An interesting mention of the Slavs is found in Joseph ben Simeon Kara‘s (circa 1065 – circa 1135) writing. He says the following (excerpt from Kupfer/Lewicki*):
“and the mountain ranges which in the Canaanite language are called d u u r”.
Kupfer and Lewicki did not really know what to do with that.
* “Hebrew Sources for the History of Slavs and Certain Other Peoples of Central and Eastern Europe.”
Note that H e r m u n d u r i are well known from a number of sources. According to the Augustan History, they fought along with the Quadi, Sarmatians and Marcomanni against Marcus Aurelius. Their only known leader was Vibilius. It is also interesting that the word German can be translated by “mountain” “men” where Ger is the same as the Slavic “gora” (mountain) or Germanic Gera or cognate too with, for example, “germinate” (because of the upward motion of the plants as they burst throughout the ground. Curiously, durzy means “large” in Polish (and durny means stupid). Now, Herman comes perhaps from Heer-man meaning warrior, army man (indeed the word “army” would be sourced likewise). But, of course, an army is just a lot of people. So Heer and Ger might mean just that – “large”. In that case, Her-mun-duri begins to sound like a messed up compound where the word and suffix -duri functions as equivalent to the prefix Her- just in a different language. The middle “mun” is presumably referring to “man” which in Slavic would be mąż (pronounced similarly to Mensch).
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What does ‘mundur’ mean in Polish? What is the origin of that word? her’mundur’i
Mundur means uniform but it is a borrowing – ultimately from the French