Re: Renaming tezenki to terZ2mja (was Re: RFC: Renaming 3B to Tezenki)

Paul Bennett wrote:

| I'd care somewhat about unfortunate homonyms in Russian, for sure,
| since that could lead to a
| Russified euphemistic name for the people/area/language. The other
| surrounding languages, I'd be more
| curious than concerned about.

In this case, "ter" is better than "tel", because _telo_ is "body" in
Russian.

| After more thought, I get the feeling it might become terZ2mja in an
| early-modern stage and maybe
| become tel zjemli (i.e. "Tel Ground~Land~Earth", AIUI) under Russian
| influence[*], leading to the use
| of Tel as the ethnonym for at least the 19th and 20th centuries. A
| renationalization effort could
| plausibly happen in the late 20th and early 21st...

It might be then smth like "Terskaya zemlja". The only confusing thing is
that "Tersk|oy, ~aya, ~oye" is already a toponym in the Northern Caucasus,
meaning "near Terek River".

| [*]Is mjV -> mljV just a Ukrainian thing, or is it also Russian?

Peculiar to all East and South Slavic langs, IIRC.

| On the same topic as that footnote, is 2 -> jo -> je a plausible chain
| under Russian influence?

It is not, but analogy levelleing due to false/folk ethymology may work
exactly in this way.

-- Yitzik
~~nep mu'mey~~