Hunnic beer?

[Ardavarz]

While reviewing the fragments of Priscus's text these days I ran onto something I haven't paid much attention before - he mentions some Hunnic beverage made from barley (perhaps some sort of beer) called "kam".

I couldn't find any plausible explanations or etymologies of this word. Does anybody have some clues?

[hjernespiser]

Kamos is a Pannonian beverage existing prior to the Huns' arrival in the area.

[Subu'atai]

...

You and many others on this forum never cease to amaze me with your knowledge hjernespiser...

[Ardavarz]

That's interesting. Thanks for this information!

Is it known from what language is this? Apparently it isn't Hunnic...

[merlkir]

Probably illyrian, since Pannonia was manly inhabited by illyrians and celts.

The word for beer in (proto)-celtic is probably "kurmen". However, there is a celtic deity named Kamoulatis - whose name literally means "god of liquor". It seems Celts and Illyrians in this region influenced each other a lot, could it be that the Illyrians took the celtic god as a word for the drink itself?

[hjernespiser]

www.kroraina.com/huns/mh/mh_9.html#A.

As is known from Julius Africanus' Embroideries and Diocletian's Edictum de Pretiis, [444] the Pannonians drank kamos (kamum) long before Attila. The word is Indo-European. [445] Vámbéry's Turkish etymology kamos = qymyz, followed by Dieterich, [446] Parker, [447] and, for a while, Altheim, [448] is to be rejected, -os is the Greek ending, kam- is not qymyz, and qymyz is a drink made of milk, not of barley. Medos, too, is Indo-European, either Germanic [449] or Illyric. [450]

Edictum de Pretiis was issued in 301. The author of The Embroideries died in 240. Both dates precede Hunnic arrival in Europe.

[benzin]

Kám is a village in western Hungary, near roman settlement Sabaria.

The next village near Kám is Rum

[merlkir]

What's the "medos" supposed to be? A barley drink? Or a meal?
The english word "mead" comes to mind. "Med" still means "honey" in Czech for instance.

[aca]

Can you imagine Huns working in barley fields, and then making beer out of it?
"Med" means honey in all Slavic languages, as far as I know. We in Serbia still have a sort of alcoholic beverage called "medovina" which is made of honey.

[Ardavarz]

It is most likely some kind of mead. There is also madu in Scythian with meaning "honey" or "mead" (= Avestan madhō), so the medos could be also from Scythian or Sarmatian origin. But still this is the common Indo-European *medhu and it is present equally in Slavic, Iranian and Germanic languages, so it is difficult to say whence exactly is this particular word.

(BTW this is probably the root of the word "mad" too meaning "intoxicated".)

In some Iranian languages it became to mean "wine" (like Persian mey f.e.), but here this is not such case since Priscus explicitly tells that medos was served "instead of wine". And also it was perhaps considered as a kind of more "noble" drink since the kamos was given only to the servants.

[merlkir]

Yup, medovina is the same in Czech

Mead being the drink of the nobility, that'd be similar to the germanic society as well.

[H. İhsan Erkoç]

Beer and zythum in Old Turkic was Bägni. Nothing similar to Kam/Kamos

[Tamas]

Greetings !

Answer is maybe Priscus, or whoever, did not really meet the "real huns".
Atil or Etel is the name of the river Don, just because of the russian conquest everybody calls it "Don", it does not mean that's it's "original" name...
Attila or Etele name (same name!) means small river, or at the river.
Well, it is logic to say that "somebody who was born at the river".
The real name of Attila was secrecy of course, to prevent him from anybody - even bad spirits or humans and shamans - to have power over him. By the way Attila is still a common name in Hungary, till present day.
Also, taking a closer look at the Hungarian leaders' names, we see the same ratio in the names, like "Árpád" meant "little barley", now as the language changed it means today "your barley".
Apart, names alone also could mean nothing....
Slavic or germanic influence on huns is also not a big thing, in fact they settled them on their borders as a line of defence if they were attacked. This is how proto-moravians got to where they are now in Europe....

[Ardavarz]

Actually Atil or Itil is the name of river Volga. Even now it is called Idel in modern Tatarian language. But it means "river" in general and might be given to other rivers too, f.e. Agidel (Aq-Idel) - "White River" (= Russian Belaya and a part of Kama).

"Don" is not Russian but Alanic name and also means "river" or "water". Ancient authors render its Scythian variant as Tanais which is the same (initial dental often becomes mute in other Scythian names too).

As for the real name of Attila, according to the legends of Volga Bulgars it was Audan which seems Iranian by origin (most likely from Scytho-Sarmatian od/wod - "soul, spirit", originally "wind").

Still, the onomastics is most unreliable indicator as far as languages and peoples are concerned .

[Tamas]

Yeap.
What you are writing is quite true I do think.
The source on what I said is the "Atelkuzu" (Etelköz in hungarian) from the "De administratio imperio" from the X. cent. It's maybe the only one reliable source on the river Atel, and it's been clearly identified with the river "Don".
I know there is a great time difference (half a millenia) between the fifth and the tenth century, but still it is the most earliest source I do think.
Plus, I do think those bolgars who founded Volga Bolgaria was not in the Volga region yet in the fifth century. In fact, they were on the pontic steppe near Crimean-peninsula and the foothills of the Caucasus.