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This is cross-posted from r/asklinguistics, with influence from Wiktionary's Tea Room.

So I'm bundling up three questions regarding the PGmc. proper noun *Auziwandilaz.

First: The /w/ in the descendants of this name are described in the Wiktionary Tea Room entry as follows:

*Auziwandilaz yields forms with -w-, as in ON Aurvandil, Lombardic Auriwandalo, but contrast OE Earendel, OHG Orentil and, perhaps most puzzlingly, Gothic auzandil.

How can this be explained? (The Tea Room entry also asks about PGmc. *Audawakraz, which shows a similar double development.)

Second: Is there any evidence for the first element being a stand-alone word? There's a consensus for it being a descendant of PIE *h₂ews-, but nothing about it in Proto-Germanic besides the name. I've asked around and gotten answers involving cranberry morphemes but not much else.

Third: This last one's on the hypothetical linguistics side of things. I've recently learned of a Mediaeval Latin borrowing descending from the root in question, namely Horiwandilus. How would this borrowing evolve on the path to modern-day Romance? I'd also like to know how English would borrow this descendant form (and if it would displace the native Earendel).

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    Could you add links to the relevant discussions on Reddit and Wiktionary and some more information about the word? It’s easier to answer what’s going on with the w in descendants if we know what the descendants are… Googling the word yields just one single result for me, which is a (seemingly completely unrelated) Instagram account. Edit: Did you mean *Auziwandilaz instead of *Auziwandiliaz?
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Commented Apr 13 at 19:48
  • haha yea hold up... reddit: reddit.com/r/asklinguistics/comments/18f7ypr/… (comments, my user is ThetaCheese9999) tea room (july 2020):en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Etymology_scriptorium/2020/…*-w-:_Proto-Germanic_*Auziwandilaz,_*Audawakraz wikitionary pages for auziwandilaz (and audawakraz too for question 1): en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/… en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/…
    – user45141
    Commented Apr 13 at 21:42
  • I’ve tidied up the question and added the links (plus some information from the Tea Room) to make it more self-contained. Ultimately, I think there’s a good question here, and I don’t think the downvotes are warranted, but it needed more detail included. I would also suggest getting rid of the third question, which isn’t really on-topic, to keep it focused.
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Commented Apr 13 at 23:05
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    The name attested in the Gesta Danorum is Horwendillus. Where did you find Horiwandilus?
    – Cairnarvon
    Commented Apr 14 at 7:00
  • Must've gotten it confused. The link on the Wikitionary page for *Auziwandilaz is Horiwandilus (though it doesn't have a page itself, I'm trying to work on that)
    – user45141
    Commented Apr 14 at 14:15

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