Re: The etymology of herold

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

>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@> wrote:
> >
> > W dniu 2010-01-19 18:15, Torsten pisze:
> >
> > > It is?
> > > How come there has been, according to Markey, a row over the
> > > hari-, instead of expected *harja- on the Negau helmet?
> > > http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/65634
> > > <http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/65634>
> >
> > Because the reading of the Negau inscripotion as containing a
> > Germanic name is doubtful?
>
> It's the best one around, it seems.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negau
> Markey seems to think it's bad Germanic, influenced by Rhetic.

If I understand M. correctly, he regards it as nom. sg. in "Rhetic" (which he considers "Etruscoid") of an originally Gmc. name. His argument only makes partial sense when inverted. If the insc. were securely a Gmc. name, the apparent discrepancy with the expected nom. sg. would be due to the inadequacy of Etr. orthography. A weakly sounded final -s or -z might not be written at all.

One problem I have is that <t> might represent /d/. Also <ei>, if an actual diphthong, where Proto-Gmc. already had /i:/. And <h> might conceivably be Celtic /p/ on its way to zero. That is, the text could be Illyrian or Celtic as well as Germanic.

DGK