From: george knysh
Message: 64470
Date: 2009-07-29
--- On Wed, 7/29/09, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...> wrote:
On 2009-07-29 18:07, Anatoly Guzaev wrote:
> Sviatopolk seems to be the same name as South-Slavic, I think Serbian,
> Svetolik ('white face', 'white effigy'). Of course, svet could also mean
> 'world, holy, sacred, sacremental' , but all these meanings are derived
> from the word svetlo 'light' (cf. Eng. white).
>
No, they aren't. The homonymy of the two words in some Slavic languages
is accidental, due to local mergers of *e^ and *eN. The name
*sveNto-pUlkU is attested in languages preserving the Slavic nasal
vowels, so there can be no doubt as to the identity of the first element.
Piotr
****GK: And Svyatoslav appears as Sventosthlabos (or something very similar, I'm citing from memory) in Constantine Porphyrogenitus, writing in ca. 952 CE.****