Kolbangians and Varangians [Кобяжата и варежата]

This is a presentation of my talk on the assimilation and distribution of the Germanic (Old Scandinavian) loan words ВАРЯГИ "Varangians" and КОЛБЯГИ "Kylfingar", "*Kolbangians" (a foreign mercernary community not identical to the Varangians) in Old Russian. I argue that these loan words were primarily used in the plural, consequently, the singular form is secondary. That differs them from earlier Germanic loans КНЯЗЬ (<*kun-ing-az), ВИТЯЗЬ (<*vIki-ng-az/*vik-ing-R), ПЕНЯЗЬ <(*penn-ing-az/*penn-ing-R), which primarily referred to individs, not sets. A number of phonetic (+/- final palatalization) and morphological (+/i singulative suffix ) features differing old and more recent loans of words with the Germanic - ing suffix are presumably triggered by this difference in semantic and the sound change in Slavic. The -ANG variant in the Middle Greek (early XI century) form of the loan word VAR-AGG- is most likely due to the fact that the Byzantine author has reproduced the East Slavic/Old Russian pronounciation with the small yus and not the proper Old Scandinavian with - ing: the reconstruction of the non-existent Old Scandinavian variant - **-ang is a futility. The word accent in Old Russian originally fell on root VAR/VER-ang, KOL-bang, the generalization of the stress on the -ang segment is a late XVII-XVIII phenomenon. The etymologization of the words VAREGA, VAREZHKA 'mitten" as a 'Variangian mitten' (Vassmer 1964; Zalizniak 2014; Berezovich & Kabinina 2019) is correct.

I am grateful to Alexander E. Anikin, Sergej L. Nikolaev, Alexei A. Gippius and Anatoly Liberman for the consultations. I am also indebted to the conference's audience and, personally to Andrej Y. Vinogradov, Savva M. Mikheev and Petr S. Stefanovich for the valuable comments. The sole responsibility is on the author.