Re: Morimarusa

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:

>
>
> > If Proto-Germanic from Silesia is a language of Jastorf people in
> > Silesia, the languages of Jastorf were Para-Germanic. If it came
> > from the east, they were not closely related to Germanic. The one
> > word we have in Cimbric in Morimarusa "dead sea" of the Skagerrak.
> > That doesn't look Germanic. Cf. Lat. mortu-, Venetic murtuv-, ChSl.
> > mrUtvU, Celtic marwo-.
>
> *mar-/*mor- in the sense "sea" has /a/ in Germanic,
> cf. for ON de Vries
>
> 'marr 1 m. 'meer, see' (< urn. *mariR),
> fär. mar-, marrur, nnorw. mar, nschw. da. mar-;
> vgl. shetl. mar. — got. mari saiws, ae. mere 'see, sumpf, as. ahd.
> meri, afr. mnl. mere. —
> lat. mare,
> gall. Morini, Aremorici VN., air. muir (< mori),
> asl. morje 'meer', lit. mãres 'haff'. —
> vgl. mara 2, maralmr, merki 2, merski, mærr und mo,rulfr.
>
> Für den Wechsel der bed. 'meer' und 'morast' vgl. flói.
> Mit hinsicht auf mór 'sandige ebene', vergleicht Torp, Wb. 411 noch
> nschw. dial. mar 'untiefe bucht, see', fär, mar 'schlamm', ndä. dial.
> mare 'moorland'; also bed. entw, 'morast' > 'strandmoor' > 'meer' ? —
> Dagegen unter anknüpfung an lat. amarus auch erklärt als Salzwasser
> (H. Schröder, Ablautstudien 1910, 7-8). —
> Finn. meri, wot. estn. meri, liv. mér, kann aus dem germ. aber auch
> aus slav. oder balt. entlehnt sein (Thomsen 2, 198). — Die umlautlose
> form marr viell. unter einfluss von Zss. wie maralmr, marbakki (Neuman
> APhS 4, 1930, 239; wenig wahrscheinlich).'

We might consider the possibility that <Morimarusa> and <Cimbri> come from an unshifted Proto-Germanic dialect. According to Pliny, "Philemon Morimarusam a Cimbris vocari scribit; hoc est mare mortuum usque ad promunturium Rubeas, ultra deinde Cronium." If, as seems likely, this was the comedian Philemon of Syracuse, who came to Athens around 330 BCE and died in 262, the Cimbrian gloss probably comes from Pytheas of Massilia, and was collected sometime around 300.

Many scholars have taken <Morimarusa> as Celtic for 'Mare Mortuum', but Celtic *mori (Irish <muir> etc.) is neuter. The Celtic place-name Hellenized as <Morikámbe:> (now Morecambe Bay, Lancs.) is to be understood not as 'Curved Sea' but as a determinative compound 'Sea-Curve', like <Moridunum> 'Sea-Fort'. On the basis of Irish <marb>, Welsh <marw>, and Gaulish morphology, we should expect *Mori Marwon for 'Dead Sea', which would be Hellenized into something like *Morimárouon, a far cry from the Plinian form.

Germanic however does have a feminine *mari:- (Gothic <marei>, which retains the long stem because it went over to the weak declension, and Old Saxon <meri>). If the second part of our Cimbrian name means 'dead', its formation can be analyzed as an unreduplicated zero-grade perfect active participle. The morphological parallel is 'knowing', Epic Greek fem. nom. sg. <iduîa>, Sanskrit <vidús.i:>, PIE *wid-ús-ih2 from *weid- 'to see, know'. The root *mer- 'to die, be dead' would then have a corresponding fem. nom. sg. part. *mr.-ús-ih2.

It is not problematic that Pytheas would hear a pretonic */r./ or */@r/ (later Gmc. */ur/) as /ar/. But the participle should have agreed in auslaut with the noun, /i:/ from */ih2/, unless the participial fem. nom. sg. was remodelled in this dialect. Such remodelling could have followed the oblique sg. cases which took *-yéh2-, e.g. fem. gen. sg. *mr.-us-yéh2-s, *wid-us-yéh2-s (Skt. <vidus.yá:s>). This would yield in Cimbrian something like *m@...:, and when Pytheas asked the natives for the name of this body of water, it is not implausible that he would hear *Móri: M@...: as a single name, *Moreimarousá:, no more outlandish than <Pelopónne:sos> or <Halikarnassós> or the like.

One objection raised by scholars to the connection between <Cimbri> and <Himmerland> is that no variants *Chimbri or *Himbri are known, casting doubt on a Gmc. /x/ in the ancient name. This can be easily explained by the establishment of the form <Kímbroi> already in Philemon's time. Unlike the Chatti, Chamavi, Hermunduri, Harudes, etc., there was no novelty with the Cimbrian tribe, and the old name stuck, no matter how the Germans were pronouncing it in Caesar's time and later. One might still object that Caesar (B.G. 1:37) mentions a Sueban chief Cimberius in the same sentence as the Harudes, but this can also be explained:

"... Haedui [veniebant] questum quod Harudes, qui nuper in Galliam transportati essent, fines eorum popularentur; sese ne obsidibus quidem datis pacem Ariovisti redimere potuisse; Treveri autem, pagos centum Sueborum ad ripas Rheni consedisse, qui Rhenum transire conarentur; his praeesse Nasuam et Cimberium fratres."

Caesar was otherwise familiar with the Harudes, but he knew of Cimberius only through the report of a Treveran legate. Since Gaulish had no initial /x/, it is likely that the legate would have substituted /k/ in this name. A similar mechanism explains Late Latin <cami:sia> 'military tunic, shirt' as a loanword through Gaulish intermediacy from Gmc. *xami:þjam (Old English <hemeðe>, Old High German <hemidi>, etc.). As a footnote, one of Caesar's assassins was L. Tillius Cimber. At any rate we have no grounds to regard <Cimbri> as a Celtic name, or as containing shifted Gmc. /k/ rather than unshifted /k/ corresponding to shifted /x/.

> but there are a few words with *mor- for "sea" which could be
> survivors of the language the Cimbri (among others) spoke.
>
> de Vries:
> 'mo,rueldr, maurueldr m. 'meerleuchten'
> [a bioluminiscence phenomenon caused by algae,
> http://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morild
> http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/glowingalgae/
> no Engl. name?]
> nisl. maurildi, fär. mureldur, nnorw. moreld, maureld, mørueld,
> murueld, nschw. mareld, ädä. marild. — >
> shetl. marelde, marilde, moril; ->
> orkn. miracles (Marwick 115).
> Die formen scheinen sich später an marr 'meer' angelehnt zu haben (s.
> Falk ANF 5, 1889, 123). — Man kann aber auch vergleichen norw. dial.
> maren 'morsch, verfault', marna 'morsch werden', die zu merja gehören;
> vgl. auch meyrr. Die form maurueldr steht neben orw. d al. mauren
> 'bröckelig, verfault', maurvid 'verfaultes holz', nach Jóhannesson
> Suff. 35 zu maura 'wimmeln'.'
>
> 'mo,rulfr m.
> 'Seeteufel, lophius piscatorius',
> nnorw. marul, marulk, nschw. dial. marulk. — >
> orkn. marwol, shetl. marul. —
> vgl. marr 1 und ulfr.

These forms suggest at least the possibility that some marginal maritime dialect of Proto-Germanic escaped the sound-shifting which affected the principal dialects, and a few unshifted words were borrowed back. For 'wolf' the dissimilative labialization of */hW/ to /f/ must have postdated the Grimm-Verner-Kluge shifts, since Old Norse <ylgr> 'she-wolf' requires a Gmc. *wulgi:- from unshifted *wl.kWí:-. While *wl.´kWo- 'he-wolf' became in principal dialects *wulhWa-, later *wulfa-, our hypothetical maritime dialect would retain *(mori-)wulkWo- '(sea-)wolf' (i.e. a lophiid or similar fish). This would be sometimes borrowed, sometimes translated, into principal dialects, leading to the attested variety of forms.

On the other hand a Celtic loanword is also formally possible, since we have Old Irish <olc> 'evil'; something like *mori-ulk- might literally have meant 'Seeteufel'. How plausible this is as a loanword under these circumstances, I cannot say.

> The Gmc.-ness of the second elmt. of either is doubtful.
>
> de Vries:
> 'eldr m. 'feuer',
> nisl. far. eldur, nnorw. dial. e(i)ld, e(i)ll, nschw. eld, dial. aild,
> jald, nda. ild. —
> ae. æl(e)d, as. e:ld, 'feuer, brand' (s E. Schwarz 210),
> vgl. daneben ae. a:l, æ:l 'flamme', ælan 'branden' —
> Etymologie unsicher.
> Nach Sievers IF 4, 1894, 339 germ.. *aila < *aiðla, und dann zur idg.
> wzl. *aidh 'brennen' (vgl. eisa 1), stimmt aber lautlich nicht und die
> Schwierigkeit wird nicht dadurch behoben, dass man einfluss eines
> anderen wortes aus idg. *ale:to (vgl ai. ala:tam 'feuerbrand, kohle',
> lat. adoleo 'verbrenne') annimmt (so Johansson ZfdPh 31, 1899, 285-8).
> Geht man aus von *ailiða, dann hilft uns der verweis auf eimr nicht
> viel weiter, während die Verbindung mit einer wzl. *il 'schwellen'
> (vgl. afr. ili, ae. ile, nnl. eelt 'schwiele', FA Wood JEGPh 13, 1914,
> 500) der bed. nach unbefriedigend ist. —
> vgl. elda 1, eldi 2, elding und Eldir.
> Nur selten in PN. wie Eldgrímr, Eldjárn, Eldríðf.'

I see no problem getting <eldr> from PIE *h2l.tó-, participle of *h2el- 'to burn as a sacrifice' whose specialized sense is retained in Latin <adoleo:> and <alta:ria>. However, the connection between <eldr> and <mo,rueldr>, <maurueldr> may well be paretymological. I have no good suggestions for these two forms.

> and the -ulf- part of the fish name
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lophius_piscatorius
> http://www.norden.org/faktaof/text/20havtaske.htm
> http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marulk
> is probably a translation into Germanic of the -ulk- which occurs in
> the Norw. and Sw. words, which would then means "wolf" in 'Cimbric',
> ie the pre-Gmc. language of the latter territory of North Germanic.
>
> Cf Da. ulk "bull rout"
> http://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulk
> http://www.habitas.org.uk/marinelife/species.asp?item=ZG4340
> also known to Danish fishermen as 'Copenhagener'
>
> DEO has another explanation of ulk, Norw. ulk(e), which I find less
> satisfactory.

I find your explanation quite satisfactory. The difficult part is pinning down the source of this -ulk-.

DGK