At 09:12 04.03.99 +0000, you wrote:
>I'm not convinced, either, by small rags, or vertically-challenged lady
>criminals, and for the same reason I hesitate over food or the cost
thereof. I
>wonder, Otfried, if you're not on firmer ground when you write:
>
>> Always assuming that it is not the more or less distorted derivate of a
>> proper name of presumably Germanic origins (I have nothing special in mind,
>> but you foreigners do strange things to our names
>
>I hesitate over place-names, particularly those in a foreign tongue.
Etymology
>is a mine-field, specially if we have no early spellings to go on (Is that so
>in this case, Fr. Anselm?). I take it the 'p' is the problem if a
personal-name
>is postulated. However, it may be worth noting that the Old English list of
>donors to the monastery at Durham (LVD) includes a monk Friubet/Freobet,
which I
>guess is likely to be a reduced form of Frithu- plus (?beorht). (We need
Julia
>Barrow's assistance, here.) Having recently encountered a male St Rosamund (I
>kid you not), it might be worth considering the personal name option further.
>
>Christopher, to your knowledge do any other French _lieux_ have a first
element
>'Frip' - and rather more to the point, is it possible that 'b' could
become 'p'
>through changes in pronunciation? French colleagues can no doubt help us out.
Dear Graham,
I am far out of my usually fields here, but if we are really dealing with
an originally Germanic name, the change from 'b' to 'p' would not present a
big problem and could be explained as inner-Germanic variance, cf.
Robert/Rupert, Ratbert/Ratpert, whereas a Latin-French development would
rather go the other way round, i.e. from 'p' to 'b' and from 'b' to 'v'
(cf. _ripa_ > _rive_, _debere_ > _devoir_).
_Friubet_ or _Freobet_ sounds interesting, but I would need help with the
"bet" and with constructing the feminine form, because I don't know other
Germanic names with -bet (except modern abbreviations of Elisabeth) or
-pet, nor can I think of any French examples (except Isopet/Ysopet which in
Old French was supposed to be Greek). All I can say so far is that our
saint is unlikely to have been a Friuberta turned by French speakers into
Fripette, unlikely because 'r' before consonant (except before 's') was
usually preserved in French. Yet if your Friubet/Freobet indicates a
possibility of inner-Germanic -rt- > -t_, we might even have a possibility
of Friuberta > (germ.) Friupeta > (fr.) Fripette. To quote Jim Marchand (or
was it Voltaire?): in etymology, consonants have very little importance and
vowels have almost no importance at all.
As to your male saint Rosamund, it seems true that Rosamund was usually a
female name (if I am not making too much of the only medieval Rosamund I
know, the famous one who killed her husband Alboin because he had forced
her to drink from the skull of her murdered father), but, on the other
hand, _munt_ just means "safety, legal protection", and if we have no
problems with male Egmunds and Edmunds I think we can also tolerate a male
Rosamund!
Yours,
Otfried
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