That academics write stupid things is hardly a secret. I’ve recently come across people asking questions asking about books/articles claiming a “Vandal” connection for the Przeworsk culture. These were written by Andrzej Kokowski with some other (for example, Magdalena Mączyńska)  archeologists working in Poland.

Ok, well, these guys may well be good at digging holes and item reclamation (which are important!) but their cognitive skills appear to be underdeveloped. The thesis they present is a retread of various stories previously told by the linguist turned dilettante archeologist, Gustaf Kossina (who also gets the title of the (prior) turn of the century’s most prominent self-hating Pole), the Nazi Martin Jahn or the old Spinner Herwig Wolfram. Indeed, Kokowski’s book cites many of the above (and then some) approvingly as authorities on this topic. Usually, citing a Nazi for substantive claims is not the best career move but, hey, Nazi, Shmatzi (I’ve written about these gentlemen before.

Kokowski, who branched out into Vandals, taking time from his primary career focus of locating Goths (the man finds Goths wherever he looks – about the only thing he can’t ever locate are Suavs – perhaps even today) seems to believe that the Przeworsk culture must have been Vandalic because, among other things, a few Przeworsk artifacts had been found in Denmark. Now this is, of course, quite an unassailable argument… But it does leave one confused since, typically, a finding of a clearly Scandinavian provenance in Poland would, among the researchers of this crowd, be viewed as proof of Scandinavian presence in Poland. Yet the finding of Przeworsk artifacts in Scandinavia proves that all of Przeworsk was Scandinavian. This method of conducting archeology appears distressingly similar to the method described before here by Karel Sklenář: “wherever a single find of a type designated as Germanic was found, the land was declared ancient German territory.“

Of course, as far as the substance is concerned, there is less evidence for the existence of the Vandals in Poland in antiquity than there is for Chinese in the Americas pre-Columbus (indeed even less than for Goths!). In effect, both Kokowski and Menzies are activists of a cause and their science, such as it is, stands on the ever-wobbly feet of wishful thinking. The only difference is that the UK has not made the latter a professor of anything. That is pretty much all that needs to be said about the theories spouted by Kokowski, and others.

Guerriero Ostrogoto!

Kokowski, who, I think, is a sincere believer in his theories, is not alone. Other academics are excited to find allegedly foreign artifacts in Poland. Here you can find out about the Bodzia cemetery where Andrzej Buko found a “Viking” using genetic testing. How can you argue with genetics – a “hard” science after all. Now, the testing showed that this particular Viking’s closest relatives today live in Tyrolean Alps (not Scandinavia or Russia where he is said to have come from) but never mind that since, after all, even the hilly Tyrol may have once sat under the Tethys Ocean.

Vikings in Tyrol

Another archeologist, Ewa Pawlak discovered a silver cup and a spoon with old-Germanic “runic” inscription at Jarocin. How do we know these runes were Germanic – as in Teutonic? Surely, because they decoded the runes, right? Unfortunately, that was not possible so they just concluded that since runic alphabets were used by people living in Central Europe and since we all know that Central Europe was at the time occupied by Teutons, therefore the spoon must be Teutonic too… thereby, proving definitively that Teutonic tribes occupied Central Europe at that time. It is unclear whether these folks believe that the present finding of the Latin alphabet and Arabic numerals in Poland strongly suggests that Poland is currently primarily occupied by an Italian-Arabic mix (perhaps, Indian, given the origin of our numerals). (Incidentally, if anyone knows where a picture of that spoon may be obtained, let me know – the spoon seems to have gone underground).

Ze proof vee hav biin veiting vor!

If you are interested in alternative history of the type practiced by Menzies or Kokowski, check out Manuel Rosa’s Columbus book where the author claims Columbus was a Polish prince (actually (part-Portuguese and part) Lithuanian since, his father – Władysław III of Varna – had both Lithuanian parents – Władysław II (Jogaila) and Sophia of Halshany). In any event, whatever his parentage, the Chinese apparently beat him to the Americas. Sigh.

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It is interesting to observe that every time you have a good idea, there well may be someone else who had it first.

I wrote about the fact that the River Odra (Oder) may have actually been previously referred to as the Vistula here and here and here among other places. Interestingly, the same idea was already brought up by the Polish historian Leszek Moczulski some years back. In his writing, the river had been mislabeled Vistula  by someone who previously may have heard of the Vistula and then, having crossed into Poland, noticed a river and thought that must be it. Mistakes happen in exploration as the “Native Americans” aka “Indians” can attest to.

I previously (here and here) also suggested that “Slavi” simply means “Z Łaby” that is “from the Elbe”. While this is a bit more farfetched it is intriguing and I was surprised to find out that this same idea had already circulated about in, I believe, the 18th century. I was not able to relocate it but if you recall where that is feel free to leave a post on the topic.

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The Celtic God Esus is not frequently mentioned. There is a limited number of sources that we are dealing with here. Aside from Lucan and the Bern Commentary on the same, there are very few mentions of Esus (if you do not include the Polish Yassa, Yessa or the Latvian Ūsiņš).

One such mention is the mention in the so-called De medicamentis written by Marcellus Empiricus aka Marcellus Burdigalensis (that is Marcellus of Bordeaux). He was a writer from Gaul who wrote at the turn of the 4th and 5th centuries. De medicaments is a medical book which includes the best medicine had to offer at that time, that is, such medicines as were then available plus some magic. The book is preserve n several manuscripts, among them the Parisianus 6880, the Laudunensis 420 and the Arundelianus 166. The first edition was that of Cornarius (1536) followed by Helmsreich (1889) and Niedermann (1916).

Among other things the work contains an incantation or charm to help with throat issues. The standardard article on that is Gustav Must’s (“A Gaulish Incantation in Marcellus of Bordeaux”).

That incantation supposedly in Gaulish/Celtic seems to mention the God Esus. Or, rather, it mentions a word that people have interpreted as Esus. That word actually is Aisus and the incantation in Must’s reading goes as follows:

XI EXV CRICON EXV CRIGLION AISVS SCRI SV MIO VELOR EXV GRICON EXV GRILAV.

Here is the Cornarius edition:

And here is the Helmsreich edition:

So what does the actual text look like? Well, here is the Parisinus:

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Since we were having fun with the Italic connection in the context of dogs here, another thought occurred to me.

If you ask what the word “enemy” is in Latin, you will get the following response:

• hostis

This is essentially the same word as guest – also cognate with ghost or ghost or the Germanic Gast or the Suavic gość. Guest is also cognate with the guest’s “host.” Of course a “guest” could turn “hostile” and, presumably, that is the source of the double meaning involved here. Perhaps, some guests were first guests but then became enemies of their hosts. The reconstructed PIE is *gʰóstis.

Maybe…

Be that as it may, there is another word for “enemy” in Latin:

• inimicus

This is not difficult to comprehend. After all, amīcus means “friend” so in- (“not”) plus amīcus means as much as “not friend,” or, “enemy.”

Now this is where things get interesting. There are certain languages that drop the initial vowel resulting in:

• nemico, nimico (Italian)
• nemigo (Venetic)
• nimicu, nnimicu, nemicu (Sicilian)
• nemmico (Neapolitan)
• nemaic (Dalmatian)

Compare this too with the Old Occitan nimistà (enmity).

Now if you ask, for example, what is the plural of the Italian nemico you will find out that you have to go with:

• nemici 

The reconstructed Suavic word for Germans is, of course:

• *němьcь

In the various Suavic languages you have:

• Niemiec (Polish)
• Němec (Czech)
• Nemec (Slovak)
• Nemec (Slovene)
• Nijemac (Croatian)
• Немац (Serb)
• немец (Russian)
• німець (Ukrainian)

Coincidence?

Or it this further proof of a Venetic connection or Venetic vocabulary inside the Suavic?

This may be further proof that the proposed etymologies of Suavs as people “of the word” and Germans as “the mute ones” are nothing more than “folk etymologies.” That Suavs just means “one’s own people” rather than having anything to do with “words” and that the word for “word” is derived from the word for “one’s own people” see here.

Thus you could say:

• “people of the word” vs “the mute ones”

or, much more likely, you could pair up:

• “one’s own people” with “the enemies.”

This may be unpleasant/uncomfortable but seems more likely than the “word” or “speech” etymology.

More interestingly, we have:

• Suevi and Nemetes

Even more interestingly, in Gothic we have:

• slavan

which means “to be quiet” (compare this with the modern German schweigen) and may well be derived from the Suavic self-name of one’s own people. In this fashion, the German would have been the intermediary for the Suav name to the Byzantines who then lent it to the post-Roman “Latin” that is Western Frankish/Gothic and then Carolingian word.

This fact was already noticed in the 19th century by the Polish priest Jan Guszkiewicz in “A Word About the Forefathers” or Słowo o Praojcach (Ein Wort über die Urväter).

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An interesting question is how are artifacts classified as “Suavic”, “Germanic”, “Gothic”, “Sarmatian” or whateverish. The fact is that there is no real way to tell and this is as much a preference of the classifier and a question of that person’s laziness or prejudices as anything else. Oftentimes, you just assume something belongs to a certain culture based on your understanding of what culture an artifact found in a given location and dated to a certain time should belong to. There is, of course, some basis for this. Trying to reengineer your understanding of the past each time something new is dug up makes no sense. However, taken to an extreme this method can result in a case of confirmation bias with each find just reconfirming an existing view, no matter what it looks like.

This is the case with all kinds of artifacts. Certainly, pots and pans with no special markings present this issue. Other types of stuff that have etchings or pictures can be swept up by this. But the problem extends beyond those, even to those items that have clear markings or writing. From our past studies we have come across these spear heads. They are almost always described as “Germanic” or “Gothic” in the literature. In fact, the Nazis made a whole production of these belonging to the “eternal Germanic East” and so forth.

But are they really Teutonic? Take a look at these tamga signs described as “Sarmatian” by Tadeusz Sulimirski in his work that is, of course, entitled “The Sarmatians”. Sulimirski also correctly points out that these tamga signs (the strange “2” signs and combinations thereof) are found in late medieval Polish heraldry.

Make of all this what you will. But certainly one of the things that this ought to generate is a reflection as well as some humility. BTW the same can be said of the various “rosette,” “swastika” and “star of David” symbols we discussed before.

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If you look at the Online Etymology Dictionary (which is quite good), you get the following statement regarding the term “dog”

dog (n.)

“quadruped of the genus Canis,” Old English docga, a late, rare word, used in at least one Middle English source in reference specifically to a powerful breed of canine; other early Middle English uses tend to be depreciatory or abusive. Its origin remains one of the great mysteries of English etymology.

The word forced out Old English hund (the general Germanic and Indo-European word, from root from PIE root *kwon-) by 16c. and subsequently was picked up in many continental languages (French dogue (16c.), Danish dogge, German Dogge (16c.)). The common Spanish word for “dog,” perro, also is a mystery word of unknown origin, perhaps from Iberian. A group of Slavic “dog” words (Old Church Slavonic pisu, Polish pies, Serbo-Croatian pas) likewise is of unknown origin. 

Germanic and Latin mystery words are not currently within the investigatory purview of this site. Things, however, look different for Suavic words. The word pies meaning “dog” is attested in Polish from the XIVth  century. Other Suavic languages have similar terms for dog (Czech pes, Russian pës, the above mentioned Serbo-Croatian pas or, for that matter, the (East) German Petze). These are derived, perhaps, from the proto-Suavic *pьsъ.

Now, as noted above, this Suavic mystery word is different and, apparently, not derived from the reconstructed PIE version *kwnto-, itself a “dental enlargement” of the root *kwon- “dog. I will get back to that last root at the end of this post but, in the meantime, let’s see what canine words are derived by modern etymological arts from *kwon-:

• canis (Latin)
• cão (Portuguese)
• šuo (Lithuanian)
• Hund, hound, *hundaz (German, English, Proto-Germanic)

And, of course, others.

But what about our *pьsъ? Where does it come from? The word is supposedly a Suavic innovation with no obvious parallels in other IE languages. That said a number of theories exist, with most trying to establish some IE connection. Here are some of them.

pecus

Aleksander Brückner was noncommittal suggesting that “they” derive the word from the IE (“Arian”) word for “cattle” which had been retained in some IE languages (Latin pecus but there are also, apparently, equivalents in Old Indian). Perhaps because Suavs could not tell the difference between a cow and a dog or perhaps the latter was used to guard cattle.

ps, ps! 

More recently, Wiesław Boryś prefers to derive it from the words used to lure dogs which, apparently, were ps, ps!  i don’t know if this was ever attested but the Polish Dialects Dictionary does list this method of luring hounds. Also, some Poles apparently used the scream psa! as part of hallooing.

specie

Another theory derives this word from something like the Latin specie. This means something like “I see, observe.” This would place the Suavic dog into his familiar “pastoral,” “sheep dog” vocation. Or perhaps it would establish the same as man’s “guardian” and “protector.” Take your pick.

pstry

Julius Pokorny connected pies with the Proto-Suavic *pьstrъ meaning “colorful” multi-colored. For example, in Polish you have pstry. This is cognate with the Suavic pisać meaning to write but previously to paint (in colors presumably). For example, we have the pisanka as the word for “Easter egg”. Whether this is also cognate with pstrąg, the Polish word for “trout,“ I don’t know. Perhaps we can connect all to pisces and conclude that Suavs painted (and wrote) with fish oil, blood or innards.

Does this mean that Suavs only had mutt or spotted dogs?

Or does it mean that Suavic dogs were into painting?

pissing

Another version of this word connects this to, well, the act of urination which, apparently, is to have a similar root as the Suavic *pьsati, “to write” but originally “to paint”. Obviously, a dog tends to urinate in quite a visible fashion – at least a dog that one spends some time around. Perhaps, Suavs did not have a name for a dog until the animal became domesticated (which given the timeframes of canine domestication and development of PIE, is, presumably, a truism). 

Apparently, this sheds some light on how the early Suavs first painted…

sheep

Another PIE theory connects the Suavic pies with a hypothetical *pheḱhu- which referred originally to “sheep”.

If you read Polish, you can get more data on these theories here.

This is all well and good but is there another possibility?

A suggestion is offered by Brückner’s dictionary under the heading piechota. The word today means “infantry” but its original meaning is rather broader. It refers specifically to the act of walking. Brückner makes the following statement:

“piechota… the almost [yes!] only remainder among Suavs of the urword for “leg”: Ind. pad-, Greek pūs, podos, Latin. pēs, pedis, German Fuss (Gothic fōtus)…”

As you can see above, terms for “feet” and “legs” were sometimes used interchangeably at least over time.

What is the first thing (or things) that you associate (physically) with a dog? I submit its legsm feet or paws.

In fact, we, to this day, commonly describe dogs as our “four legged friends.”

And do you know what you get when you translate “feet” into:

• Italian? > piedi
• French? > pés
• Galician? > pés
• Portuguese? > pés
• Spanish? > pies

The “s” ending, of course, denotes the plural but the “plural” begs to be addressed when you look at a dog since a dog, quite visibly utilizes twice as many appendages to move around as a human does. Of course, so do horse, donkeys, elephants and an infinite number of other animals but only dogs lay the claim to being man’s best friend and, thus, it is the dogs’ difference from their human companions that received the most attention from the latter (as demonstrated by the above saying).

So what does this mean? To my mind, it means that there is a component of Suavic that suggests a very early contact with a population to whom the word pies would have meant as much as it does to this day’s Spaniards and Portuguese. Perhaps, this is a Venetic contribution.

Now a few other interesting things:

• the PIE root for “dog” – *kwon- – surely has to have a connection to the Suavic word for “horse” – koń. And yet Brückner insists that there must have been a consonant between the o and the ń. Unlikely, I think the answer is right here.
• slightly in jest, do you know what the Portuguese word is for a “puppy”? It’s cachorro. It remains to be seen whether this can be connected to the Suavic kaczor – meaning “male duck” (or if you want to be proper about it and to relate this somehow to dragons, a “drake”).

In summary, the ancient Suavs applied the PIE word for “dog” to their horses, seem to have gotten their word for dog from some Latin-related word denoting “feet” and kept duckling drakes as their puppies. Got all that?

Here are the opening pages of the Origo Gentis Longobardorum. I’ve previously posted the full  manuscript version (Madrid) here but there are two others that are of interest to anyone curious about Suavs or, naturally Lombards. I’ve included the front pages from Modena and those others. The names are:

• Cava de’ Tirreni
• Modena
• Madrid

The names of the Vandal dukes – Ambri and Assi are outlined in red in each of the three.

The Pertz reference is to the MGH edition. Pertz seems to think the Cava de’ Tirreni MS is the newest though it seems it may be the oldest instead. In fact, looking at the MGH edition in comparison to the actual manuscript pages, you can immediately spot where Pertz made some mistakes, deviations from his text either not being noted or being shown as different than they really are (for example, for the Cava de’ Tirreni manuscript Lethingys shown as Lethingis).

These are all conveniently accessible via the University of Köln website that provides links to various medieval legal texts – the Bibliotheca Legum.

Cava de’ Tirreni
Biblioteca della Badia di Cava, 4
(early 9th century, though Pertz says 11th)
Pertz 1b)

This manuscript also features a cool Völkertaffel upfront that is not part of the Origo.

Then there is a picture of Godan (getting up from his bed to find the “long beards”), Frea, Gambara and her sons Ybor and Agio as well as the Winnili on the right side of the picture. The author seems to have provided other pictures in the manuscript though high artistry this is not).

What is interesting is that Godan is written Goban with a “b”.

This is the first page. It is not exactly great quality. Curiously, the immediately following page is not present in the manuscript – at least not in the electronic version though it seems also not in the codex. Quite separate from that, the Bibliotheca Legum description seems incorrect as indicates that the Origo in this codex runs from 5r to 70v which, given how short that work is, can’t be right (though I did not delve into what is on those pages – some Langobardic legal text).

In any event, the next page jumps to Zucho and Wacho and their adventures.

Modena
Biblioteca Capitolare 0.I.2
(9th century, though Pertz says 10th)
Pertz, 2)

Madrid
Biblioteca Nacional 413
(11th century, though Pertz says 10th)
Pertz 1a)

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