[gothic-l] Re: Ethnicity and religion/runes

[Francisc Czobor]

Hails!

Germanic is definitely an independant Indo-European language group 
from Celtic. Although it is a "kentum"-type language (i.e., did not 
palatalize the original Indo-European velars, feature that is shared 
with Celtic, Italic, Greek, Hittito-Luvite and Tocharic), it has some 
common characteristics with the Balto-Slavic languages, that otherwise 
are classified as "satem"-type language (i.e., changed the I.E. velars 
into palatals, like Indo-Iranian, Armenian, Thracian, Phrygian).
These "Northern Indo-European type" features found in Germanic and 
Balto-Slavic consist in:
1. The change of "bh" of the I.E. instrumental and dative-ablative 
plural endings into "m"
2. The tendency of blending of I.E. short "o" with I.E. short "a" and 
of I.E. long "o:" with I.E. long "a:" (for instance, in Common 
Germanic I.E. "o:"&"a:" > "o:", and I.E. "o"&"a" > "a"; in Common 
Slavic, I.E. "o:"&"a:" > "a:", and I.E. "o"&"a" > "o")
3. Some specific words, found in Germanic, Baltic, and Slavic, but not 
in other I.E. languages. There are several such words, but only one 
can I remember now, the word for "thousand":
In Germanic: Goth. Þusundi, Germ. Tausend, Eng. thousand, etc.
In Baltic: Lithuanian tuksantis (or something like this)
In Slavic: Russian tysiacha, Serbo-Croatian tisucha etc. (from 
Common-Slavic *tysentja or *tysontja)
The common Balto-Slavo-Germanic I.E. form would be something like 
*tu:s(e/o)nti or *tu:s(e/o)ntia.
Of course, the Germanic group became its distinctive characteristic 
after the first (Common-Germanic) consonant shift (that allegedly 
occured around 500 BC, is I read somewhere, but I don't know on what 
evidence is based this assumption).
And there are of course the cultural loanwords from Celtic, e.g.:
Celtic ri:g- > Gmc. *ri:kaz (Goth. reiks)
Celtic ambactos > Gmc. *ambaxtaz (Goth. andbahts, Germ. Amt)
etc.
As far as I understood from several sources, the primitive Germanic 
people speaking the Common Germanic language was formed around 1000 BC 
in the Iutland peninsula and the surrounding area, through 
assimilation by the Indo-European speaking newcomers of an older 
non-Indo-European culture of builders of megalithic monuments.
On the other hand, the primitive Celtic people was formed farther 
southwards (on the upper course of Danube), originating from 
Indo-European speaking tribes arrived from the east.

Francisc

--- In gothic-l at y..., keth at o... wrote:
> Hi Dirk,
> Surely you don't mean that Germanic had its Genesis as an indeendent
> language after Keltic had become established ?
> That would mean assigning a much younger age to Germanic
> thabn to Keltic.
> Btw, I saw in Webster's dictionary that it is okay to write
> Keltic with a "K" in English too. (the Greeks wrote it with
> the "kappa")
> 
> 
> 
> >
> >Hi Keth,
> >
> >that is a misunderstanding. I certainly did not say that Germanic 
came
> >from Celtic. My view is that Germanic culture owes a lot to 
borrowings
> >from their Celtic neighbours, where it is often impossible to say
> >which language a certain tribe/people spoke. It seems to be the 
latest
> >view in Germanic history that Germanic people developled from
> >different iron age cultures with the influence from Celtic La Tene
> >cultures beeing a common 'unifing' trait. As for the Germanic
> >language, because of its composition of IE and non-IE components,  
I
> >believe that it developed as IE-speakers moved northwards from
> >landlocked eastern areas, merging with non-IE sea-dwellers at the
> >Baltic Sea coast. This is of course a massive over-simplification.
> 
> Certainly Keltic material culture influenced Germanic culture.
> But Germanic as a language must have had its own independent
> Origo. It cannot be explained as a mixture of "Keltic" with
> some other unknown non-Indoeuropean language. If such a
> possibility was obvious, then it would have been in all textbooks.
> It is however a common feature of the various textbooks, that
> Germanic is treated on equal footing with the other branches
> of Indo European, such as Italic, Albanian, Tocharian and Greek.
> Germanic must have arisen from a Indo-European substrate that
> was different from these other branches. Where Germanic arose,
> or "bootstrapped itself" remains unknown. That is because
> people are moveable entities (of course), but naturally
> I am very interested to hear where you think Germanic arose.
> 
> Cheers
> keth


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