From: Trond Engen
Message: 69880
Date: 2012-06-26
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "o_cossue" <o.cossue@...> wrote:Considering the zero-grade, there are several Norwegian instances of a
>
>> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "dgkilday57" <dgkilday57@> wrote:
>>
>>> The place-name Berganza (Prov. Lugo, Prov. A'lava), with the steep
>>> coastal region Bergantin~os (Prov. La Corun~a), corresponds to the
>>> Norwegian river-name Bergunda, continuing *bHe'rg^H-n.t-ih2
>>> 'protecting, elevated, difficult' vel sim. River- and place-names
>>> of the form *Brigantia (Bregenz, Brienz, Brent, Braint) in my
>>> opinion are based on the root *wreigH- 'to turn, twist, wriggle'
>>> (cf. Gallo-Latin<brigantes> 'parasitic worms', Marc. Burd.), not
>>> *bHerg^H-.
>>
>> Just a remark on the mentioned Galician toponyms and their evolution;
>> actually, the 9th-10th-11th centuries form of "Bergantiños" was one
>> of 'Bregantinos/Bragantinos/Bracantinos/Bricantinos', where <c> is
>> there most probably as a guess of the scribe, knowing that
>> intervocalic Latin stops usually produced locally lenited variants.
>> The metathesis -rV- < > -Vr-, common in Galician, is in this
>> particular case recent, of the 14th century. East of "Bergantiños"
>> there is the city of Coruña, ancient Brigantium, which territory was
>> known in the 10th century as 'Faro Bregancio'. A rather similar
>> evolution was that of the northern Portuguese town of Bragança,
>> which was known in the Middle Ages as 'Bregancia', and as 'Brigantia'
>> in a 6th century document preserved in medieval copies. Anyone of
>> these (the last one in my opinion) was the Visigothic mint (7th
>> century) of 'Bergancia'.
>>
>> On the other hand, Bergantiños (< *Brigantînos, IMHO either a Latin
>> derivative of Brigantium or Celtic *brigantîno- 'prince', hence 'The
>> Princes') was actually (in the High Middle Ages) the valley of the
>> Anllóns river (known as Esso/Discessu back there), whilst the coastal
>> areas were known as Salagia (< *Sâlawyâ/*Sâlâwyâ, to *Seh2l- 'salt',
>> MIr sál 'sea, ocean'). The highest point here is mount "Neme" (IMHO <
>> Celtic *nemos- 'sky' < *nebh- 'cloud', as Latin nimium 'excessive'
>> was probably not used in the formation of place names). East of
>> 'Bregantinos' and 'Salagia' there were the lands of 'Faro Bregancio'
>> (as a reference to the Roman lighthouse built at Brigantium, now
>> known as "Tower of Hercules") and 'Nemitos' (now "Nendos" < Celtic
>> *nemeto- 'sanctuary', but maybe also 'strong', and so 'The Strong
>> (Sacred) ones'). To the west there were the lands of 'Somnaria' or
>> 'Subnaria', now "Soneira", < *'Sub Neria' = "next to Neria", maybe as
>> a reference to the lands of the Celtici Neri (< Celtic *nero- 'hero',
>> hence 'The heroes'); and the lands of 'Celticos', now "Celtigos", in
>> references to the Celtici Supertamarici. All these regions -the
>> coastal areas of Galicia in general, together with the valley of the
>> Ulla river- hold the largest number of Celtic or Celtic looking place
>> names in the Iberian Peninsula.
>
> All right, I see where I was wrong. The Bergant-forms do continue
> theCeltic zero-grade *Brigant-, corresponding to Gmc. *Burgund-, not
> *Bergund-. And as a working hypothesis I should take coastal Galicia
> and the Ulla valley as the Celtic homeland, retaining Aquitania as
> the secondary P-Celtic homeland, unless someone points out a problem
> with that.