[gothic-l] Re: Ethnicity and religion/runes

[dirk at SMRA.CO.UK]

Hi Francisc,

here is the URL to a short summary of a recent study on the geographic 
origin of Germanic:

http://www.gwdg.de/~uhsw/udolph1.htm

cheers,

Dirk





--- In gothic-l at y..., "Francisc Czobor" <czobor at c...> wrote:
> Hails!
> 
> Germanic is definitely an independant Indo-European language group 
> from Celtic. Although it is a "kentum"-type language (i.e., did not 
> palatalize the original Indo-European velars, feature that is shared 
> with Celtic, Italic, Greek, Hittito-Luvite and Tocharic), it has 
some 
> common characteristics with the Balto-Slavic languages, that 
otherwise 
> are classified as "satem"-type language (i.e., changed the I.E. 
velars 
> into palatals, like Indo-Iranian, Armenian, Thracian, Phrygian).
> These "Northern Indo-European type" features found in Germanic and 
> Balto-Slavic consist in:
> 1. The change of "bh" of the I.E. instrumental and dative-ablative 
> plural endings into "m"
> 2. The tendency of blending of I.E. short "o" with I.E. short "a" 
and 
> of I.E. long "o:" with I.E. long "a:" (for instance, in Common 
> Germanic I.E. "o:"&"a:" > "o:", and I.E. "o"&"a" > "a"; in Common 
> Slavic, I.E. "o:"&"a:" > "a:", and I.E. "o"&"a" > "o")
> 3. Some specific words, found in Germanic, Baltic, and Slavic, but 
not 
> in other I.E. languages. There are several such words, but only one 
> can I remember now, the word for "thousand":
> In Germanic: Goth. Þusundi, Germ. Tausend, Eng. thousand, etc.
> In Baltic: Lithuanian tuksantis (or something like this)
> In Slavic: Russian tysiacha, Serbo-Croatian tisucha etc. (from 
> Common-Slavic *tysentja or *tysontja)
> The common Balto-Slavo-Germanic I.E. form would be something like 
> *tu:s(e/o)nti or *tu:s(e/o)ntia.
> Of course, the Germanic group became its distinctive characteristic 
> after the first (Common-Germanic) consonant shift (that allegedly 
> occured around 500 BC, is I read somewhere, but I don't know on what 
> evidence is based this assumption).
> And there are of course the cultural loanwords from Celtic, e.g.:
> Celtic ri:g- > Gmc. *ri:kaz (Goth. reiks)
> Celtic ambactos > Gmc. *ambaxtaz (Goth. andbahts, Germ. Amt)
> etc.
> As far as I understood from several sources, the primitive Germanic 
> people speaking the Common Germanic language was formed around 1000 
BC 
> in the Iutland peninsula and the surrounding area, through 
> assimilation by the Indo-European speaking newcomers of an older 
> non-Indo-European culture of builders of megalithic monuments.
> On the other hand, the primitive Celtic people was formed farther 
> southwards (on the upper course of Danube), originating from 
> Indo-European speaking tribes arrived from the east.
> 
> Francisc
> 
> --- In gothic-l at y..., keth at o... wrote:
> > Hi Dirk,
> > Surely you don't mean that Germanic had its Genesis as an 
indeendent
> > language after Keltic had become established ?
> > That would mean assigning a much younger age to Germanic
> > thabn to Keltic.
> > Btw, I saw in Webster's dictionary that it is okay to write
> > Keltic with a "K" in English too. (the Greeks wrote it with
> > the "kappa")
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > >
> > >Hi Keth,
> > >
> > >that is a misunderstanding. I certainly did not say that Germanic 
> came
> > >from Celtic. My view is that Germanic culture owes a lot to 
> borrowings
> > >from their Celtic neighbours, where it is often impossible to say
> > >which language a certain tribe/people spoke. It seems to be the 
> latest
> > >view in Germanic history that Germanic people developled from
> > >different iron age cultures with the influence from Celtic La 
Tene
> > >cultures beeing a common 'unifing' trait. As for the Germanic
> > >language, because of its composition of IE and non-IE components, 
 
> I
> > >believe that it developed as IE-speakers moved northwards from
> > >landlocked eastern areas, merging with non-IE sea-dwellers at the
> > >Baltic Sea coast. This is of course a massive 
over-simplification.
> > 
> > Certainly Keltic material culture influenced Germanic culture.
> > But Germanic as a language must have had its own independent
> > Origo. It cannot be explained as a mixture of "Keltic" with
> > some other unknown non-Indoeuropean language. If such a
> > possibility was obvious, then it would have been in all textbooks.
> > It is however a common feature of the various textbooks, that
> > Germanic is treated on equal footing with the other branches
> > of Indo European, such as Italic, Albanian, Tocharian and Greek.
> > Germanic must have arisen from a Indo-European substrate that
> > was different from these other branches. Where Germanic arose,
> > or "bootstrapped itself" remains unknown. That is because
> > people are moveable entities (of course), but naturally
> > I am very interested to hear where you think Germanic arose.
> > 
> > Cheers
> > keth


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