You seem not to understand that your *sveNto changes nothing when the relation of Slavic words for world, light and saint is in question. Old Slavic
свѣтъ is, according to Vasmer, related to Russian
светить. It shows that Slavic 'world' is directly linked to "light" (свеча, светило; Cz. svět 'world', svit 'shine', svíce 'candle', svítat 'to dawn'). This "svitat" is known in Czech as "svitnout" also, and in Serbo-Croatian there is a verb "svanuti" (nothing to do with nasalisation) with the same meaning as Czech "svitnout". That the Slavic word for "saint" (Russ. святой, Cz. světec, POl. święty) is related to svet 'world' and svetilo 'light', we can see from the other Slavic words as Russ. сияние 'nimbus', Cz. svatozář 'aureola, nimbus, halo' (as you well know, aureole is "an indication of radiant light (svetilo) drawn around the head of a saint). In addition, there are Slavic names Svetozar (Светозар; mostly among the Serbs and Bulgars) and Svetlozara (a variation of Svetozar "white beam/dawn").
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
From: gpiotr@...
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2009 18:57:08 +0200
Subject: Re: [tied] Re: Afro-Asiatic substrate (re "folk" "polk" "pulkas")
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
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