Re: Gemination in Celtic

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...> wrote:

>
> On 2008-04-01 20:15, tgpedersen wrote:
>
> > Is Tutta a Germanic name?
>
> It's OE, at any rate (attested AD 842), as are e.g. Tota and Totta.
> The last two could be hypocoristic forms of anything beginning with
> Torht-(e.g. Torhtwine, Torhthelm, Torhtmund, Torhtwald, ...). The
> easiest method of forming a pet form of a name in OE consisted in
> truncating it, simplifying heavy clusters, if any, and substituting
> easier sounds for more difficult ones; then optionally geminating
> the final consonant and appending a weak-noun ending (-a for boys,
> -e for girls). Actually, Tutta might be not only Germanic, but even
> your own. A young Thurstan could be Tutta to his family and friends.

Actually, I was Totte, quite on my own initiative, if I'm to believe
my mother; Danish, Norwegian and German do not like English Dutch and
Swedish have a fixed system of proper vs. hypochoristic name; in
Swedish the hypochoristic name for Torsten is indeed Totte. However,
the Scandinavian languages have þ- > t-, English doesn't.


Torsten