Re: Hercynian (again)

[Reply trimmed and top-posting fixed]

Bhrihskwobhloukstroy:

> 2012/2/25, Tavi <oalexandre@...>:
>
>> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Trond Engen <trond@...> wrote:
>>
>>> <Hercynia> is seen as a latinization of a Celtic word corresponding
>>> to Gmc. *fergun- "mountain". Today it struck me that if Lith.
>>> <Perkunas> "god of heaven and thunder", ON<Fjörgyn> "mother of
>>> Thor" is the same word, that would give us an independent example
>>> of the IE dualism "stone/hammer" ~ "sky" that we glean from the
>>> "hammer" word.
>>>
>>> And now I'm thinking: Since the Hercynian forest spanned across
>>> central Europe from the Rhine to the horizon of the known world, is
>>> it actually possible that *perkW-un- is reconstructable for
>>> Indo-European not only as a generic "mountain (range)" but as a
>>> toponym designing the Carpathian mountains, and could that be the
>>> very origin of the IE semantic duality? Would the Carpathians be
>>> the "sky mountains" seen from the Pontic plain? Would that be where
>>> the god of thunder killed the dragon and unleashed the waters?
>
> @Trond: why the Carpathians and not, for instance, the Alps (as
> well)?

Suggesting it's a toponym rather than a generic is admittedly a stretch,
so the Alps are perhaps not much less likely than the Carpathians. To
me, though, that makes it hard to see both how it could have been coined
from the steppe and how it could have been extended to the mid-German hills.

But anyway, as Douglas made clear, it's probably not an especially good
idea.

--
Trond Engen