From: tgpedersen
Message: 54560
Date: 2008-03-03
>I suddenly recalled what the other *sw-/*sl- pair was; it's not
>
> > > > BTW my mistake about the "Stavani" (I'm working exclusively
> > > > from memory): not Pliny's but Ptolemy's. Thus ca. 140/150 AD
> > >
> > > Yes, it's in his Geographia, III.5.9 STAUANOI, together with
> > > GALINDAI and SOUDINOI which two are definitely Baltic. If
> > > STAUANOI is indeed a reflex of the Slavic selfname, it doesn't
> > > exclude *Slove^ne as a proto-form. Rendering Slavic [o] with
> > > foreign (Greek, Gothic, whatever) [a] was absolutely standard
> > > in Common Slavic epoch.
> >
> > ****GK: It's just that Ptolemy's "Stavani" reflects
> > nicely the Iranian (and Indo-Aryan acc. to Trubachov)
> > meaning "famed", "glorious" (Slavic "Slava"), a nice
> > name for elite warriors. Reaching Ptolemy through an
> > Iranian (Alanic or Aorsan) filter.****
> > >
> > > You know ibidem there is another suspectedly Slavic name
> > > SOUOBHNOI
> > > (VI.14.9), listed together with ALANOI SKUQAI and ALANORSOI,
> > > this time with Greek omicron in the first syllable. It has been
> > > hypothesized about *Svobe^ne > *Slove^ne, originally from PIE
> > > *swe-/*swo- + -bh- "proper", "own" > "belonging to the same kin"
> > > (cf. Germanic Suebi). What do you make of it?
> > >
> > > Of course there is still some chance that both names
> > > have nothing to
> > > do with Slavs.
> >
> > ****GK: There is also the Baltic root meaning "slow
> > flow" which some have used to interpret "Slavs" as
> > "people of the rivers".****
>
>
> All the proposals for etymology for 'Slav':
> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/6463
>
> I think I'll add one.
> Holzer/Kortlandt's proposal for an adstrate in Slavic named
> Temematic
> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/32179
> contains:
> 29. svobodI 'frei' < *swo-bodi- < *svo-poti, Vedic svá-pati- 'sein
> eigener Herr', Latin sui potens 'unabhängig';
> 30. slobodI 'frei, könnend' < slo-bodi < *sl-poti-, OIC salr 'Saal,
> Zimmer', OCS selo, Feld, Acker, Ort' etc
>
> That annoys me. I've always mentally connected these two roots as
> the same, with a 'fat l' > w vs. 'thin l' alternation. The problem
> is that no such alternation should exist at that place in Slavic (I
> vaguely recall there's one more example of a Slavic v/l alternating
> pair, but I forgot which).
>
> This is the root I want to connect it with: PIE *(s)lew- "loose,
> free"
> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/44457
> For the 's mobile' s- another solution could be found in Latin
> *se-luo: > solvo:
>
> The reason why such a word would become a Wanderwort was that it
> would designate political non-attachedness, independence,
> recklessness (because not subject to the force of the law-upholding
> potentate), freedom. It would have been borrowed, twice, from a
> language which had 'fat l'/'thin l' dialect variation, a language
> from which also borrowed Thracian (*sw-/*sl- > s-)
> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/14332
> and from there or from Slavic to Hungarian (with s-)
> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/35334
>
> The *swe-/*swo- + -bh- solution suffers from the semantics-free
> 'extension' -bh-; this solution doesn't. And it is:
> *se-leu- "free", *se-leu-o-t-ax "freedom", from which falsely
> divided slobod- "free". So "the free people" is what slav- swew-
> suob- Gr. la:os
> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/6463 , 3
>
> etc meant.
>