*p>f Revisited - When was German invented?

X99Lynx at aol.com X99Lynx at aol.com
Fri Mar 5 05:19:57 UTC 1999


In a message dated 1/26/99 8:32:31 AM, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote:

<<However, both Germanic and Armenian show some
striking archaisms in their verbal systems,... This makes
me suspect that Germanic and Armenian were early split-offs,
which have become difficult to classify due to their
subsequent interaction in the Baltic and Balkan spheres...>>

Returning my question about Why *p>f?:
The answer most commonly given related either to social
causes or in a certain case to some tendency towards aspiration.

There is another explanation however.  It suggests that Germanic
seems "archaic" not because it split-off early as Miquel suggests
above, but because it emerged very late.  And it explains p>f not as
a "sound shift," but as a fundamental part of the conversion
from a non-IE to an IE language by German speakers.

John Hawkins in Bernard Comrie's The World's Major
Languages (1987) (p.70-71) puts the general case for this,
using a migration theory:
"At least two facts suggest that the pre-Germanic speakers
migrated to their southern Scandanavian location sometime before
1000BC and that they encountered a non-IE speaking people
from whom linguistic features were borrowed that
were to have a substantial impact on the developement
of Proto-Germanic."

Hawkins goes on to mention the 30% non-IE vocabulary that
is being documented on this list.  He also goes to another piece of
evidence:
"...the consonantal changes of the First Sound Shift are
unparalleled in their extent elsewhere in Indo-European and
suggest that speakers of a fricative-rich language with no voiced
stops made systematic conversions of Indo-European sounds into
their own nearest equivalents..."

Both Hawkins and Comrie assumed, of course, that there was a
migration - which we now have strong reason to believe did
not occur, given both Cavalli-Sforza's evidence and the recent mDNA
findings that show even less evidence of any meaningful migration.

And - and this is key - if there was no migration, then
the change that Hawkins speaks about - conversion of
IE sounds to a fricative-rich language with no voiced
stops - MUST HAVE HAPPENED right from the beginning of German.

It makes no sense to think that Germanic speakers first adopted
proper IE sounds and then returned to their former non-IE accents.

This means the First Germanic Sound Shift ACTUALLY reflects
the presrvation of prior non-IE sounds during conversion
to an IE language.  AND it would mean that the First Sound Shift
must have happened at the time the IE language was first introduced.

In other words, there was no Germanic *p> Germanic f.  There was
no proto-Germanic *pemke (five).  Because the non-IE speakers
had no reason to drop the /f/ in adopting the IE word
and then go back later and sound shift back to it.

And, BTW, this explanation of how the First "Sound Shift" happened
is far more reasonable than postulating a massive arbitrary
later adoption of those sound changes.  Or an unexplainable impulse to
fricatives, etc.  Germanic as IE "with an accent" explains the
"shift" with a consistent underlying reason (a partial conversion
from non-IE) that works across the board for all former speakers
of that earlier language rather than being a later "trend"
that coincidentally got picked up by all Germanic speakers
but somehow was rejected by all non-Germanic speakers.
That kind of subtle consensus is improbable.

(Because he is postulating a mass migration, Hawkins
uses the words "systematic conversion" to IE, which
seems to postulate some Proto-Germanic Academy of Language.
An non-IE accent is much more plausible for the universality of
the sound change in German-speakers and total non-adoption
by any others IE speaking group.)

If the First "Sound Shift" actually marks the conversion of a non-IE language
into IE Germanic, then it was only completed around 500BC (according
to Hawkins and Comrie.)  And this would have many implications for
our understanding of the history and spread of IE languages.

For one thing it would not make sense to talk about "proto-Germanic"
branching off a "proto-IndoEuropean" core.  There would have
been no PIE at this point in time.  Germanic would have had to have
been acquired from a SPECIFIC existing IE language or languages.
(I even think I have a candidate for that language and somewhat
documented historical circumstances.)

And there is nothing inconsistent with this archaeologically.
I don't think I need to repeat the often repeated dictum
that we have no reason to think Corded Ware/Battle Axe
cultural evidence tells us in any way what language was
spoken by those who left it behind.  Or that any change in
language from non-IE to IE would be marked by any noticeable
change in that material evidence, since it was preliterate.

Finally, as a reality check, it should be remembered
that we have no solid evidence of Germanic before 300ace.
If IEGermanic was finally formed some short time before
500bce, then that would mean 800 years passed
before the Gothic Bible was written down.  800 years was
sufficient for Gallic to be replaced entirely by the
new language of French.  Yet less remains of Gallic among the
contiguous population of France then remains of non-IE among
the Germans.  There is really no need and no evidence that would
necessarily extend the emergence of an IE proto-Germanic
much before 500bce.

Respectfully,
Steve Long

[ Moderator's comment:
  And what of the very similar, though completely separate, Armenian shift?
  --rma ]



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