Re: Not "catching the wind " , or, what ARE we discussing?

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@...> wrote:

>
> At 7:44:26 PM on Wednesday, April 2, 2008, tgpedersen wrote:
>
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Rick McCallister
> > <gabaroo6958@> wrote:
>
> >> the Scottish Clan Chattan is associated with the cat any
> >> chance it could just be a folk etymology and have
> >> something to do with Chatti? Or conversely, that the
> >> Chatti are a "Cat Clan"?
>
> > Now that's interesting.
>
> > The geminated -tt- indicates something other that IE, if
> > it doesn't come from some later morpheme collision. The
> > Celtic is Cassi, but also -castini, with -ss- and -st-.
>
> According to George F. Black, The Surnames of Scotland s.n.
> <Chattan>, Clan Chattan (Sc.Gael. Clann Chatain) is the
> collective name of a number of clans that united into a
> confederation in 1609: Cattanach, Clark, Crerar, Davidson,
> Farquharson, Gillespie, Gillies, Gow, Macbain, Macbean,
> Macgillivray, Macintosh, Macphail, Macpherson, Macqueen,
> Noble, and Shaw. 'Some ultra-patriotic clan historians
> derive the name from the Catti or Chatti (who had their seat
> in the region of modern Hesse), a tribe of Germany described
> by Tacitus (_Germania_, xxx, 1).' Clearly Black takes this
> with more than a few grains of salt.
>
> S.n. <Cattanach> he identifies this clan with the <Clann
> Catan> of the 1467 MS., <Clann Catain> in modern Sc.Gael.,
> which claims descent from one <Gillacatain> 'servant of (St)
> Catan'.
>
> S.n. <Gillechattan> he says that St Catan gave his name to
> Clan Chattan.
>
> The name is properly <Catán>, a diminutive in <-án>. St
> Catán was the preceptor of St Bláán; the place-name <Cill
> Chatáin> (Eng. <Kilchattan>) occurs in Bute, Colonsay,
> Islay, Gigha, Luing, and Kintyre, and there are several
> other place-names commemorating him in the west of Scotland.
> He's also the saint of Aberruthven -- 'ecclesia Sancti
> Catani de Aberruadeuien' 1198. The name is distinct from
> the more familiar <Cathán>, from <cath> 'a battle'; Anders
> may know better, but so far as I can see, it's simply EIr
> <catán> 'a kitten', a diminutive of OIr <cat(t)> 'a cat',
> from PCelt. *katto-. Celtic may have got it from Latin
> <cattus>, but the word is ultimately non-IE.

Aha, a geminate.
The usual explanation for 'cat' in Germanic and Celtic is that it is a
loan from Latin; but if it is so, then
1) why does Freya have a cat-drawn chariot
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freyja
qoute: '"People of many races visited this burning. First is to be
told of Odin, how Frigg and the Valkyries went with him, and his
ravens; but Freyr drove in his chariot with the boar called Gold-Mane,
or Fearful-Tusk, and Heimdallr rode the horse called Gold-Top, and
Freyja drove in her chariot drawn by cats..." (Gylfaginning (49))"';
why this if they only knew the cat from the Romans; this doesn't look
like a late accretion?
2) why does the the geminated katt- root have a non-geminated side
form with -t- in German and Dutch kater "tomcat", cf.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/49197 ?

From which I conclude that the *katt- word in both Celtic and Germanic
is a loan from (probably non-IE) NWBlock, which is also the language
of geminates, and that explains the lack of Grimm-shift; *kat- is a
non-geminated side form from some neighbor dialect. Imported into
NWBlock with a ship cat?


Torsten