[gothic-l] Re: The Scandinavian Origin of the Goths and Other Germanic Peoples

[keth at ONLINE.NO]

Dirk wrote:

>Hi Bertil,
>
>Denmark is strictly speaking not Scandinavia. There can be no doubt
>that
>Jutland was settled by Germanic people much earlier, before they
>spread
>out across the sea to the Danish islands and than Sweden. As for
>quotes,
>there are so many that I don't know were to begin. For a linguistic
>approach Cleas Elert said: " The absence of any great dialect split in
>the Germanic language spoken in Scandinavia and northern Germany at
>the
>time of the earliest written sources (ca. 200-500 A.D.) indicates
>strongly that a Germanic language has been spoken over such a large
>area
>for only a short time. The late Bronze Age (ca. 700 B.C.) was a time
>of
>cultural change { in Scandinavia} when the language(s) spoken earlier
>may have been replaced by the Germanic language." Reference op. cit..
>
>Findeisens proposition is well supported by the cited literature. If
>Germanic people spreading out from what is now central Germany had
>arrived in Jutland by 2000 BC it might have taken them another few
>hundered years to feel the need to move further on (population
>pressure

Dirk, I feel you fail to differentiate here between Indo European and
Germanic here. That Germanic is a relatively young Indo European
language ( perhaps 700 BC) does not sound unlikely, though it is not
known where its centre of initial development lay (it may have been in
Scandinavia or somewhere in Germany/Poland or somewhere else).

However, quite independent of the question of the origin of Germanic,
I think there are indications that a kind of Indo European language
was spoken in Scandinavia already at the end of the Stone Age, say
around 2000 BC. At the same time it also seems to me that more than
one language may have been spoken there. e.g. something akin to Finish
or Saami.

In Germany the "default" opinion seems to be that Germanic must have
arisen in Germany -- what could be more logical! That also gives an
excuse for looking at Scandinavia as an area that it is legitimate to
colonize\ cf. what was done with Low German, that it was defined
as a dialect og High German.

What about the idea then, that a "new" language needs to arise
in relative isolation? -- It needs a period of incubation.
And what could be more ideal for such, than an island?
Gotland for example   ;)




>argument). In any case this settlement process was likely gradual and
>the population balance in Sweden may not have shifted in favour of the
>newcomers before around 1000 BC, which does not exclude the
>propability

Also remember that population replacement is not the only possible
mechanism of language change. In Northern Norway you see, for example,
how many people changed their language without really changing their
identity nor their culture.


>that Germanic settleres had started coming in a few centuries earlier.

So what I mean is that it doesn't have to have been the same scenario
as in North America, where the language change occurred by replacing
the original native Indian population by Germanic settlers.

Best regards
Keth


>There is always a give and take of a couple of hundred years in that.
>The important thing is that all the evidence discounts older theories
>and propositions which still are in circulation that 'the Germanic
>people' originated some 5000 to 4000 years ago in Scandinavia.
>
>Dirk





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