Reconstruction talk:Proto-Germanic/Wōdanaz

*Wātónos and *Wātenos

The article cites both *Wātónos and *Wātenos. as the Pre-Germanic sources for this word. I googled both (including without accent marks) and got nothing. Which is true and what is the source for this diety? Do we even know anything about the pre-Proto-Germanic pantheon?--Sigehelmus (talk) 16:49, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

From what we can tell, -anaz seemed to have an alternative form -inaz. The distribution between these two alternatives is unclear, but it applied to all strong past participles, not just to this word. Old Norse tends to have the -inaz variant, while Gothic and West Germanic have -anaz. —CodeCat 17:03, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Can/should these be clarified in the article?--Sigehelmus (talk) 17:06, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

For more detail, see here, and specifically pay attention to this paragraph:

Schaffner, however, has drawn attention to a third suffix variant *-una- in Old Danish *Óðon (< *Óðunn), attested in Old English as Ōdon. He argues that this is the original form of the name: *Wōđunaz, derived from the above-mentioned noun *wōþuz with the above-mentioned ("lordship"?) suffix *-na-. The other suffix variants *Wōđinaz and *Wōđanaz would then both be secondary reformations. (The lack of the expected umlaut in Old Norse Óðinn does suggest that this form arose due to secondary replacement of the suffix, and thus, contra Rübekeil, cannot be original, regardless of whether the original suffix had a or u.) The pre-Proto-Germanic form would then be *Wātunos or perhaps *Wātūnos < *Wātuh₃nos, should the Hoffmann suffix be involved. (In any case, the original accent could not have been on the first syllable, as the *þ appears voiced to *ð due to Verner's law.) (footnote dropped)

Whether the alternation in the past participle is in any way related remains unclear, but it seems unlikely to me. According to Bammesberger here, the original and overwhelmingly standard form of the past participle in Germanic was *-ana- from PIE *-ono-, while *-eno- (which has parallels in other IE languages, especially Balto-Slavic verbal adjectives, see here) existed in other, similar formations, hence could influence some past participles. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 09:12, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

As for your other questions: It has been suggested that the original Proto-Germanic chief god was *Tīwaz, on account of his etymology (generic "god, divine one", cf. the Old Norse continuation týr, which preserves the appellative meaning; originally: "he of the sky, heavenly one"), and the etymological relationship with the Proto-Indo-European chief god *dyḗws (the reasoning is apparently that on the way to Proto-Germanic, the paradigm of the lexeme descending from *dyḗws would have become so irregular that even if it had survived as *tiw-, it would eventually have to be replaced, and the stem *tīwa- was a very obvious replacement), so that *Wōdu/anaz was assigned the chief position as father of the gods only secondarily. It seems that *Wōdu/anaz (for Schaffner's reconstruction *wōduz rather than our *wōdaz see footnote 13) was originally the god of poetry, prophecy and ecstasy (furor poeticus). Basically, like in many other cultures, certain specialised members of society employed various methods to enter ecstatic, trance-like states – altered states of consciousness (compare Divine madness and Divine inspiration) –, in which they would compose poetry and prophecies. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 09:51, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

@Florian Blaschke Two years nearly late to this, but I never got to thank you for your fine explanation. I'm very sorry; You are quite learned and you helped inspire a deeper love for etymology in me.--Sigehelmus (talk) 16:40, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

@Sigehelmus My pleasure! It's wonderful to hear that I could make such a positive difference. I'm very indebted to my excellent teachers. (By the way, the ping did not work, but your thanks alerted me to this page anyway.)

By the way, I just noticed a problem on the page overleaf: the Arguel inscription was found deep in the continent and is very unlikely to be in Proto-Norse; an early West Germanic dialect is much more likely, not only for geographical but also linguistic reasons, but the inscription is suspected of being a forgery. Per my explications above, in Proto-Norse around 500 AD one should expect something like *wodunz. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:16, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

@Florian Blaschke It's been a crazy day so far and I'm not as articulate as I would like, but firstly thank you for your quick response or even being around at all still! I actually noticed the same thing you said today on its Wiki article. What do you think, if it's real, a likely for circa 500 AD, were there no "Proto-Viking" expeditions or trade routes that would explain it popping up in Francia? As for the lack of *-z, there are contemporaneous Ostrogothic names like 𐍅𐌹𐌻𐌾𐌰𐍂𐌹𐌸 (wiljariþ) and 𐌲𐌿𐌳𐌹𐌻𐌿𐌱 (gudilub) which are also lacking that expected particle. Is that related? Dialectal variation?--Sigehelmus (talk) 22:20, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

@Sigehelmus I'd say the probability that a North Germanic expedition reached Arguel in the 5th or 6th century and left an inscription in Proto-Norse is so low that it can be neglected, or even excluded in practice. If the inscription is authentic at all, it is either in a West Germanic dialect or possibly in East Germanic Burgundian. In an East Germanic dialect, loss of final -z would not be unexpected at the time (at least in Gothic, this loss can be observed in texts from the 5th and 6th centuries), and in West Germanic, loss of final -z except in short monosyllabic words is a defining innovation. To be fair, the syntactic context in the inscription is obscure, and it cannot be excluded that wodan is a vocative or an accusative, so, based on this form alone, North Germanic cannot be excluded wholesale, but on balance, we expect West Germanic – there is an Alamannic "rune province" from about 520 to 620, and the dialect might be Upper German rather than Frankish, but at the time there were very few differences within West Germanic (Frankish leob vs. Upper German leub is one of the few likely ones). --Florian Blaschke (talk) 12:00, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

@Florian Blaschke That's truly fascinating input, honestly it's like gold to me to read, especially with my love for the era. Practically what do you propose to change for relevant articles, concerning this info?--Sigehelmus (talk) 18:32, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

@Sigehelmus Check the page overleaf – I've already edited it. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:23, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Spacing

It seems as if the line starting with 'of the suffix vowel...' has a different distance to the line above it than the other lines. I'm not too skilled in this kinda stuff, so maybe someone else could look if something's up? Edit: on Firefox it looks like the entire first paragraph has larger spacing. AntiquatedMan (talk) 15:45, 8 October 2021 (UTC)