# Germanic Jarl



## CyrusSH

Accroding to etymonline, Old Norse _jarl_ and English _earl_ mean "brave man, warrior, leader, chief" and are of uncertain origin.

I don't want to talk about the possible relation between ancient Gutians and Goths and their influence on the western Iranian culture here, of course in another thread I mentioned Tir/Tyr as the chief god of both Germanic and western Iranian peoples, and we know the most famous Gutian king was *Tirigan* (2050 BCE –2050 BCE).

Other than Tiri, we also see the word Yarla in the name of some Gutian kings:

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_name: Germanic given names are traditionally dithematic; that is, they are formed from two elements, by joining a prefix and a suffix. )

*Yarlaganda* (2064 BCE-2057 BCE)
gand: Gredegand, Charigand, Hrodogand

*Yarlagab* (2103 BCE -2088 BCE) 
geb(gift): Ottogeba

*Yarlagan* (2085 BCE –2082 BCE)
gan(magic): Adalgan, Wolfgan


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## ahvalj

This _ja_- is the product of the Scandinavian phonetic evolution and came into being in the end of the 1st millennium C.E. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vowel_breaking#Old_Norse and https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Proto-Germanic/erlaz).

The final _r_ in _Týr_ appeared at more or less the same time: before that, the final sound was _R,_ a sound that began as _z_ and eventually evolved into the modern _r_. At the time of Tirigan, _Týr_ must have sounded as *_deı̯u̯os_ (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Proto-Germanic/Tīwaz).


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## CyrusSH

Gutian culture certainly belonged to pre-Indo-European times, I'm talking about the influence of this culture on the Germanic and Iranian cultures, Not only the names of Germanic Goths (Gotars) and Iranian Godarzi people could be related to them but many other things in these cultures.

Tir means "arrow" in Persian, Germanic Ti-rune, named after Tyr, is an arrow and you read about Sumerian Cuneiform Ti, named after *Tir/Til*: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TI_(cuneiform) The written sign developed from the drawing of an arrow, since the words meaning "arrow" and "life" were pronounced similarly in the Sumerian language.

I think something connects these things to each other and it could be Gutian culture.


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## ahvalj

CyrusSH said:


> Tir means "arrow" in Persian, Germanic Ti-rune, named after Tyr, is an arrow and you read about Sumerian Cuneiform Ti, named after *Tir/Til*: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TI_(cuneiform) The written sign developed from the drawing of an arrow, since the words meaning "arrow" and "life" were pronounced similarly in the Sumerian language.


_"The Elder Futhark runes are commonly believed to originate in the Old Italic scripts: either a North Italic variant (Etruscan or Raetic alphabets), or the Latin alphabet itself"_ — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elder_Futhark

According to this scenario, _ᛏ_ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiwaz_rune) is similar to an arrow because it comes from the Old Italic _T_ and also because the runes didn't use perpendicular horizontal lines at all (see the inventory here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elder_Futhark#The_Futhark).


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## CyrusSH

As you read in this book: *Nordic Runes: Understanding, Casting, and Interpreting the Ancient Viking Oracle*, page 158: https://books.google.com/books?id=_...I0-DQ1PbvyAIVB2kUCh36jgGz#v=onepage&q&f=false there are more things which relate these two together.


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## berndf

CyrusSH said:


> As you read in this book: *Nordic Runes: Understanding, Casting, and Interpreting the Ancient Viking Oracle*, page 158: https://books.google.com/books?id=_...I0-DQ1PbvyAIVB2kUCh36jgGz#v=onepage&q&f=false there are more things which relate these two together.


The guy knows that he doesn't have a point. But he nevertheless can't refrain from mentioning this "coincidence" as he calls it. Given the fact that the name _Tyr _must have sounded more like the Latin _Deus_ in pre-Germanic at the time Old Persian was spoken, there isn't even a "coincidence".

As Ahvalj explained, the Nordic final _r_ (which doesn't occur in other Germanic languages) is a left-over of the PGrm /z/ that is derived from voicing of /s/ and not an etymological /r/. The Germanic /s/ was originally apical and its voiced version most likely too. An apical /z/ is quite similar to an /r/.


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## CyrusSH

berndf said:


> As Ahvalj explained, the Nordic final _r_ (which doesn't occur in other Germanic languages) is a left-over of the PGrm /z/ that is derived from voicing of /s/ and not an etymological /r/. The Germanic /s/ was originally apical and its voiced version most likely too. An apical /z/ is quite similar to an /r/.





ahvalj said:


> The final _r_ in _Týr_ appeared at more or less the same time: before that, the final sound was _R,_ a sound that began as _z_ and eventually evolved into the modern _r_. At the time of Tirigan, _Týr_ must have sounded as *_deı̯u̯os_ (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Proto-Germanic/Tīwaz).



And you know why, for the same reason that Persian _tir_ with the meaning of "arrow" and Persian _tiz_ with the meaning of "sharp, pointed, swift" have the same origin.


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## berndf

CyrusSH said:


> And you know why, for the same reason that Persian _tir_ with the meaning of "arrow" and Persian _tiz_ with the meaning of "sharp, pointed, swift" have the same origin.


Others will tell you, if the two are related or not, I don't know. But it could not be for the same reason. If it were for the same reason the two forms couldn't exist at the same time unless you assumed a complex chain of loaning into another language and back-loaning or some other equally improbably ad-hoc assumptions.


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## ahvalj

CyrusSH said:


> And you know why, for the same reason that Persian _tir_ with the meaning of "arrow" and Persian _tiz_ with the meaning of "sharp, pointed, swift" have the same origin.


Why do you limit yourself with the Iranic-Germanic connections? Your lexical approach is so fruitful that you'll probably be surprised to discover how many connections does it reveal between Persian and virtually any world language of the past, present and future. For example, _tir_ means "firing, shooting" in modern French and _tirer_ may mean "to fire, to shoot".


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## CyrusSH

ahvalj said:


> Why do you limit yourself with the Iranic-Germanic connections? Your lexical approach is so fruitful that you'll probably be surprised to discover how many connections does it reveal between Persian and virtually any world language of the past, present and future. For example, _tir_ means "firing, shooting" in modern French and _tirer_ may mean "to fire, to shoot".



Because the French word seems to have a Germanic origin too: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tirer


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## ahvalj

CyrusSH said:


> Because the French word seems to have a Germanic origin too: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tirer


But not from the rune name.


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## CyrusSH

berndf said:


> Others will tell you, if the two are related or not, I don't know. But it could not be for the same reason. If it were for the same reason the two forms couldn't exist at the same time unless you assumed a complex chain of loaning into another language and back-loaning or some other equally improbably ad-hoc assumptions.



As I said in another thread, "z" has been evolved into other sounds in Persian and there is no "z" sound in this language, so all words with this sound are loanwords from other languages, like Avestan.


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## CyrusSH

ahvalj said:


> But not from the rune name.



And probably the rune name from the same Germanic origin?


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## ahvalj

By the way, the Germanic etymology of _tirer_ presented in the Wiktionary is impossible since:
a) Gothic didn't possess the combination _ir:_ it had only _er_ (written _air,_ see the actually attested _distairan _in the same paragraph),
b) the closing _e>i _is purely East Germanic: other languages preserved _e _in most positions, including before _r,_ and
c) even if some non-Gothic East Germanic language had _ir, _this short _i_ couldn't have produced the Western Romance _i:_ the normal reflexes of the short _i_ in inherited and early borrowed words was _ẹ_ (the closed e), e. g. Latin _pilum>pelo~pel~poil_ "hair", Germanic _frisk->fresco~fresc~frais_ "fresh" (the wide distribution of _tir_- in Western Romance suggests an early date of borrowing).


CyrusSH said:


> And probably the rune name from the same Germanic origin?


There is no evidence that the rune name was somehow related to the Germanic words for "arrow" or "to shoot".
_R_ is the ending. _R_ is the Scandinavian ending: in West Germanic something comparable is attested only in Frisian, otherwise _-z>∅_ (except in monosyllabic words); in East Germanic _-z>-s_ (Viking Norse _dýr_ "beast, animal" vs. Gothic _dius, Gen. Sg. diuzis_ [_r~s/z_ is part of the root here, but phonetically the situation is analogous]).


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## ahvalj

To avoid the proliferation of further examples with the Persian:Scandinavian _r, _consider the Scandinavian runic script (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elder_Futhark#The_Futhark): where the Viking Norse had _r,_ the Runic Norse had two different letters, _ᚱ_ [r] and _ᛉ_ [z]>[R], which merged, as I have written in #2, only at the end of the first millennium. Here is one of the early runic inscriptions dated to the 5th century:

ᛖᚲᚺᛚᛖᚹᚨᚷᚨᛊᛏᛁ*ᛉ*᛬ᚺᛟᛚᛏᛁᛃᚨ*ᛉ*᛬ᚺᛟᚱᚾᚨ᛬ᛏᚨᚹᛁᛞᛟ᛬
ekhlewagastiR:holtijaR:horna:tawido:
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Horns_of_Gallehus).

Where in other IE languages we find the final _-s_, the Runic Norse has this _ᛉ_ and Gothic has _-s_ ("stone": Runic _stainaR,_ Gothic _stains_), whereas in the rare cases where the other IE languages have _-r, _the Runic Norse has _ᚱ_ and Gothic has _-r_. So, the final _-r_ in the vast majority of Viking Norse word forms is the late result of the shift _-z>-R>-r,_ and as such it is meaningless to compare it with the Persian forms, since the shift _s>z>r_ is not attested outside Italic and West/North Germanic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhotacism).

P. S. It is actually attested word-finally in Old Indic in some cases, but not in Old Iranic.


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## berndf

ahvalj said:


> To avoid the proliferation of further examples with the Persian:...


To make things worse: I don't see what all these examples have to do with the word _jarl_. I would appreciate, if we could come back to the topic.


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## CyrusSH

Ok, according to: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/earl:

Middle English erl, from Old English eorl, from *erlaz (compare Old Norse jarl, Old Saxon/Old High German erl), from *erōną, *arōną (compare Old Norse jara ‎(“fight, battle”)), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁er- (compare Latin orior ‎(“to rise, get up”), Ancient Greek ὄρνυμι ‎(órnumi, “to urge, incite”), Avestan [script needed] ‎(ərənaoiti, “to move”), Sanskrit ऋणोति ‎(ṛṇóti, “to arise, reach, move, attack”)).

The Persian word for "brave man, warrior, leader, chief" is *yal*, as you read here: PAHLAVI DICTIONARY from Middle Persian *ylhtn*, *ylnc* and Manichean *yrxt*, *yrnz* (fight, dispute).


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## fdb

CyrusSH said:


> Middle Persian *ylhtn*, *ylnc* and Manichean *yrxt*, *yrnz* (fight, dispute).



These forms are fake. Where did you find them?


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## CyrusSH

fdb said:


> These forms are fake. Where did you find them?



I had mentioned the source: http://www.rabbinics.org/pahlavi/MacKenzie-PahlDict.pdf


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## fdb

None of those "words" are in MacKenzie's Dictionary.


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## CyrusSH

fdb said:


> None of those "words" are in MacKenzie's Dictionary.



What do you see in the page 31?


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## fdb

It says:

ērang [ʼylng]

ēraxtan, ēranj [ʼylhtn, ʼylnc-]

y is the second letter, not the first, after aleph (ʼ).


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## berndf

CyrusSH said:


> What do you see in the page 31?


Character-by-character transliterations from Aramaic script. Don't try to pronounce it as if it here in Latin script. That would lead to nonsense.

PS: Cross-posted


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## CyrusSH

fdb said:


> It says:
> 
> ērang [ʼylng]
> 
> ēraxtan, ēranj [ʼylhtn, ʼylnc-]
> 
> y is the second letter, not the first, after aleph (ʼ).



The second letter is "r/l" and the first letter is "i/y", I think you know these things in the Persian language, what do you think about the word "ēr" in the previous page? The same one can be seen in page 96.


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## fdb

ēr is written with three letters: aleph, yod, lamed. As with the others, "yod" is the second letter, not the first.

yal is a different word.


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## berndf

CyrusSH said:


> The second letter is "r/l" and the first letter is "i/y", I think you know these things in the Persian language


If you know such things, why to you claim the word starts with a _y_? You should then know that Aleph-Jod represents a word initial long _e/i _and not a _y_.


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## sotos

berndf said:


> The guy knows that he doesn't have a point. But he nevertheless can't refrain from mentioning this "coincidence" ...


I can be excused then, if I can't refrain from assuming that Jarl and the the Greek Γέρων (having also the meaning of cheaf, primate) are related.


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## berndf

sotos said:


> I can be excused then, if I can't refrain from assuming that Jarl and the the Greek Γέρων (having also the meaning of cheaf, primate) are related.


Not really. _Jarl _and _Γέρων _share only one phoneme, the /r/ (The _j_-like pronunciation of gamma in modern Greek doesn't count; Germanic also has a platalized /g/, but not in _jarl_). That is a bit light. Apart from that, _jarl _has no connotation of _elder_.


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## CyrusSH

fdb said:


> ēr is written with three letters: aleph, yod, lamed. As with the others, "yod" is the second letter, not the first.
> 
> yal is a different word.



You probably think "ēzišn" and "yazišn" (worship)  are different words too, and "ēk" and "yak" (one), and almost all other words which begin with "i/y" sound in Persian?!!


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## fdb

ēzišn and yazišn are MP book words, formed from the Avestan verb yaz- plus a Persian suffix. The genuine Middle and New Persian equivalent is jašn.

ēk and yak are indeed the same word.

ēr is Persian < arya-

yal is a loan from some Eastern Iranian language, possibly Alanic (with l < ry) or Bactrian (with l < d).


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## CyrusSH

fdb said:


> ēzišn and yazišn are MP book words, formed from the Avestan verb yaz- plus a Persian suffix. The genuine Middle and New Persian equivalent is jašn.
> 
> ēk and yak are indeed the same word.
> 
> ēr is Persian < arya-
> 
> yal is a loan from some Eastern Iranian language, possibly Alanic (with l < ry) or Bactrian (with l < d).



ēr with "r" sound and the meaning of "noble" can be related to "arya" but what about this word with "l" sound and meaning of "hero"?


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## Wolverine9

fdb said:


> ēk and yak are indeed the same word.



Is _ēk _used in Iranian? I had thought _ēk _is Indo-Aryan and _yak _Iranian; same meaning (one) but different etymologies.


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## fdb

Old Iranian aiwa- (Avestan aēuua-) > aiw(a)-ka (Pahlawi ʼywk) > ēk > yak (Man. MP yk).

The development is unproblematic, but the absolute chronology of the sound changes is not clear. The Pahlavi spelling is probably historic.

Sanskrit eka- is from ai-ka, without the -wa- suffix.


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## berndf

*Unfortunately, this thread has diverged so far away from the scope of this this forum which is to serve as a reference site for state of the art linguistic research and not to develop exotic new pet theories. Please see in particular rules #15 and #16 here.

The thread is now closed.*


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