Re: Fw: Re: [tied] Re: Frankish origins

At 5:09:33 PM on Friday, October 30, 2009, Torsten wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott"
> <BMScott@...> wrote:

>> At 7:46:46 PM on Wednesday, October 28, 2009, Torsten
>> wrote:

>>> -- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott"
>>> <BMScott@> wrote:

>>>> At 4:10:01 PM on Sunday, October 25, 2009, Torsten wrote:

>>>>> http://tinyurl.com/yjcsxkk
>>>>> Danish original
>>>>> http://www.verasir.dk/show.php?file=chap22-1-1.html

>>>> He writes:

>>>> I Kalevala har Ukko heitet "ylijumala", der i dag
>>>> oversættes til "God of Mercy/Lykkens Gud", men
>>>> oprindeligt må have haft betydningen "Julens Herre",
>>>> jvf. julemandens navn "Ýlir" i Norge/Island i 900
>>>> tallet e.Kr.

>>>> But <ylijumala> is 'high god' (<yli> 'over, above; more
>>>> than', <jumala> 'god'). In fact, Václav Blaz^ek thinks
>>>> that the name <Ukko> itself is an adaptation of Baltic
>>>> *uka- > Prussian <ucka-> 'prefix expressing the
>>>> superlative' (as in <ucka-kuslaisin> 'weakest'): the
>>>> first god of the Prussian pantheon is in record as
>>>> <Occopirmus> 'Saturnus' 1530, <Ockopirmus> 'der erste
>>>> Gott Himmels vnd Gestirnes' (16th cent.), and
>>>> <Occopirnum> 'deum coeli et terrae' 1563. He concludes:
>>>> 'It is generally accepted that the compound *Uka-pirmas
>>>> meant "most first"'.

>>> But where does that leave Öku-Þor then?

>> It says nothing about it at all.

> What it?

Blaz^ek's hypothesis says nothing about the Scandinavian
name <Öku-Þórr>.

>> If you believe Snorri, Ukko is totally irrelevant;

> ?? How so?

Because Snorri takes <Öku-> to be a derivative of <aka> 'to
drive (a vehicle)', referring to Thor's goat-drawn cart,
thereby making it a purely Norse development.

>> if you think that <Ukko> is the source of <Öku->, the
>> source of <Ukko> is still irrelevant.

> Erh, why?

Why ask such a stupid question? If the Norse byname is
borrowed from the Finnish theonym, the source of the theonym
is prima facie irrelevant to that act of borrowing. Middle
English borrowers of Old North French <cherise> 'cherry'
didn't know that it was from Greek <kerasos> by way of Latin
<cerasus> and Late Latin <ceresia>.

>> The real point is that this is a very basic error, as is
>> the error about <Ýlir>. If he can't even get this stuff
>> right, I'm not inclined to trust him about much of
>> anything, or to take him very seriously as a scholar.

> I can understand that these matters of prestige are very
> important to you so I won't press the point.

Don't be an ass. I'm talking about his evident lack of
*competence*. I couldn't care less about his formal
credentials.

Are you unable to distinguish 'doesn't know what he's
talking about' from 'doesn't have a high reputation in the
field' or from 'doesn't have the usual formal credentials'?

[...]

>>> True, bungled, but...
>>> I don't think we can escape 'jól' on this one.

>> It's certainly a possibility. But then Yule itself is the
>> underlying idea, referring to a time and a festival.

> And still one of Odin's names is Jólnir

So what?

>> [...]

>>>> De tidligst kendte stednavne i Britannien, hvori indgår
>>>> "Jól", er "Youlton" (Jól's tun) i North Yorkshire, og
>>>> "Youlthorpe" (Jól's thorp) i East Riding, Yorkshire.

>>>> Here's what Watts has to say about the place-names:

>>>> S.n. <Youlton>: 'Joli's estate'. <Loletun(e)> (for
>>>> <Iole-> 1086, <Yolton'> 1295-1508.

>>>> S.n. <Youlthorpe>: 'Eyjulfr's outlying farm', later
>>>> 'Yole's outlying farm', with spellings <Aiul(f)torp> 1086,
>>>> <Hiel-, Hioltorp> 12th c., <Yolt(h)orpe(e)> 12th-1359.
>>>> From the 12th cent. this name contains a different
>>>> pers.n., ME <Yole> from ON <Jól>, <Jóli>.

>>>> So this one apparently never did contain the Scandinavian
>>>> name as such and didn't acquire its ME borrowing until the
>>>> 12th century.

>>> Apparently Watts' Eyulfr hangs on the 1086 form alone.
>>> Are you sure that is not a folk normalization of an
>>> unusual name?

>> As sure as one can be in such cases. If it were a folk
>> normalization, it would most likely have persisted.

> It can go either way, as you very well know.

I know how to play the odds.

>> Besides, the manner in which DB was constructed means
>> that odd forms are generally the result of Anglo-Norman
>> misunderstanding of native input. Here we have a
>> perfectly expectable AN rendering of a late OE form of
>> <Eyjulfsþorp>.

> Can't say it couldn't happen. [...]

I *can* say, however, that it's very unlikely, and that
there's no evidence for it. I also cannot absolutely
exclude the possibility that it's the result of telepathic
control of the scribes by invisible pink unicorns.

Brian