Reconstruction talk:Proto-Germanic/swihô

Etymology

A proposed etymology for this word is given in Jenne Klimp, "Linguistic Residues of Steppe Culture in Germanic", 2019[1], whereby it would be a continuation of PIE *h₁su-h₁eḱwos, related to Ancient Greek εὔιππος, Sanskrit स्वश्व, 'svaśva', all meaning "having good horses". This is attractive considering he states "... and Jordanes (6th c.)swehans, who provides the remarkable, contextually unnecessary description of them “like the Thuringians, having excellent horses”". There are only two problems phonologically, one being the complete i-umlaut of -eh- to -ih-, the other being that the labial element seems to have disappeared without a trace in -hw-.

These two problems can however be solved by amending the form to *swihjô/*swihjaniz, either a supposing an adjective base *swihjaz, "possessing good horses", or from a noun of similar form meaning "skill with horses", cf. Sanskrit स्वश्व्य, 'svaśvya'. Anglom (talk) 23:22, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

I can't very well judge this etymology based on formal development from PIE to PGmc, but speaking as a historian it seems like a reach to use the Getica as a relevant source here and linking a remark in it to an ethnonym that supposedly formed in Proto-Germanic times. Jordanes was writing well over half a millenium later, as was his chief source (Cassiodorus), so it seems to me unwise to uncritically use that as supporting evidence. Such continuity up to the sixth century may be possible, but there are many potential problems with the idea (and not just with chronology: the Getica itself is a confusing document of uncertain reliability and the centre of much scholarly debate). — Mnemosientje (t · c) 13:03, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

As it is, *swihô is pretty problematic anyway. Properly derived from the reflexive particle it should by either *swehô or *swīhô < *swé-K-ōn or *swé-īK-ōn. The latter form is probable, but seems unlikely: "self-y (ones)". We would then rather be looking at a root *sweyk-, but in an agentive derivative we'd rather expect *swigô. Anglom (talk) 13:46, 11 February 2020 (UTC)