By request of J.W. Brewer, I hereby open the floor to discussion of the Obotrites, or (as the case may be) Obodrites. Wikipedia:
The Obotrites (Latin: Obotriti, Abodritorum, Abodritos) or Obodrites, also spelled Abodrites (German: Abodriten), were a confederation of medieval West Slavic tribes within the territory of modern Mecklenburg and Holstein in northern Germany (see Polabian Slavs). For decades, they were allies of Charlemagne in his wars against the Germanic Saxons and the Slavic Veleti. […]
The Bavarian Geographer, an anonymous medieval document compiled in Regensburg in 830, contains a list of the tribes in Central Eastern Europe to the east of the Elbe. The list includes the Nortabtrezi (Obotrites) – with 53 civitates. Adam of Bremen referred to them as the Reregi because of their lucrative trade emporium Reric. In common with other Slavic groups, they were often described by Germanic sources as Wends.
The substantially longer Russian article gives the pleasingly Russianized term бо́дричи as well (which makes one think of бодрый ‘cheerful, bright, vigorous’), and there is (oddly) a separate article under that heading. I was hoping Barford would discuss them in his The Early Slavs: Culture and Society in Early Medieval Eastern Europe, but although he mentions them fairly often (as Obodrites) it’s just a selection of random facts (battles, conversions, etc.). Nobody seems to venture an etymology (Wiktionary: “Происходит от ??”). Any and all thoughts are welcome!
They really ought to be a genus of trilobites.
The perky trilobites.
As English-language ethnonyms go, the -ite suffix seems peculiar here. It more typically has a Near Eastern and Biblical resonance. “And ye went over Jordan, and came unto Jericho: and the men of Jericho fought against you, the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Girgashites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; and I delivered them into your hand.” Are there other Celtic/Germanic/Slavic groups living in Europe in the 1st millennium of the so-called Common Era that are standardly known as the Something-ites?
The –ite gentilic suffix, previously.
>the -ite suffix
>the pleasingly Russianized term бо́дричи as well (which makes one think of бодрый ‘cheerful, bright, vigorous’)
The term Obotrites makes this English speaker think of stylites and stalagmites. And their territory does seem to poke up from Europe into the sea.
Though maybe they have more in common with trilobytes?
Obodrzyce in Polish, kind of suggesting an etymology <= river Oder / Odra. And indeed wiktionary says exactly that:
From a Slavic language, ultimately from Proto-Slavic *obodriťь (“Obotrite”), from earlier *obъ Odrě (“on Oder”).
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Obotrite
An ob-gripe, it’s becoming hard to spot meaningful LH comments these days, they drown in the flow of silly banter
Oh, I don’t think there’s more silly banter than usual, but I’m sorry it bothers you. It’s always been a feature of the site.
I don’t know, what with silly banter and Agitprop both being ill-received …
I shall henceforth comment exclusively on comparative Oti-Volta and the finer points of Kusaal syntax* (that‘ll teach ’em!)
* With copious examples. Very copious. Oh yes.
Hehe, I got completely used to the finer-points discussions of Oti-Volta, bring it on 🙂 it’s such a distinctive feature of the LH that it makes me feel right at home. And I don’t have any doubts that nearly everything goes here (everything good-natured definitely does), so I assume that my wistful gripe about the good old times (perhaps only imagined??) belongs here too.
BTW my post also touched on etymology 😉
So it’s a sheer coincidence (not an implausible one, obviously) that the Proto-Slavic ethnonym just happened to have an ending resembling the -ite suffix used in English for other generally-non-Slavic ethnonyms? I guess I ought to want to know if it’s as odd-sounding as an ethnonym (for a group at some remove in time and space from the Old Testament narrative) in German, since I expect there’s much more German-language scholarship on the group than English-language scholarship.
Thanks, DP.
My feeling is that the silly banter is actually quite important. Virtually all of us are very clever and happy to display the fact. In the circumstances, the fact that discussion even of quite contentious matters usually remains comparatively good-natured {not “smug”) is remarkable and well worth preserving. I think the ability to be unserious at times is an important part of the defusing mechanism. I have on occasion done that quite deliberately.
Also, we are ridiculous. We’re many other more important things too, but also that.
Agreed on all counts. (Dying is easy, comedy is hard.)
So it’s a sheer coincidence (not an implausible one, obviously) that the Proto-Slavic ethnonym just happened to have an ending resembling the -ite suffix used in English for other generally-non-Slavic ethnonyms? I guess I ought to want to know if it’s as odd-sounding as an ethnonym (for a group at some remove in time and space from the Old Testament narrative) in German, since I expect there’s much more German-language scholarship on the group than English-language scholarship.
the Slavic – ichi plural suffix for the descendants of X / tribal members of Y is relatively regularly Latinized as -iti, not just in German. There are multiple Balkan examples: Draguvites, Kanalites, Danube or Eastern Obodrites, Bersites, Strymonites, Vaiunites, Ezerites
>From a Slavic language, ultimately from Proto-Slavic *obodriťь (“Obotrite”), from earlier *obъ Odrě (“on Oder”).
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Obotrite
>An ob-gripe, it’s becoming hard to spot meaningful LH comments these days, they drown in the flow of silly banter
(I’m working hard at resisting the urge to describe the insight on Obotrites as neisse.)
German Wikipedia has the following on the name:
Judging by the cited sources, it was Friedrich Wigger, the first serious historian of early Mecklenburg, who thought the name was obviously Slavic, whereas recent historians seem to reject any Slavic etymology (“völlig unslavisch”). On the discussion page someone claims: “Ich habe zu DDR-Zeiten noch gelernt, dass Obodriten ‘die in Eisen gekleideten’ bedeutet.”.
I appreciate DP’s further examples. So provincial and parochial a life have I led that I cannot think of the last time the doings of the Strymonites came up in a discourse context I was part of even in casual banter. I read that when the river from which they took their name finally discharges its flow into the Aegean Sea, the relevant bit of water where that happens is variously called in English the Strymonian Gulf or the Strymonic Gulf. (Στρυμονικός Κόλπος locally or Струмскиот/Струмският Залив a bit upstream.)
Трубачев О. Н. (2003) Этногенез и культура древнейших славян: Лингвистические исследования. Изд. 2-е, доп., page 142:
(Apologies for uncaught OCR errors. I don’t have time right now to ferret out the work of Aleksander Brückner that was referenced. Maybe someone else can do it.)
Another example of the syndrome I was thinking about about in this LH comment ?
Некоторые мысли по поводу ободритов –1., 2., 3. Long LJ posts that I haven’t actually examined yet, but there they are.
Sergei Vshivtsev, ИСТОРИЯ ОБОДРИТОВ.
Virtually all of us are very clever…
Hey, speak for yourself, pal.
Can’t find the Брюкнер reference, though.
Alternate spelling? Oboetrites.
https://www.oboefiles.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Marigaux-web-size.jpg