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Post by serban on Nov 20, 2008 14:28:41 GMT -5
All these names ending in "-ota" are Bulgarian. Some of them have been used by the Romanians as well, like very many Bulgarian names/words: DrAgotã, DObrotã Romanian names. I doubt that the suffix "-ota" is the same as the suffix for Bulgarian commor words as in krasota, chistota. The suffix "-iþã" is also present in Romanian as a diminutival suffix: IonIþã means little Ion (John), GheorghIþã means little Gheorghe (George). Dobrotiþã could also mean little Dobrotã. The stress would probably have been on the last but one syllable: DobrotIþã. All the examples you and Edlund have provided are ended in "-ota". You haven't found a single instance of a Bulgarian bearing a name in "-otitsa". That's all I'm saying. Another aspect is that the name could have been actually Dobroditsa since the Byzantines also called Drystyr Tristris instead of Dristris. So they apparently modified "d" into "t" probably because of their linguistic habits. Some Romanian on the net claims that the first mention of Dobrotitsa's name is in the form of Tobrotizas, claiming also that this is according to a Greek document (I provided the quotation some time ago). I find it hard to believe that Tobrotitsa was the real name but Dobroditsa seems more likely to me. I find the expanations of how Dobrotitsa changed into Dobru(d)ja in Turkish unplausible. I will get into more details later as to why I do that.
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Post by serban on Dec 2, 2008 3:12:45 GMT -5
Edlund and Kroraina: have you any examples of Middle Age Bulgarian names ending in "-otitsa"? You have given me many examples of Bulgarian names in "-ota" but not a single one in "-otitsa". I know that theoretically all Bulgarian male names could have diminutives in "-itsa" but can't you find one example of name in "-otitsa"?
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Post by Edlund on Dec 2, 2008 11:55:22 GMT -5
I checked the book with Bulgarian names up to letter "K" and didn't find such examples. Why is it so important for you?
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Post by serban on Dec 5, 2008 15:22:41 GMT -5
Well it's not that important because theoretically all Bulgarian male first names (how do you call a person's name? anthroponym?) including those in -ota could have diminutive versions in -itsa. It would be nice though to actually have another example, besides Dobrotitsa.
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Post by serban on Dec 5, 2008 16:37:35 GMT -5
I propose to debate the origin of the word Moldova. This is the name of a small river in Moldova and also the name of the region. There are two other Moldova's in Romania, Moldova Nouã (New Moldova) and M. veche (Old M.) in Banat, both with many Serbian inhabitants. Some say the word comes either from Molodova (=Molodovo in Russian, Mladovo in Bg) or it's from the word mold with unknown origin. First I thought it comes from molId (=smyrch) with loss of "i" (I forgot what's the name of this linguistic transformation) just like the river name Olt comes from Latin (Thracian) Alutus with loss of first "u". Actually the name comes from Latin through Slavic (hence the transformation of initial "a" into "o". There are some toponyms in Bulgarian beginning with "olt-". We also have OltIna and OltEniþa. However it is very unlikely that Molodovo turned into Moldovo because molod is a Slavic word, unlike Alutus. Molid is also of unknown origin. Similar words exist in Greek (molybdos) and Albanian (molikë). The word has two other versions: molIft and molIdv. The initial form was probably molivd (Greek molyvdos?) then molidv then molid. Of course if the initial form was molivd (unattested) then the name would have been Molivdova and if the name comes from molidv then it should have been Molidvova. It could come from the pre-Slavic root "mald-" (if there ever existed one) with Slavic transformation of "-a-". The name for Moldova in German is Moldau (Moldawien is recent). The strange thing is that the same name is used in German for the Czech river Vltava. So we have the roots m*ld and vlt if we leave aside the suffixes. I am not aware of "m" turning into "v" or "v" turning into "m" in Slavic (or any other) languages. The transormation of "d" into "t" or "t" into "d" is present in Germanic languages but I don't know about Slavic languages (I suppose it is absent in Slavic lang.)
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Post by Edlund on Dec 5, 2008 17:25:13 GMT -5
www.fallingrain.com/world/a/M/o/l/d/There are placenames Moldava in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland. There are also many similar names in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus. These are the west-Slavic and the east-Slavic languages. There the word for "young" is "molod" or "mlod". In south-Slavic it's "mlad", so there are placenames Mladovo in Serbia, Bosnia and Bulgaria - www.fallingrain.com/world/a/M/l/a/d/There is a village Muldava in Bulgaria and Muldovo in Russia - www.fallingrain.com/world/a/M/u/l/d/, but it's probably not realted to "mlad". The name for Moldova in German is Moldau (Moldawien is recent). The strange thing is that the same name is used in German for the Czech river Vltava. So we have the roots m*ld and vlt if we leave aside the suffixes. I am not aware of "m" turning into "v" or "v" turning into "m" in Slavic (or any other) languages. "vn" turns to "mn" and vice versa in Bulgarian dialects. The most famous example is gomno/govno (=s**t). Right now I can think also of these pairs: ravno/ramno (=smooth, flat); tymno/tavno (=dark), otdavna/odamna (=long ago). There should be other examples. Official Bulgarian is usually "vn", while official Macedonian is usually "mn".
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