[gothic-l] Goths, Estonians and Livs

[Bertil Häggman]

Francisc,

Very interesting with these three loanwords
from Slavic:

bala
plats
plinsjan

But what about the Estonians. I am relying on the book
of the Estonian President August Rei (1886-1963),
_The Drama of the Baltic Peoples_ (1970). He writes:

"The south-western region of the lower Vistula
and the upper Dniepr had been settled c. 2000 BC
by the so called Baltic peoples, Lithuanians and
Latvians who had opened the fertile moraine
elevations for agriculture in what are now East
Prussia, Lithuania and Kurland (should be Courland
in English, note). The coast of the Kurland (Courland, note)
peninsula and Livonia, north of Daugava, remained
in the possession of a Finno-Ugric tribe, the Livs,
north of whom the Estonians lived in the land they
still inhabit." (p. 14).

So one wonders about the statement of Van Bree.
Wouldn't it be more likely the Livs that were in contact
with the Goths?

Gothically

Bertil


> There was also interaction between the Goths and Slavs.
> The interaction was reciprocal, but asymmetric.
> The Slavs borrowed heavily from Gothic.
> The Goths borrowed only a few words from Slavic (bala "white horse",
> plats "patch, piece of cloth", plinsjan "to danse").



You are a member of the Gothic-L list.  To unsubscribe, send a blank email to <gothic-l-unsubscribe at egroups.com>.
Homepage: http://www.stormloader.com/carver/gothicl/index.html

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/