`
` .. corsair522 ... with english etymology being sufficiently daunting,  i’m completely lost in dealing with german terms, so would appreciate assistance with the following.

name of german royal dynasty,  the ‘wettin’  clan.  I find parallels to ‘marsh’ and ‘swamp’ as in english ‘wet.’  Any chance there is correspondance to ‘white’... english ‘whittington’  being  ‘white  town.’

Or bonds to english ‘wise’ or ‘wisdom’ ?  Anglo-Saxon ‘witan’ being a body of ‘wise  men.’

Then the german territory of ‘thuringia.’  I find bonds to tribe known as ‘thuringians’ but nothing else.  Possible connection to ‘thorn’ ... german ‘dorn.’  I have to believe there were a whole lot of thorns in thuringia.
’ ‘

[quote author=corsair522 link=board=omni;num=1153096815;start=0#0 date=07/16/06 at 20:40:15]‘wettin’  clan.  I find parallels to ‘marsh’ and ‘swamp’ as in english ‘wet.’  Any chance there is correspondance to ‘white’... english ‘whittington’  being  ‘white  town.’

The ‘wet’ thing can be ruled out immediately. ‘wet’ is ‘feucht’ in German.

Or bonds to english ‘wise’ or ‘wisdom’ ?  Anglo-Saxon ‘witan’ being a body of ‘wise  men.’

I have a problem with going from the ‘i’ in those words to the ‘e’.

Then the german territory of ‘thuringia.’  I find bonds to tribe known as ‘thuringians’ but nothing else.  Possible connection to ‘thorn’ ... german ‘dorn.’  I have to believe there were a whole lot of thorns in thuringia.

Thorn seems to be less probable than references to the Nordic gods Tor (Thor) or Tyr. One take that I haven’t found on a quick ‘net search is that the region might have been situated as an important geographical gate between two territories (old German spelling Thür = English door).

Hi,
[quote author=corsair522 link=board=omni;num=1153096815;start=0#0 date=07/16/06 at 20:40:15]`
[...]name of german royal dynasty,  the wettin  clan.  I find parallels to marsh and swamp as in english wet.  Any chance there is correspondance to white… english whittington  being  white  town.
Or bonds to english wise or wisdom ?  Anglo-Saxon witan being a body of wise  men.[...]

English ‘wet’, ‘wise’ and ‘white’ are derived from three completely different roots:
- wet: IE *wed-
- white: Germanic *hweita- < Indo European *kweit-
- wise < OE witan < IE *weid-

I might be wrong, but i have the impression that you are searching for correspondences between various words on the basis of the modern written form (well, on the basis of similar letters). I’m afraid it takes a bit more than that.

Frank