--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, gknysh@... wrote:
>
>
> --- On Fri, 6/26/09, tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>
> > How would you account for the movement of Croats from Tanais to
> > Southern Slavland?
>
> ****GK: In the first place one cannot even prove that there was any
> such movement. The Bosporan inscription refers to an individual
> with a hellenized Iranic name. We have no other evidence of
> "Croats" in that area at that time (3rd c. AD). ****
>
> >
>
> > GK: My view is that defensive set-ups ("croatias")
>
> ****GK: I don't have my notes on hand, but remember that that there
> is a Slovak verb where "croat" (something like "khorovaty se" if
> memory serves) means "to defend" one's self****
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/59285
Gol/a,b:
The Origin of the Slavs, pp. 323-328
'In the above discussion of the Iranian loanwords in Slavic I have
omitted proper names, because their etymology usually entails more
difficulties and uncertainties than that of common nouns. There is
however, an ethnicon that for serious phonemic and morphologicical
reasons seems to be of Iranian origin: the ethnicon *XUrvate/i, i.e.,
S-C Hrváti, Hrvate in older sources (nom. plur.), Hrvâtâ (gen.
plur.), and Hrvatin (nom. sing. in older sources).
Since the Iranian etymology of this ethnonym is only a hypothesis, on
equal footing with other hypotheses about its Slavic and Germanic
origin, I feel obliged to devote a separate excursus to this problem.
Excursus 1: The Puzzle of the Ethnicon Hrváti
1.) First, we should reconstruct the primary, i.e., PSl. form of the
ethnicon. On the basis of the following facts:
a.) S-C H`rva:t, gen. Hrváta, plur. Hrváti (old Hrvate);
b.) ORuss. Xorvate, Xrovate, Xrvate, XrUvate;
c.) OCz. (from OPol.) Charvaty (as a toponym);
d.) Greek (Constantine Porphyrogenitus) Xro:bátoi;
e.) Latin Chrouati (10th-11th cent.), also
Chruvati vicus (in Thietmar referring to a Lusatian territory, known
now as Klein-Corbetha) from North West Slavic *Xrovat- < PSl.
*Xorvat- (?);
f.) Greek toponyms: Xarbáti and so forth (in Vasmer's Slaven in
Griechenland, where ar seems to stand for an unmetathesized Slav.
tart, cf. Gardíki for *gardIkI, etc.); we can establish two PSl.
variants as basic: *XUrvaté and *Xorvaté, with the primary
consonantal-stem plural in a stressed -e.
In all early medieval sources various forms of this ethnicon refer
first to the South Slavic Croatians (Greek Xro:bátoi, Lat. Chrouati),
then to the sub-Carpathian Croats in the Upper Dniestr basin (an East
Slavic tribe in the Povest' vremennyx let: Xorvate, etc.) or to the
Croats in the Polish-Bohemian borderland in the region of the Sudeten
(OCz. Charvaty, etc.), and once to a tribe on the Upper Sorbian
territory (Thietmar's Chruvati). These facts, supported by a clear
statement in Porphyrogenitus, seem to indicate that the South Slavic
Croatians represent the main branch of a prehistorical Proto-Slavic
tribe whose primary habitat, before their migration to the Balkans,
was located north of the western Carpathians.
2.) For any linguist acquainted with comparative historical Slavic
grammar the very form of the ethnicon *XUrvaté provokes the
suspicion that it is of non-Slavic origin. First, the original Slavic
character of the initial x- would be justified only in the case of
PIE *ks-, which is quite a rare case. Second, the derivational form
with a consonant-stem suffix is also rather exceptional in the Slavic
material (among Slavic ethnica I would quote here as possible
parallels *Venete/i and Veleti). Therefore it is no wonder that most
Slavists have proposed a non-Slavic etymology for *XUvaté.
3.) Here I will briefly discuss the existing etymologies, reject
them, and propose a new one which seems to meet the requirements of
exact historical-comparative methods.
a.) Iranian etymology, recently supported by Trubac^ev (Ètimologija
1965:32).
Variant i) Sarmatian personal name Xoróathos Xorouathos (in Tanais),
2nd-3rd cent. A.D., i.e., *Hurvatha 'bonus amicus' but then
we should expect *XUrvot- or rather a patronymic form *XUrvot-itji,
i.e., S-C *Xrvotic´i.
Variant ii) Av. haurvata:t- // haurva:t-, i.e., *harvata:t //
*harva:t- 'totality,' etc. (from *harva- - Lat. salvus) but then
the only form in Slavic would be *Xorvat-, although semantically
there are interesting parallels in Germ. Allemannen and, with a
reversed semantic order, in Oscan touto 'civitas,' Umbrian tota
'civitas' as opposed to Lat. totus, -a, -urn.
b.) Germanic etymology, based upon a phrase Hárvaða or Hærvaþa fjöll,
i.e., 'Berge der Chorvaten' (according to R. Heinzel's
interpretation), in the Old Scandinavian Hervararsaga, a passage
referring to the Carpathians, with which the primary Croats,
*XUrvate, were closely connected, as we have mentioned. But what is
the Germanic source of Harvaða // Hærvaþa, i.e. PSl. *Xorvaté, cannot
be established: its interpretation as a Germanized form with
Lautverschiebung of the oronym karpáte:s (in Ptolemy) is semantically
inexplicable and highly improbable in view of the bookish and learned
character of this oronym, which is unknown in the native linguistic
tradition of the Slavs dwelling in the Carpathian region.
c.) The third traditional etymology proposes a Slavic origin of the
ethnicon. According to this hypothesis *XUrvaté // *Xorvaté is
related to Lith. s^arvúotas 'armored' ('geharnischt'), which in its
turn comes from s^árvas 'armor' ('Harnisch, Panzer, Rüstung'); so
*XUrvaté would mean 'the armored.' But there are serious formal
objections to this etymology. First, Lith. s^árvas does not continue
any *ks- which would result in Slavic x-, but rather represents
primary IE *k'orHwos, a substantivized adjective from the IE stem
*k'erH-u- 'horn,' and it has obvious correspondences in IE
languages, for which see below (cf. here also Gr. kórus n. 'helmet';
Fraenkel, 965, and Pokorny, 574). In this connection the primary
meaning of Lith. s^árvas would be 'horn-armor,' a type of armor
well-known to the ancient East European peoples. An exact Slavic
correspondence representing the regular sat&m treatment of *k'-
should be *sorvU, then *Sorvaté, etc. Second, the Lith. adjectives in
-úotas have exact correspondences in Slavic denominal adjectives in
-atU (with the old acute), e.g., *bordatU, Russ. borodátyj, etc. In
addition, the primary word-final stress and the consonant-stem
declension of the ethnicon *Xorvaté // *XUrvaté does not permit us
to equate it with Lith. s^arvúotas. Thus the correspondence Lith.
s^arvúotas ~ PSl. *Xorvaté, etc., is illusory and should be rejected.
4.) Now, after this criticism of existing etymologies I shall propose
a new one which seems to be better substantiated both formally and
semantically.
My contention is that PSl. *XUrvat- // *Xorvat- (a consonantal stem!)
was derived from a common noun *xUrvU // *xorvU 'armor' (primarily
'horn-armor'), which should be treated as a prehistorical loanword
from Germc. *hurwa- // *harwa-, the latter representing
the PIE adj. *k'r.Hwo-// *k'orHwo- (cf. Gr. keraós 'horned' and Lith.
s^árvas, quoted above). The fact that the historical Germc.
languages have not preserved the hypothetical *hurwa- // *harwa- may
be merely an accident of history. We know of such cases in the
history of languages. For example, there are some Slavic loanwords in
Rumanian that have no correspondences in historical Slavic
languages (e.g., zâpádâ f. 'snow,' from Slav. *zapada, etc.). Of
course, other derivatives of the root *k'erH- are known in Germanic,
first of all the noun *hurna = horn. The PIE adjective *k'erHwo-
(full vocalism) // *k'r.Hwo- (zero vocalism) is well attested in many
IE languages; as is well-known, Balto-Slav. *ka:rwa:- 'cow' with an
exceptional kentum treatment of *k'- belongs here too (see Pokorny,
576).
Some interesting traces of the borrowed PSl. *xUrvU can be found in
West Slavic, specifically in Polish. The most important is OPol.
(1494 in the Poznan´ city-book) charwat 'miles in servitio
civitatis,' which seems to represent an adjective with the suffix
-atU from the hypothetical *xUrvU, but is not the exact counterpart
of the ethnicon because from a primary stem in -t we would rather
expect *charwac´, cf. paznokiec, l/okiec, dziesie,c. Another one is
Slovak (with the Polish treatment of *tUrt) charvat' sa // charvit'
sa 'defend oneself,' charva // charvanie 'defense.' There are also
two Kashubian words: charwatynia 'abandoned cottage,' primarily
'sentry shelter' (?), also a place name, and charwan´c (*xUrvanIcI)
'sheaf of grain full of weeds,' probably a derivative from *charwa´c´
'protect' and primarily meaning 'a sheaf used to cover the top of a
shock.' All these lexical facts seem to indicate the existence in the
Northwest PSl. dialects of the noun *xUrvU 'armor' and its
derivatives *xUrvati se, // *xUrviti se, 'get armored' -> 'defend
oneself.' In this connection we should also mention some toponyms in
Poland that seem to continue the ethnicon *XUrvat- in its third
variant *XUrvat- (e.g., OPol. Chrwaty, etc.), which is well
substantiated by the phenomena of the historical phonetics of
Germanic. Other toponyms continuing the most frequent variant
*XUrvat- are known in Northern Bohemia and Northern Moravia. All of
them, incidentally, represent the Polish treatment of the primary
*tUrt as tart: Charváty.
The geographical distribution of these linguistic facts would clearly
point towards the primary location of the prehistorical Croats
(*XUrvaté-) north of the Carpathians on the historical South Polish
territory (Mal/opolska) and towards a subsequent emigration of their
main bulk south through the Moravian Gate. We can even hypothesize
that the burrowing of the Germc. *hurwa- 'horn-armor' took
place somewhere in the sub-Carpathian region, and that its source was
the PGermc. dialect of the Bastarnians, who dwelt along the
eastern Carpathians in the first to third centuries A.D.
What still remains to be explained is the derivational type of the
ethnicon *XUrvat-e, etc., i.e., its consonant-stem suffix -at-. The
consonantal stems with the PIE suffix -et- (admitting the vowel
gradation -(e):t- // -o(:)t-) are rare in Slavic: the only sure
example is pec^atI m., gen. pec^ate 'seal' Among the Slavic ethnica
we can quote *Venete/i and Veleti, both derived from verbal roots
*wen(H)- 'desire; win' and *wel- (Slav. vele^ti) 'command.' But
comparative IE evidence indicates that there were also denominal
derivatives with this suffix (-et-: Lat. equus -> eques (gen.
equitis) 'horseman, horse-soldier' (*eque:t-s), pes (ped-) -> pedes
(gen. peditis) 'pedestrian, foot-soldier' (*pede:t-s), miles (gen.
militis) with no clear etymology; Gr. gumnós -> gumné:s (gen.
gumno^tos) 'a lightarmored foot soldier' can also be quoted here. So
the derivation of *XUrvat- // *Xorvat- from *xUrvU // *xorvU with the
PIE suffix -o:t- (PSl. -at-) seems to have sufficient substantiation.
Of course, it must have been an old and not very productive process.
As far as the primary semantics of *XUrvate is concerned, there seems
to be no doubt that it originally meant 'warriors clad with
horn-armor' und may not have been a name used by a certain tribe for
self-identification, but rather a description applied by the
neighbors of a tribe whose characteristic feature was the use of
horn-armor. It is also possible that *XUrvat-, etc., also denoted a
warrior-class as opposed to plain folk, the latter participating in
war without armor. These suppositions would explain why just on the
territory where we should locate the prehistorical *XUrvaté //
*Xorvaté, i.e.. in Southern Poland, there are no traces whatsoever of
the ethnicon in the local early medieval chronicles and other
sources. In any case, a primary descriptive and exogenous (i.e., used
by the neighbors) name of the tribe known later in history as
C(h)rovati, Xro:bátoi, Hrváti, in the course of time became an
ethnicon, adopted ultimately by this tribe itself, which is expressed
clearly in the official title of the first Croatian ruler: Trpimirus
dux Chroatorum (852 A.D.).'
> > were organized by th Avars along their northern borders (in the
> > Carpathians and beyond) against the looming Turkic threat.
>
> ****GK: Sometime in the 570's.****
>
> > The leading elements were imported from the east and settled
> > among Slavs. Their ethnicity is open to debate: you can try
> > etymologizing the names of the rulers' ancestors from the account
> > in Constantine Porphyrogenitus.
>
> ****GK: (from memory) There were five names (3 "brothers" and two
> "sisters) None seemed particularly Slavic.****
We've been there. I didn't make much headway with them.
>
> After the crisis of the 630's some of these "Croats" moved south.
> Many however remained north and subsequently fused with Czechs,
> Poles, and Ukrainians.
> >
> > When? The communis opinio of Slavic infiltration in the 6th-7th
> > centuries has no archaelogical match-up.
> >
> > GK: I haven't studied the archaeology except for Bulgaria and
> > Greece, which is ample.
>
> Aha. Does the ample archeology of Bulgaria and Greece support your
> scenario?
>
> > But the historical documentation seems sufficient.
>
> So screw the lack of relevant archaeological data? Remind me now,
> what is it that makes you think your scenario is more tenable than
> mine?
>
> ****GK: My scenario of what? Slavic arrival in the Balkans? AFAIK
> then "archaeological problem" in Croatia is the absence of evidence
> for the "Croats" arriving at the time postulated by Constantine P.
> But there is ample evidence for a Slavic presence in the northern
> "croatias" and for Slavic movement into the Balkans in the 6th
> century. I doubt these early arrivals were called "Croats" (just as
> the early Slavs of Bulgaria weren't called "Bulgars"). But a small
> contingent of "croats" from northern Avaria need not have left
> archaeological traces (the 3 brothers and two sisters). In any case
> there is a good deal of evidence for Croats as of the 7th c.
> onwards, and the logic of their name and presence is infinitely
> preferable to your "Harudes" scenario, which makes no sense
> whatever in Slavic history terms.*****
So the absence of archaeological evidence is not your, but someone
else's problem, and in spite of that (or therefore) your scenario is
'infinitely preferable' because it makes sense in terms of Slavic
history?
Torsten