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Post by Ardavarz on Dec 28, 2010 1:46:11 GMT 3
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?
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Post by hjernespiser on Dec 28, 2010 2:43:03 GMT 3
Kamos is a Pannonian beverage existing prior to the Huns' arrival in the area.
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Post by Subu'atai on Dec 28, 2010 12:09:56 GMT 3
...
You and many others on this forum never cease to amaze me with your knowledge hjernespiser...
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Post by Ardavarz on Dec 29, 2010 2:54:51 GMT 3
That's interesting. Thanks for this information!
Is it known from what language is this? Apparently it isn't Hunnic...
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Post by merlkir on Dec 29, 2010 14:16:30 GMT 3
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?
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Post by hjernespiser on Dec 29, 2010 19:49:28 GMT 3
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.
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Post by benzin on Dec 30, 2010 0:39:05 GMT 3
Kám is a village in western Hungary, near roman settlement Sabaria. The next village near Kám is Rum
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Post by merlkir on Dec 30, 2010 2:08:45 GMT 3
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.
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Post by aca on Dec 31, 2010 1:36:08 GMT 3
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.
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Post by Ardavarz on Dec 31, 2010 2:22:22 GMT 3
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.
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Post by merlkir on Dec 31, 2010 13:01:56 GMT 3
Yup, medovina is the same in Czech Mead being the drink of the nobility, that'd be similar to the germanic society as well.
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Post by H. İhsan Erkoç on Jan 2, 2011 17:49:49 GMT 3
Beer and zythum in Old Turkic was Bägni. Nothing similar to Kam/Kamos
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Tamas
Är
It's just me and my favourite horsie :)
Posts: 18
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Post by Tamas on Jan 3, 2011 19:29:17 GMT 3
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....
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Post by Ardavarz on Jan 4, 2011 3:13:52 GMT 3
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 .
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Tamas
Är
It's just me and my favourite horsie :)
Posts: 18
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Post by Tamas on Jan 4, 2011 14:56:04 GMT 3
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.
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