[gothic-l] Re: The Scandinavian Origin of the Goths and Other Germanic Peoples

[dirk at SMRA.CO.UK]

Hi Anthony,

very interesting points, but I am at a loss here. I would have thought
that Jutland became separated from the Scandinavian peninsula around
the same time as Britain became separated from the continent (some 10
to 12000 years ago). But I really don't know for sure.

Your last point is exptremely interesting, but again I don't know
whether the Germanic languages of the Scandinavian peninsula picked up
 Finno-Ugric words. Prof. Elert (a Swedish linguist) mentioned
somewhere that the Saami picked up Germanic words mainly in the realm
of agriculture, but I have never heard of Finno-Ugric words in the
German language. I don't think that Germanic tribes like the Vangioni,
 Ubier etc who lived in the Mainz-Cologne area (next to the Celts) for
 several centuries BC would have got their language from the
Scandinavian  peninsula - but I may be wrong.

Perhaps somebody else on the list has more insight?

I would have thought that people like the Suevi Ariovist, or the
Cherusci Arminius or the Markomani Marbod would have spoken a common
Germanic language. Is there any information of whether their languages
 had developed separately. Or in short: Did Arminius and Marbod need a
translator?

Dirk




--- In gothic-l at egroups.com, "Anthony Appleyard" <MCLSSAA2 at f...>
wrote:
>   Dirk wrote:
> >  Denmark is strictly speaking not Scandinavia. There can be no
doubt that
> >  Jutland was settled by Germanic people much earlier, before they
spread
> >  out across the sea to the Danish islands and than Sweden. ...
>
> That depends on whether the Danish Straits were there at the time.
As I wrote
> a bit ago, after the Ice Age ended, there have been times when north
Denmark
> was a bit higher and the Danish islands were continuous land across
and the
> Baltic Sea was a big freshwater lake (called by geologists the
Ancylus Lake)
> that overflowed into a big river running along the dry bed of the
Storebaelt.
>
>   keth at o... wrote:-
> > What about the idea then, that a "new" language needs to arise in
relative
> > isolation? -- It needs a period of incubation. And what could be
more ideal
> > for such, than an island? Gotland for example   ;)
>
> My belief is that the Gautar in and near Scandinavia spoke Common
Germanic,
> and that the characteristic features of Wilfila's Gothic developed
while the
> Goths were migrating.
>
> There were likely Indo-European speakers in Germany at the time.
But, as we
> look further back in time, the characteristic identifying features
of each
> Indo-European language one by one disappear, and we get to a time
whem we can
> only talk of undifferentiated Indo-European.
>
> One thing might possibly solve this: Did Germanic speakers in
Scandinavia pick
> up any Finno-Ugrian words from the Lapps? If so, do any of those
words also
> occur in German? If so, the languages of Germany may have come from
> Scandinavia. (How far south in Scandinavia did Lapps spread in the
old days?)


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