slaniai

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Attestation:	TI·36.1 (slaniai:uerkalai:pala) (1)
Language:	Lepontic
Word Type:	proper noun
Semantic Field:	personal name
Grammatical Categories:	dat. sg. fem.
Stem Class:	i̯ā
Morphemic Analysis:	slan-i̯-āi̯
Phonemic Analysis:	/slāni̯āi̯/ (?)
Meaning:	'for Slania'

Commentary

ā-stem personal name in the dative. The base does not find good comparanda in Continental Celtic onomastics. Motta 2000: 201 points to the equally obscure Celtib. toponym slaniaz (abl.) (see Villar 1999: 533); Delamarre 2007: 232 groups it with fragmentary Brit. slan[ and possibly cuslanus (Venetia, also DLG: 437) from a base slān- 'whole, healthy, safe' (OIr. slán) < PIE *sl̥H-no- (see Matasović 2009: 345, Zair 2012: 81). This etymology for slaniai goes back to Rhŷs 1913: 5 f.; the only (arguable) attestation in Gaulish is lexical slanossiíetum (RIG L-93) 'that he may heal me' according to the analysis by Lambert, see DLG: 276. Lejeune 1971: 65, n. 222 calls the name "obscure".

Corinna Salomon

Bibliography

Delamarre 2007	Xavier Delamarre, Noms de personnes celtiques dans l'épigraphie classique. Nomina Celtica Antiqua Selecta Inscriptionum, Paris: Errance 2007.
DLG	Xavier Delamarre, Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise. Une approche linguistique du vieux-celtique continental, 2nd, revised edition, Paris: Errance 2003.