Re: Town, Zaun, and Celtic Dun-

>
> > Explain this then:
> > Vannetais Breton paoter "little boy",
> > Dutch peuter "small child",
> > Latin puer "boy"
>
> Well, the Breton and Dutch words _could_ be examples of renewed
> sound-symbolism, could they not?

What is renewed sound-symbolism?

> > > I'm trying hard to convey my point (of the inherent possibility
> > > of pure coincidence in name similarity), which I hope you have
> > > understood; to me it seems self-evident and need not be
> > > questioned.
> >
> > I don't think that is self-evident at all. What would you think
> > of the possibility of pure coincidence if you found names like
> > 'Lakeesha' or 'Jawanda' of someone living in Japan, and would you
> > infer something about connection to other people named 'Lakeesha'
> > or 'Jawanda' living in the USA and Canada?
>
>
> Hmmm. Well, in the names you offered as examples,
>
> ags. Pæ:ga, afries. Paya, mnd. Paye: ill. Pai(i)o Patus,
> ags. Pælli: etr. Palla Palius, ags. Pant-: ill. Panto Pantia,
> ags. Passa (vgl. oben) : ill. Passia Passena, etr. Passius,
> ags. Patt Patta (vgl. oben) : ill. Patalus Patalius, etr. Patius
> Patina (u. a.),
> ags. Pic *Picc- Pi:cil, alts. *Pikul (vgl. oben): etr. Pica,
> ags. *Pinna: ill. Pinnes Pinneus Pinnius, etr. Pennus,
> ags. Piot Peot(t) *Pita Peota: etr. Pitio Pitius Pettius,
> alts. Poppo: etr. Puppius Pupius Pupenus Pup(p)onius (u. a.),
> germ. *Pul- *Pull- (s. oben) : ill. Pullus (Pylios) Pula-, etr.
> Pullas Pullo Pullius,
> alts. Pumi, ags. Pymma: etr. Pumidius Pummidius (vgl. den Nachtrag).
>
> the OE names tend to end in -a or a consonant, whereas the Illyrian
> and Etruscan names mostly end in -us, with some in -a or -o, and
> some in -ius or -ia, a sound combination which is not found in most
> OE words or names.

Lat. -ius is PIE *-ijo- is PGmc *-ija- I believe? That ending is used in ethnonyms, eg. *Wagn-ija-, they could be family names from simplex names in PIE -o-, PGmc -a-.

> They are not so perfectly similar as finding 'Lakeesha' or
> 'Jawanda' in Japan. But I think even 'Lakeesha' and 'Jawanda' fit
> Japanese sound-patterns if you make the one change of [l] to [r]
> (the lack of either of which is so common in east asian languages,
> earlier stages of the languages might have had both sounds -- I'm
> no expert about this), so if you found names similar to these in
> Japanese records, you might not ascribe them to an African-American
> substrate.

The point I was trying to make is that if you found those words in a Japanese context _today_, you'd make those inferences.

> OK, early and heroic Germanic literature would not have many names
> beginning with [p], since this ethnic group did not have frequent
> initial [p], but by the time of most Old English literature [p] had
> become significantly more common through borrowing

From a substrate, because over time the social lines blurred, and names or words before left unmentioned began to appear in the literature.

> (and perhaps innovation), so names beginning with [p] would
> probably not have been felt to be ethnically foreign, as in earlier
> periods, and therefore new names with initial [p] might have been
> invented at a later period.

But they would not have matched foreign names in NWGermany and the Netherlands like some if these do.

> That is, if I understand your point correctly.
> How many names with consonants other than [p] look to be of
> Illyrian/Venetic/Etruscan origin?

The only other type of NWBlock words we can tell against the Germanic background are those in *TVT-, for T unvoiced stop (they would, if Germanic, had come from *DVD-, for D voiced unaspirated stop, which is not a permitted PIE root structure.

> Do any of them?

Other than those, we don't know.

> I'm sure they all look sufficiently Anglo-Saxon that scholars would
> not wonder whether they are of foreign origin, though they could
> be. But because of the status of [p] in Germanic, names beginning
> with this phoneme are probably the only ones questioned as being of
> foreign origin, as though only names with initial [p] were
> borrowed, the rest being native. If names without initial [p] are
> not questioned and considered native, I see no reason why names
> with initial [p] must be questioned, since [p] was an initial
> phoneme in OE. I'm sure many of the names without initial [p],
> considered native, might also be innovations like Lakeesha or
> Jawanda, only they don't have this controversial initial [p].

Are you saying that 'questioning' the phoneme /p/ on its Germanicness is unfair because the other phonemes aren't which makes it ethnic profiling against the poor /p/ and so it shouldn't be done? You can't be serious.

> Of course, the names without initial [p] might also be of foreign
> substrate origin, if the names with initial [p] prove that some OE
> names are of foreign substrate origin. I'm just saying that
> although this may be true, my explanation might also be true. I
> just don't find names with initial [p] all that controversial in OE
> or any other Gmc language.

I don't find them controversial either. Nor do I find them Germanic.

> Also, if the Gmc and Anglo-Saxon tribes did borrow these and other
> names from the substrate people, I think it would show that they
> had a lot of respect and esteem for these substrate people,

Except they didn't in this hypothesis. Those who had those names were the substrate people themselves.

> yet the lack of any mention of these peoples in any Gmc literature
> (am I wrong on this point?) seems to imply the opposite, that the
> substrate people were of little value to the Gmc and Anglo-Saxon
> tribes.

Kuhn says somewhere they were called laeti in Northern Germany, something with *skalk- or the like in Southern Germany, but I can't find the quote.

> Hence I would think the Anglo-Saxons would be quite unlikely to
> name their sons and daughters after these insignificant people.

True. And they didn't.

> > Ah, thought you'd never ask. Voilà:
> > http://www.angelfire.com/rant/tgpedersen/KuhnText/list.html

>
> Unfortunately I am unable to open the link you have provided. I
> don't know what's wrong.

Works fine here. Try copying the URL.


Torsten