From: alexandru_mg3
Message: 62125
Date: 2008-12-17
>original
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@>
> wrote:
>
> > Zupanija (Z = "zh" or "z^") is derived from Zupan 'the
> > supervisor of a Zupa (a salt mine, sometimes also a salt or
> > silver depot)' -- a very important function in early Slavic
> > states, as salt production was an extremely lucrative
> > business, usually monopolised by the ruler. Zupan eventually
> > came to mean something like 'alderman' or 'sheriff' in
> > Anglo-Saxon England -- a royal official responsible for an
> > administrative unit. As characteristically Iranian agent
> > nouns in -pa:na- (cf. Indic -pa:- < IE *pax-) mean
> > 'guardian, supervisor, protector', an Iranian connection
> > used to be proposed for Zupan as well, but the idea has been
> > abandoned by most scholars: the morphological division is
> > after all Zup-an rather than Zu-pan. However, Zupa itself is
> > a mysterious word and I'd like to see a convincing etymology
> > of it myself. Slavic *Z comes from earlier *g(W) palatalised
> > before a front vowel (that is, Zupa < something like
> > *geup-a:), which seems to rule out any connection with the
> > Tamil word.
>
>
>
> > The West Slavic word *(gU)panU (Polish pan, Czech & Slovak
> > pán, Old Czech hpán) meaning 'lord, master, sir, Mr.' is in
> > all likelihood independent of Zupan, though it was once
> > regarded as its abbreviation. It may be a genuine Iranian
> > loan, as *g(a)u-pa:na- 'cattle-guardian, cowherd' is a very
> > plausible Iranian compound (attested e.g. in Pashto as
> > Go:b@, G = "gh", cf. also Sanskrit go-pa:-). Perhaps the
> > Slavs retained a memory of their powerful Scythian or
> > Sarmatian neighbours as cattle breeders and cowboys.
> > An alternative etymology (less convincing, as far as I'm
> > concerned) connects pan with IE *pot- 'host, master'
> > (surviving in Lithuanian patis = Sanskrit pati- < *pot-i-)
> > via the feminine form *pot-ni: > *po:ni: > (West) Slavic
> > pani, yielding pan through back-derivation. This etymology,
> > though beguiling, doesn't work without some ad hoc tricks
> > and fails to explain the Old Czech form.
>
>
> Piotr, *g(a)u-pa:na- 'cattle-guardian, cowherd' cannot be the
> form (at least not *g(a)u-) because Romanian Old Form was /g^upIn/Also *dzw-
>
> So the original initial sound at that stage was some of:
>
> *g^-
> *y-
> *dzy-
> *dy-
>
> Note also: ^a /I/ before n that gave us a timeframe somewhere before
> or just around 600 AC
>
>
> Marius
>