Linguistic Society of America

The Etymology of Gothic kaupatjan

Author(s): Edward H. Sehrt
Source: Language, Vol. 8, No. 2 (Jun., 1932), pp. 138-142
Published by: Linguistic Society of America
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/409309
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 THE ETYMOLOGY OF GOTHIC kaupatjan
EDWARD H. SEHRT

GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY

[The word kaupatjan is derived from the Greek KoXacpl~ew, probably by

way of Vulgar Latin colaphizare.]

The Gothic vocabulary contains a great many words which clearly

bear the ear-marks of loan-words, e.g. kapillhn-capillUre, karkara-car-
cer, lukarn-lucerna, kawtsjo-cautio, mas-mjsa (Vulgar Latin), aikklesj3-

iKKXriCa etc.' To be sure, the matter of the ultimate provenience of

these loan words, especially the Greek, whether coming directly, or
thru the medium of the Latin, has by no means been settled. Streitberg2
says: 'Dass die gotische Bibel an Entlehnungen aus dem Griechischen
reich ist, kann nicht befremden. Aber so gross deren Zahl ist, tiberall
handelt es sich um gelehrte Fremdw6rter, nirgends zeigt sich ein volks-
tiimliches Geprige. Wo griechische W6rter den Eindruck des Volks-
tiimlichen machen, wie etwa aggilus, aikkljsj5, aiwaggqlj5 u.a., oder
wie die Namen Makidanja, Asia usw., ist deutlich die Spur r6mischer
Vermittlung zu erkennen'. Jellinek3 asks 'Aus welcher Sprache stam-
men diese Wdrter? Alle sind sowohl lateinisch wie griechisch. Auch
daimanareis geh6rt hierher. Es ist keine got. Ableitung mit Suffix
-arja- sondern eine leichte Umbildung von 8atpovwdptos oder daemonia-
rius. Das Wort hatte offenbar vulgdiren Klang, deshalb kommt es in
der Literatur ganz selten vor. Die meisten W6rter sind ihrer Herkunft
nach zweideutig. In Marja ist die Zuriickziehung des Akzents sicher
got., ebenso ist das i von aggilus jedenfalls gotischer Lautersatz ffir e, das
got. in nachtoniger Silbe nicht vorkam; es bleibt also unsicher, ob Mapla

oder Maria, AyyXos oder angelus zugrunde liegt. Was die flexivischen
Erscheinungen betrifft, so kann aiwaggalj5 auf EbayyEX ov wie auf vul-
giirlat. evangelio zurtickgefiThrt werden, ebenso aiwaggili; *psalma oder
*psalmo bleiben gleich aufftillig, ob nun iaXk6bs oder psalmus zugrunde
1 Cf. Streitberg, Geschichte der indog. Sprachwissenschaft 2. 66ff, 91ff; Jelli-
nek, Geschichte der Gotischen Sprache, pp. 177ff.
2 Op. cit. 91.
3 Op. cit. 188.
138

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 ETYMOLOGY OF GOTHIC kaupatjan 139

liegt. Dagegen scheint praiifttus auf rpo(ArT7s, nicht auf p

deuten; immerhin ist zu erwaigen, dass im Lat. auch prophetes vo
Altho on the whole I am inclined to agree with Streitberg
Greek loan-words which have come in thru the Latin have a m
lar stamp than those coming directly from the Greek, I nev
believe that the statement 'nirgends zeigt sich ein volkst
Gepriige' is too sweeping to say the least, especially becau
Gothic words have not as yet been explained. One simply has
thru Feist's Etymologisches Wdrterbuch der Gotischen S
convince himself of this. Notice the numerous 'Etymologisc
Among these words may be not a few that have been so chan
turally that even their Greek or Latin provenience is not at o
ent. Such a word is sipineis 'jiaqr'~s' which Collit4 has clearly
to be derived from Greek ab4rovos and sipanjan 'gaO~?7Cler
av/lrovEv. To this group I would reckon kaupatjan 'KOXacptfELv,
gen'5. Feist calls it an 'isoliertes und etymologisch dunkl
but I think it can without much difficulty be proved to be a
from Greek KOXa(pipELG6 which it translates. Whether it has
rowed directly from the Greek or thru the medium of the Latin
zare is not so clear. The word has in either case been taken from the
popular speech and such words 'wirkten nicht als todte Schriftbilder,
sondern durch den lebendigen Klang der gesprochenen und gehdrten
Laute' as W. Schulze' says. That means they were taken over either
in the non-classical form or that they were non-existent in it, which ac-
counts for their late appearance, as in the case of asbArovos (siponeis)
which is not found recorded until the time of Ulfilas.8

The Greek verb KOXaCLicLELV together with the noun K'Xabor 'a box on
the ear' goes over into Latin as colaphizare and colaphus, pronounced
and often spelled colapus.9 The middle unaccented vowel was synco-
pated,"0 and we get the form colpus found in the Reichenau Glosses'
(ictus-colpus; colafis-colpis). All Romance forms of the word go back to
Amer. Journ. of Phil. 46. 213-21.
* Forms: inf. kaupatjan Mc 14.65; 3. pl. pret. kaupastedun M 26.67; 3. sg.
opt. pret. kaupastedi K 12.7; part. pret. pl. kaupatidai K 4.11.
6 Long after the completion of this article, I came upon the note of Leo Meyer,
Die Gotische Sprache, Berlin 1869: 'm6glicherweise zu gr. KoXacpo-.'
7 Sitzungsberichte der konigl. preuss. Akademie der Wissenschaften 36. 746.
8 Cf. Collitz, op. cit. 219.
9 Cf. Grandgent, Vulgar Latin ?332.
10 Ibid. ?219.
11 Cf. Foerster und Koschwitz, Altfranz. bungsbuch 10, 15.

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140 EDWARD H. SEHRT

colpu(s)"1 (cf. Ital. colpo, Span. golp

ancient Greek13 is practically unkno
cases, the only examples fall under K
which an unaccented vowel after a li
similation if a similar vowel appears
IKIpToo'-aKpoov, rovOpw-rrovOopb ow, M
ELK77. Modern Greek dialects15 show
unaccented syllables. How far we are
ing the same for Vulgar Greek of the f
to say. We must not forget that mo
which had its beginnings in the Vulga
The next step in the development is
French coup. That this is dialectic i
known. But the change of 1 to u befo
Greek and Latin. In the former, the

examples, e.g. aclV "-a &XK7'y, acdvla - &X1

Oat, Kavxos'XaXKOs.16 But the exten
vocalization of 1 to u in ancient Gree
well nigh impossible to determine. Hi
terse statement, 'Wieweit es sonst im
nicht'. Thumb, Handb. der neug. Vol
the fact that X and p are completely l
thrace. In the mediaeval period, for
tunately extremely meager, we have
the Edictum Diocletiani 7. 67 (301 A.D
the Vulgar Latin pronunciation.l7 Sk
so far as to see the beginnings of thi
before Diocletian in the speech of the
Suetonius 42: In castris tiro etiam, tu
tem pro Tiberio Biberius, pro Claudio
batur. 'In der Aussprache Caudius wii
passen wie Biberius zu Tiberius und M

12 Meyer-Libke, Rom. Etym. W6rterb. 1

13 Brugmann-Thumb, Griech. Gramm. ?52
14 Wochenschrift fiir Klassische Philolog
1' Cf. Hatzidakis, Einleitung in die Neugr
16 Cf. G. Meyer, Griech. Gramm.3 ?172;
95-6; H. Hirt, Idg. Gramm. 1. 208.
17 Cf. Schuchardt, Vokalismus d. Vulgl. 2
riss 1. 475; Stolz-Schmalz, Lat. Gramm.A
changement de l'l en u, Berl. Franz. Gymn.

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 ETYMOLOGY OF GOTHIC kaupatjan 141

isches Museum 52, Erginzungsheft 30, quotes the following

for vocalization of the 1 in mediaeval Latin: cautam for caltam in Mss.
of Apollin. Sidon. carm. 24.61; in the same author, a wavering be-
tween chariobaudus and chariobaldus, Epist. 7.16; aulium for allium
in the Notae Tiron. tb. 104.44; in the Mss. of Virgilius Grammaticus we
find for pauculis sometimes pavculis, sometimes palculis; and often cau-
culus for calculus, e.g., in the Codex Salmas. anthol. 193.3 (Riese); in
Juvenal's Ms. 9.40 and 11.132; in the Corp. gl. 3. 198,46 and 63.
Another example is perhaps caupulus 'a small ship' for *calpulus:
K X7r-).18 Altho the dialectic or vulgar change of ol to ou occurs in
both Greek and Latin, the origin of this particular word (kaupatjan)
is most likely to be sought in the latter because of the p. Were the
form borrowed from the Greek, we should in all probability expect f.
It may now be further assumed that the diphthongal pronunciation
of the ou was still clearly heard when the word was borrowed. Original
Indo-European ou was monophthongized to a in Ionic and Attic
Greek in the fifth century B.C., in Cretan and Cyprian the diphthongal
character was retained.19 In Latin also ou was very early changed to
.20 If the ou therefore came into Gothic as a diphthong it had to be-
come au, since short o, except before r, h, hv, was unknown to Primitive
Germanic or at least to Gothic. We have here a case of vowel-substi-
tution as au for ao in Laudeikaia from Aao&Kla, o(az') for u in paztr-
p(a)ura from purpura, or unaccented short e in Latin or Greek becom
ing i as in aggilus from &yyXos or angelus or also of accented short
to i in kintus 'Heller', if E. Schr6der's derivation from *centus, shortened
from centenionalis (KZ 53.80ff., 93) is correct. It may be well to men
tion here that Bugge, IF 5. 274, tried to derive Gothic kaupatjan from
Armenian kopem 'dar delle busse'. In that case we should expect i
Gothic short a in the radical syllable. I am inclined to believe that th
words are connected, having come from the same source. The onl
difficulty is the single vowel in Armenian instead of a diphthong. Th
monophthongization of diphthongs is, as far as I was able to ascertain,
not found in the earliest texts, which are relatively late (end of the
fifth century A.D.). At any rate the direct provenience of the Gothi
word from Armenian is hardly possible.
The next step was to add in the case of the verb (the noun is no
found) the suitable Gothic ending. Since the Greek word which i
18 Cf. Walde, Lat. etym. Warterb. 145.
19 Cf. Brugmann-Thumb ?35.
20 Cf. Stolz-Schmalz' ?42.

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142 EDWARD H. SEHRT

translates is a denominative in-LeL?e (Ko

of verbs(cust5s,
custad-i like ,Xtfiw < XLka-w
custad-is), (X
the Go

-atjan, corresponding in formation

Gothic lauhatjan 'a-rpia-p re v' (*lauh
-a3os). This ending -atjan is found a
use becomes rather extensive in Germ

as -1'Y and -a'Etv in Greek (cf. Goth

zen, slagazzen, krockezzen, tallazzen,
halettan, hamettan, 5nettan, etc.; ON
The Latin ending -izare24 (colophiza
becomes quite productive thru Greek
Latin.21 The adding of a regular G

not unusual (cf. liteins '1rEvrts' f

pistikeins,26 'unverfiilscht, echt' fro
also prad6fjtjan: r poop-EE w and oth
to Gothic may be further seen in R
to -dreis (daemoniarius: daimonareis,

21 Cf. Brugmann-Thumb ??365, 373.7.

22 Cf. Wilmanns, Deutsche Grammatik
23 Cf. Grimm, Deutsche Grammatik 2. 2
manisch ?194.
24 Cf. Stolz-Schmalz6 ?225.
25 Grandgent, Vulg. Lat. ?33.
26 Streitberg, Got. BibelJ 486.

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