> AUTWN PROS
> RhWMAIOUS EPIMIXIA; KAI OU RhADIWS TIS SFWN
> hELLHNIZEI THi FWNHi,
> PLHN hWN APHGAGON AICMALWTWN APO THS QRAKIAS KAI
> ILLURIDOS PARALOU.
> What you think was the native vernacular of the
> barbarians who had
> to learn languages of Huns, Goths and Romans as
> foreign ones? Or
> does it mean they taught each other? And is Priscus'
> linguistic
> information to be trusted at all?
>
> > But
> > Hunnish was the Huns' first language, and
> according to
> > Priscus,the first language of Attila's court.
>
> Wasn't it Gothic instead (language of the court)?
>****GK: Who's to know why the particular twist?
> > The most
> > likely hypothesis, if Pritsak's reconstruction of
> > "Attila" as a genuine Hunnish name is put aside
> > (though he was certainly a master turkologist), is
> > that the Hunnish word was so close (whatever it
> > meant)in pronunciation that the Attilanic
> Germanics
> > could easily twist it into their idiom's "Attila".
> > Note that Pritsak mentions two other "Gothicized"
> > Hunnish names: Balamir and Laudaric.****
>
> On the whole I agree. And note, they didn't twist it
> into
> *Astila "little twig". Why? If "daddy" = "regnator
> orbis terrarum",
> then "little twig" = "flagrum dei" :)
>____________________________________________________________________________________
>