[[Reinhard]], [[Reynard]], and PGmc

I reverted this edit to Reinhard because the second part was totally wrong, and because I could see the whole etymology had problems that needed deeper reworking. I cobbled together a preliminary fix using the entry for ragin in Lehmann's Gothic Etymological Dictionary, but there's some important stuff missing.

To start with, I wasn't sure of the proper format for a morpheme only attested as part of proper nouns. That's the issue that screwed up the etymology to start with: Makaokalani (talk • contribs) tried to avoid it by treating the term as a compound of PGmc + OHG. Which brings up the second issue: I'm not that great with PGmc, but it looks like the original PGmc form *ragina should have an ogonek on it, at the very least. I removed it from the etymology, to be on the safe side, but it's also in the etymologies at Reynard, renard, and Rainer- there again, juxtaposed with OHG. Finally, there's the matter of Gothic ragin. It's currently a romanization-only entry pointing to 𐍂𐌰𐌲𐌹𐌽 (ragin), but Lehman has no asterisk in front of it, and gives citations to usage- so there must be at least inflected forms in existence.

Would you be so kind as to: 1) Finish my cleanup of Reinhard (or tell me how to fix it myself), 2) Resolve the issue of PGmc *ragina, and 3) create an entry at 𐍂𐌰𐌲𐌹𐌽 (ragin). I could probably figure out 1) and 3), eventually, but it would take a lot of legwork to get up to speed and to find the information. I don't have any references to even start with 2). Thanks! Chuck Entz (talk) 22:36, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

It's a neuter a-stem *raginą which probably meant "advice" or something similar. But it's the same word as in ragnarǫk and also found alone in regin (itself a neuter plural) so perhaps as a plural it had a religious meaning as well. Some of the later Frankish-influenced forms may also derive from *hrainiz through folk etymology once the original word was no longer understood. I believe that is probably what happened in the non-Ingvaeonic languages, because they never would have lost the -g- as the OHG descendant shows.

Thanks! It still looks odd to say that it's a compound of PGmc terms, but it's much better than it was.