[gothic-l] Re: Germanic Migrations

[dirk at SMRA.CO.UK]

Hi Keth,

I am not a linguist so I would have to refer you to the original works
 by Dahl, Wiik, Elert and especially Juergen Udolph. Udolph is
professor of linguistics at Leibzig and has produced a major
over-1000-page research on Germanic place names quite recently
(1995?).  Udolph like Dahl and others found that the oldes layers of
Germanic place names is largely absent from Scandinavia.The research
is probably only available in German and I have given the reference
somewhere up in the list. If you want I find it for you.

Dirk


--- In gothic-l at egroups.com, keth at o... wrote:
> Dirk wrote:
> >Dahl argues "However, recent research has tended to associated the
> >genesis of the Germanic peoples as an identifiable grouping with
the
> >rise of the iron technology in northern Europe, notable the Jastorf
> >culture whose centre was situated in present-day Lower Saxony
> >(Germany) aproximately between 600-300 BCE......places the
> >(pre-Jastorf) Urheimat firmly between Elbe, the Erzgebirge and the
> >Thuringian Forest, a fair distance from Scandinavia.... Scandinavia
> >does not, by and large, share any of the oldest layers of Germanic
> >place names."(p.5)
>
> Can you give some examples of such German place names that
> indicate the presence of very early Germans and Proto-Germans?
>
> And how can you distinguish between a Proto-Germanic and
> a pre-proto-german/indo-european place name?
> After all Proto-germanic and Indo-european both
> belong to the same language family, and therefore
> might be difficult to distinguish. Especially if
> the place names have been handed down orally for thousands
> of years.
>
> And where does it say that Scandinavia has no old
> Germanic place names? I'll have to look into that,
> because what I retain from reading is that some
> Scandinavian place names are extremely old, and
> Germanic as well. There are however also a few examples
> that may belong to another language - but it is impossible
> to determine what kind of language it may have been.
> Generally, I thought the earliest place names go
> back to the earliest agricultural settlements,
> which would place them in the neolithic period.
> (?)
>
> Keth


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