From: Torsten
Message: 67024
Date: 2011-01-02
> Wexler again:...
>
> 6.13 GHe nmc. GHe nmc/ + nemec 'German' is attested in a number of
> Hebrew sources, but is unknown in contemporary Yiddish dialects,
> except as a family name. The earliest Hebrew attestation, `rc nmc/
> + `εrec nemec 'land of the Germans' appears in the letter written by
> the Khazar King Joseph to H.asdaj ibn Šaprūţ,
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasdai_ibn_Shaprut
> the representative of the Caliph of Córdoba in the late 10th
> century.45 Brann and others gloss the expression as 'land of the
> Nemetes', from the Celtic (and later Latin) name for 'Speyer', e.g.
> Lat Nemetensis civitas, Nemeta ~ -e ~ -is ~ -um, Nemidone, etc.46
> The translation was amended by Avneri to 'land of the German' in his
> notes to the second edition of Brann, Elbogen, et al., without
> mentioning that the basis for the change was the Slavic term for
> 'German', e.g. So NÄmc < nÄmy 'mute', i.e. 'one who cannot speak
> Slavic'.47 Two Hebrew texts composed by authors from Speyer (dated
> Köln 1382, and possibly the mid-15th century respectively) contain a
> toponym spelled l` dvr, which Brann, Jakobsohn and Rosenthal read as
> + lo dÄvÄr 'no word' - and interpreted as a Jewish name for
> Speyer.48 If this reading is correct, it would show that Rhineland
> Jews in the 14th-15th centuries understood the connection between So
> NÄmc 'German' and nÄmy 'mute'.49 It is, nevertheless, surprising
> that Jews in Speyer - a town so distant from Polabian and Sorbian
> speech territory - would have had a knowledge of some Slavic terms
> (though not necessarily fluency in a Slavic language); though Speyer
> was an important Jewish center in the Middle Ages and may have
> attracted Slavic Jews. These facts give us a basis for assuming that
> knowledge of Slavic extended much further to the west among German
> Jews than among Germans.50
>
>
>
>
> 45 The messenger's name was Ja´aqov ben Eliεzer Nεmεc (see Modelski
> 1910:16, 109; Å iper 1926a:14; Kokovcov 1932:72, fn. 5).
>
> 46 Brann, Jakobsohn, et al. 1:1934:326, 346, fn. 1; Elbogen
> 1934:XVII; Jakobson 1957:45; Jakobson and Halle 1964:171-172. The
> oldest attestation of the root is Gk Nemitzoi 'Germans' in the De
> ceremoniis aulae byzantinae of Constantine Porphyrogenitus (10th
> century) (2, 398; reprinted in Migne 112:1857).
>
> 47 1963:541. The source of GHe nmc could, of course, be any Slavic
> language.
>
> 48 1934:346, fn. 1. Gross proposes alternatively that He l` dvr
> should be read as + lo dvar, a Biblical toponym (e.g. 2 Samuel
> 17:27) that was assigned, on phonetic grounds, to Y loter 'Lorraine
> and neighboring Rhineland' ( ~ G Lothringen 'Lorraine') (1897:296
> -297). Jewish toponyms from the Slavic lands have yet to be
> collected and analyzed with the thoroughness that characterizes
> Gross's treatment of French Jewish toponyms (1897).
>
> 49 The word is not cited at all by Kupfer and Lewicki 1956. A second
> connection between the Jews and Speyer is perhaps Y Å¡apiro ~ -a,
> spiro fam, unless these names are to be derived from JAram Å¡ÄppÄ«r
> 'excellent, handsome' (see Unbegaun 1972:348). On the use of
> medieval He kna´an 'Canaan' in the meaning 'Germany' in addition to
> 'Slavdom' - see P. Rieger 1937. On the use of MedHe `aÅ¡kÉnaz to
> denote Germanic and Slavic groups, see Modelski 1940:84ff; P. Rieger
> 1936; Lewicki 1960 and section 1, fn. 9 above.
>
> 50 Additional evidence of a Judeo-Slavic presence in the Rhineland
> may be found in GHe krzn`/ + krazna fa (Speyer 1384), if this is
> related to USo krasna, Cz krásná 'beautiful; red'. This etymon is
> compelling since there is a German Yiddish translation equivalent,
> e.g. (He) Å¡nljn/ + Å¡enlin fa (Speyer 1407), EY Å¡ejndl (dim) (see
> Kober 1944:207, 209). See also the presence of West Slavic glosses
> in the Hebrew writings of the German and French Jews, though this
> could be due to contact on the written level. The Slavic term for
> 'Germans' also appears as Balkan Jud nemci 'Austrians' (Bunis 1980),
> but through an indirect chain of transmission, i.e. < Ottoman Tu
> nemçe 'Austria' < Ar nimsÄ < MGk Nemitzoi (?) vs. Se Nemci 'German'
> pl, Bucharest Jud nemci 'ib. ' < Rum Neamţ sg (Sala 1971:61, 111).
> The root has both meanings in Turkish. On the possibility of a
> Slavic contribution to the creation of new German "tribes" in
> Western as well as in Eastern Germany, see Bosl 1970:69.'
>
> If Jews arrived with the Nemetes in the RhinelandI forgot this one:
> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/66375
> they would have had to travel down the Rhine to trade.
>