Re: Morimarusa

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

>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Torsten" <tgpedersen@> wrote:
> >
> > > 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.
> >
> > Scholar shouldn't do that.
> > Bent Jørgensen: Stednavneordbog
> >
> > 'Himmerland ... *1231 Himbersysel, 1268 Ymbersysul ...'
> >
> > Danish did then have a tendency to -mr- > -mbr- etc, so one might
> > explain it that way, if needed, but Pliny places the Cimbrians in
> > Jutland.
>
> Here's a *very* tentative idea:
>
> I have a suspicion the Germanic "heaven" is a loan
>
> Wortschatz der Germanischen Spracheinheit:
> 'hemina, hemila m. Himmel, Zimmerdecke. g. himins m. Himmel;
> an. himinn m. dass.;
> as. heBan und himil m.,
> afries. himel, himul,
> ags. heofon m., engl. heaven;
> ahd. himil m. Himmel, Zimmerdecke,
> mnd. himel, nhd. Himmel.
>
> Davon abgeleitet
> ahd. himilizi, himilze,
> mhd. himelze, himelz n. Zimmerdecke, Baldachin,
> mnd. hemelte Zimmerdecke, ndl. gehemelte Gaumen (aus he-militia-).
> Vgl. gr. kmélethron. (73:8)'
>
> 1) the odd suffix -et-,
> 2) the inlaut alternation w/m and
> 3) the auslaut alternation l/n (some kind of heteroclitic)
> sets it apart from other Germanic words (except for *litel- and *mikel- also having property 3)

The inlaut alternation is due to *-mn- > *-Bn- in those cases which have zero-grade in the /n/-suffix. Old Norse has nom. sg. <himinn> against dat. sg. <hifne>. Old English <heofon> has simply generalized the -B- to all cases. See Streitberg, Urg. Gr. 143.

The auslaut alternation does occur in other Gmc. words, e.g. Old Norse <freknor> 'freckles'. See Noreen, Abriss der urg. Lautlehre 193-4. This is Suffixwechsel, not heteroclisis as normally understood with the r/n-stems.

I see no good reason to regard all these as loans.

> Now cf.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tengriism
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tengri
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tian

This is far beyond my realm. I cannot even read any MODERN Chinese, and in order to evaluate this material properly, one needs to be able to read the oracle-bone texts.

> and I propose (sort of):
>
> tengri -> *c^iNri -> *k^imri

Funny direction for the articulation to move.

> Voilà, Heaven, and Cimmerians/Cimbrians, assuming they were ultimately steppe nomads (and tengriists).

Homer has only a dim knowledge of the Kimmerioi, but they are not nomads, since he mentions their city (Od. 11:14). Herodotus (bk. 4) has them driven out of their homes around the Palus Maeotis by the Scythians in the second half of the 7th cent. BCE. If we are to connect their name with 'heaven', the best hypothesis is to derive both from PIE *k^em- 'to cover' (IEW 556). The morphology is difficult, so this is only tentative, but in such a case the Kimmerioi would be 'Covered Ones', those dwelling in permanent houses, in CONTRAST to the Scythians and other nomads.

Whether some of the Kimmerioi became the Cimbri remains to be seen.

> And since the PIE'ers were too, perhaps we should include
> PIE dyw- "day; supreme god"
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyeus
> and why not
> Etruscan tin "day; supreme god"
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinia
> and
> Estonian taevas "sky"

Etr. <Tinscvil> 'Production of Tin' vel sim., epithet of Minerva, shows that the /i:/ was long (otherwise *Tenscvil in recent Etr.). I believe <Ti:n> is borrowed from a pre-Italic IE language; the grade is the same as in Gmc. *Ti:waz, but with a different suffix.

Est. <taevas> is patently borrowed from Proto-Baltic.

DGK