Re: Norse NEPR

From: Torsten
Message: 67037
Date: 2011-01-06

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Joao S. Lopes" <josimo70@...> wrote:
>
> Is there any etymology for Norse Nepr, Nanna's father?
>
> Nepr < *Napiz, *Napjaz, *Nepaz?
>
> Nordic/Germanic -p- would imply a non-Germanic origin?

But it occurs with -f- (ie. -v-) too:

de Vries:
'Nepr
1 m. auch Nefr PN. 'sohn von Odin'. Etymologie unklar. -
2 m. 'flussname' < russ. Dnepr.'


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanna_(Norse_deity)#Theories
'Some scholars have attempted to link Old Norse Nanna with the Sumerian goddess Inanna, the goddess Nannar/Babylonian Ishtar, or the Phrygian goddess Nana, mother of the god Attis. Scholar Rudolf Simek opines that identification with Inanna, Nannar or Nana is "hardly likely" due to the large distances in time and location between the figures. Scholar Hilda Ellis Davidson says that while "the idea of a link with Sumerian Inanna , 'Lady of Heaven', was attractive to early scholars" the notion "seems unlikely."'


However, just in case Nanna was one of the Vanir, which we have no knowledge of for or against (her son Forseti is listed as one of the Aesir in Gylfaginning
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesir
but so is Njord), ie from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vani
in the Kingdom of
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colchis
(which would have spoken
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mingrelian
at the time), the difference at least in location would be greatly reduced, and her name might be Kartvelian, cf.

Georgij A. Klimov
Etymological Dictionary of the Kartvelian Languages
'Georgian-Zan *nana- 'mummy':
Georg. nana- 'lullaby'; Megr. nana- 'mummy'; Laz nana- 'mother'.
A lexeme manifesting a typical sound-symbolic stem ("nursery word"), a common form of address of mother to child and vice-versa. Variants of this form are present in lullabies (cf. Georg. nanina, Laz nani). The interlanguage identity of the words is caused by their sound-symbolic nature. Similar stems are widely known in the Caucasian area (cf. Abx. a-nan, Chechen nana 'mother'), and beyond its boundaries (cf. PIE *nana-, nena- 'mother, nurse').'



Torsten