Re: DAP ARG dwarf Zwerg

On Jul 6, 9:12 am, Franz Gnaedinger <f...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Jul 1, 12:07 am, Trond Engen <trond...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:



VK skreiv:
The ethymology of the original IE *dhverjo / *dhverjos is an
interesting question by itself but it goes beyond the current subject.

Actually, I'd like to discuss that. Seriously.

Hellquist mentions the root */dhwer-/ in Sanskrit <dhvára> f., <dhváras>
n. "some sort of demon".

Bjorvand and Lindeman want to connect ON <dvergr>, OE <dweorg>, OHG
<twerg>, etc. to the verb MLG <bedre:gen>, Ger. <(be)trügen>, etc. This
verb is from PGmc. */dhr-ew-gh-/ ~ */dhrugh-/ and related to OI
<dhrútih.> "misleading" and <drúhyati> "hurts by decieving, magic,
etc.". They will with Pokorny rather see the full grade form as
analogical and take the zero grade from the above mentioned IE theme
*/dhw-er-/ "hurt".

They mention -- but don't quote -- Mayrhofer on the etymology of Lat.
<fraudis>.

The implication of all this is that a dwarf originally was a kind of
being that lured people into pain. B & L admit that the semantic gap is
not fully bridged, but they seem to find the formalities reasonably
convincing.

In my opinion dwarfs are keeping a memory of early
miners, little but strong men, rude in their manners
but kind at heart, working first in flint mines, then in
copper mines, then in tin mines in the Ore Mountain
of Middle Europe, between Leipzig in Germany and
Bohemia / Czechia. Being small was an advantage if
not a requirement for working in the low subterranean
gangways, and being strong was a bare necessity.
Consider the fairy tale of Snow White as recorded
and retold by the Grimm brothers. It may well base
on mining mythology. The seven dwarfs are miners,
they live behind the seven mountains, in the far away
Ore Mountain. The beautiful queen may be a symbol
of copper, between 10,000 and 5,000 years ago the
most precious material - early mirrors were made of
copper, and the queen is asking her mirror about
the most beautiful woman. Snow White, then, may
be a symbol of tin (the Nordic equivalent of Homer's
beautiful Helen of the white arms, another symbol
of tin, as I explained many many times before),
and the poisoned apple might perhaps refer to the
poisonous arsenic that was used for hardening
copper before tin was discovered and available.

Now for the word dwarf, German Zwerg. Considering
my Magdalenian dictionary I propose these roots:

DAP --- activity of hands; English tap, to tap, French
tapper, while Taape in my language means hand

ARG --- walls and ceilings of a decorated cave,
shining up in the light of an oil lamp, representing
the sky; ancient Greek argos for white, shimmering

DAP ARG --- those who touch and handle (dap)
the shimmering walls of a cave (arg), a compound
used for miners; dweorg dwerg dweorh dwerf
dwarf twerg Zwerg

Franz, why do you not write the fairy tales? I think you would outplay
Tolkien?

DV

Cave painters used features of a cave wall as
inspirations for their paintings: that curve of the
wall over there reminds of a bull, so let us draw
and paint a bull ... The decorations were not only
artificial, they were often prefigured by the naturally
grown rock and then accentuated by the painters.
Especially flint and ores can be seen as natural
"decorations" of a cave, so ARG could also have
been used for flint and ore veins (is 'ore vein' the
correct term in English?). From the flint mines at
Grimes Graves, Norfolk, England, we have a some
10,000 years old limestone figurine, crude if not ugly,
perhaps carved by a miner, but the intention is clear
to me: she was the moon goddess, shining in the
night sky, perhaps a patroness of those miners:www.seshat.ch/home/grimes.JPG The moon is
shimmering white, and might have been a symbol
and promise of flint and later of ore in the darkness
of the underground, for which we have Magdalenian
KAL, surviving in Keltoi Celts, in Helvetii Helvetia,
in Helen ... The lower class of the Celts have been
miners, laboring all day long in copper, tin, silver
and gold mines. That some of them took revenge
for their hard life and turned mean is also clear,
but originally dwarfs were kind people, as in the
fairy tale of Snow White.

Franz Gnaedinger


.

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