From: dgkilday57
Message: 63593
Date: 2009-03-09
>The modern <Cicoli> supports Vergil's /i:/, since a stressed short /i/ should have yielded *Cecoli, like It. <cece> from Lat. <cicer> 'chickpea'.
> dgkilday57:
>
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Trond Engen <trond@> wrote:
> >
> >>> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "dgkilday57" <dgkilday57@> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Hmm, <aequus> and the tribal name <Aequi>, <Aequicoli> have not to my
> >>>> knowledge been satisfactorily explained, but I do not see how to tie
> >>>> them in with <aes>. On the other hand Lehmann did write something
> >>>> about how <aeger> could be related to <aes>, something about smiths
> >>>> getting sick from the fumes. I'll have to look that one up.
> >>
> >> Why can't those tribal names simply mean "the equals", "the equally
> >> honoured"?
> >
> > Possibly <Aequi:> does refer to a nominally egalitarian warrior class.
> > Plenty of tribal names refer to the warrior class rather than the people
> > at large. In fact, that is more plausible than what I suggested about
> > 'Plain-Dwellers'.
> >
> >>> [...] As for the tribal names, perhaps the early annalists used
> >>> <Aequicoli:> 'Plain-Dwellers' as a catch-all term for certain plain-
> >>> dwellers south of Rome, with this term reinterpreted later as a
> >>> diminutive, 'the Little Aequi', and <Aequi:> following as the
> >>> preferred generic term for these people in later annalists like Livy.
> >>> There may be a problem with that explanation, however, and the whole
> >>> derivation needs some additional work.
> >
> > <Aequi:coli:> is scanned with a long antepenult, so it cannot have
> > arisen as I suggested, or given rise to <Aequi:> that way.
>
> How about the *kol- "be tall" of <collis> and <collum> < *kol-n-,
> <columen> and <columna>, giving something like "the evenly standing" or,
> with some semantic load, "the equal free men" or "the free men of the
> Aequi"? That would relate it (on a root level, but still) to the
> Germanic family of Ger. <Held>.
>
> Just in case this, for some reason obscure to me, might solve the
> problem of the long antepenult that makes the first element a locative.
> But why does it have to be long? It isn't an artefact of Virgil's meter
> or something -- Vergil taking benefit of the existence of <Aequi:>?
> > Pliny refers to <Aequiculani>, and this term also requires explanation.<Aequiculani> might be specifically 'inhabitants of Aequiculanum', the latter preserved as <Cicolano>. Possibly <Aequi:> and <Aequi:culi:> referred to distinct tribes. If we bring in the root of Grk. <(w)eiko:n> 'likeness, image', <(w)e(w)oika> 'I resemble' discussed earlier, perhaps we can decompose <Aequi:culi:> as *Aequivi:culi: 'those who resemble the Aequi, the Pseudo-Aequi'. The formation of *vi:culus 'resembling', earlier *weikulos, would parallel <cre:dulus>, <pendulus>, <bibulus>, etc. A compound form is illustrated by <sacrificulus>, which is not a diminutive of <sacrificus>. In Livy the rex sacrificulus took the place of the ousted king as the officiant at sacrifices; the term means 'sacrificing', not 'little sacrificer'. Presumably the simple verb *vi:co: 'I liken, resemble' vel sim. would have fallen out of use in Latin; some of its parts would have been confused with those of <vinco:> and <vi:vo:>.
>
> If the antepenult is long, could this be the original compound? <Aequi:>
> + *eculani "horse-(or foles-)men"? Either way, one explanation for both
> compounds would be preferable.