LL-L "Language varieties" 2006.01.21 (02) [E]

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   L O W L A N D S - L * 21 January 2006 * Volume 02
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From: Karl-Heinz Lorenz <karl-heinz.lorenz at gmx.net>
Subject: LL-L "Phonology" 2006.01.09 (01) [E]

Hello Ron, you wrote:

"... perhaps more likely it's due to Celtic in the south
(whose substrate may have caused aspiration and affricatization in German),
later to "invade" the north in the process of Germanization."

I always saw it that way. For me this is the only possible explanation of 
the HG soundshift. But as we have no written resources of Celtic in the Alps 
then, it's obviously too daring for most linguists. I think therefore the 
prevailing opinion is, that the soundshift can't be explained.

The Celts originally settled in the North of the Alps, they fled when 
migration of Germanic and other tribes started. In the mountains they could 
hide, but in the course of time, there languages merged into German, but 
they left their traces in it.

The Cimbrian language is the southernmost variation of High-German, as they 
have shiftet k to kch and there is also a shift from w/v to b at the 
beginning of words, they say "bald, biese, bar" for "Wald, Wiese, wir". The 
assumption is, that there name is derived from "Tsimber" or something like 
that, because many of them were "Zimmerer" (=carpenters). But as they 
settled in secluded, hardly accessible villages, they seem to me close to 
the probably Celtic but then already Romance Rhaeto-Romans. So for me it's 
quite possible, that there were refugees of different tribes, one of them 
the defeated Cimbern, which mingled whith Celtic and Romance People, but 
later were germanized by the great number of Alemannic and Bayuvarian 
settlers. Just as were the Rhaeto-Romans by Walser-Swissgerman.  Remember 
the names "French, Lombard, Andalusian", names languages got from their 
assimilated conquerors. In respect to "Cimbrian", it would be the name of a 
beaten tribe, which made themselves the leader of the refugees of differnt 
nationality in their secluded hideaways. Pretty speculative, I think. But is 
the mainstream or "scientifically" accurate etymology better? Which people 
does name itself after a profession? It's for me as if the Anglo-Saxon are 
supposed to have been settlers from Lower Saxony which called themsels 
Anglo-Saxon, because a lot of them where anglers.

But we cannot decide, because we have no written sources. The first Cimbrian 
literature is from the 17th century, till then they wrote in Latin, German, 
Italian ... Probably most of them didn't write at all then, because they 
lived in these isolated mountain valleys. Hence we don't know what language 
they spoke originally and when the nomenclature startet. So the argument 
"orthography IS the language" has something. Scientifically, linguistically 
a language only exists, if it has got a written version.

Greetings from Austria

Karl-Heinz

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Language politics

Heile und dankschö, Karl-Hoanz!  Wia heasch as?  Bisch Wienächto wedr daham 
im Ländle gsi?

So you and I are indeed "co-speculators" in this respect.

How do you feel about the label "South Germanic"?

While unearthed Celtic relics in the Northern Alps are quite ancient, 
potentially Celtic linguistic and cultural strata tend to be left out of the 
equasion in the region and elsewhere in Continental Europe -- precisely 
because of the lack of written data.  Frequent reference to _welsch_, 
_walser_, _waliser_, _Wallis_, etc. (related to "Welsh," "Gaelic," etc.), 
especially in place names but also in German words like _Kauderwelsch_ 
'gobbledigook', seems to indicate that cultural memory of the Celts is not 
all that ancient, even though these names came to refer to Romance, the two 
being considered one and the same in earlier times, since pretty much all 
Romance varieties (Rhaetic, French, Walloon, etc.) adjacent to Germanic 
varieties had Celtic substrates.

By the way, some _Walserdeutsch_ varieties strayed south of the Alps.  There 
is not only this Cimbrian but also the small enclave of Tittschu (related to 
Toitschu and Titsch = _deutsch_) in Italy's town of Rimella near Lago 
Maggiore (http://www.unipublic.unizh.ch/magazin/gesellschaft/2004/1281.html) 
and similar enclaves in the Italian provinces of Vercelli and 
Verbania-Cusio-Ossola.  And then there are the dialects of 
Greschòney/Grissoney in the Aosta Valley.

Talking about speculation, do you agree with the following?  Saxon 
(Hanseatic) power in the north and Upper German powers in the Alemannic and 
Bayuvarian south (with their Celtic-influenced varieties) spread southward 
and northward respectively.  (The southernmost Hanseatic trading posts where 
somewhere in the center of what is now Germany.)  Their language feature 
presence got weaker the farther away from the respective heartlands they 
spread, and the band-shaped area in which they came to overlap coincides 
with today's "Middle German" or "Central German" varieties with their tight 
bundles of isoglosses.

As our Críostóir said sometime ago, speculation can be fun.

Pfüate, Karl-Hoanz!
Reinhard/Ron 

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