[gothic-l] Germanic language and Goths to George

[faltin2001]

--- In gothic-l at y..., george knysh <gknysh at y...> wrote:
>
> --- faltin2001 <dirk at s...> wrote:
> > --- In gothic-l at y..., george knysh <gknysh at y...>
> > wrote:
>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > > The overwhelmibg majority of the carriers of the
> > > Wielbark culture were undoubtedly descendants of
> > > "local" populations.
> >
> >
> > (DF)Yes, there is no doubt about that.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > There is no credible evidence
> > > (esp. toponymic or hydronymic) that these
> > populations
> > > were primarily "Germanic", save to the extent that
> > > they later had a Yastorf-Przeworsk element (along
> > with
> > > many others). They were not proto-Slavic either.
> >
> >
> >
> >(DF) Well, they were East Germanic speaker; just as
> their
> > culture their
> > language was most closely related to that of the
> > Przeworsk people
> > (like the Wandals).
>
> *****GK: We must be very careful here. There is no
> doubt that as time went on Wielbark acquired
> substantial numbers of Germanic speakers. There is no
> doubt that the only "Gothic" language known to us is
> an East Germanic dialect. But there is also little
> doubt that the Oksywie culture carriers and the
> original Wielbark culture carriers (they occupied the
> same space; this was before Wielbark began to
> expand)did not speak a Germanic language.



How do you know that? Clearly, Przeworsk was linguistically mainly
Germanic. The Oksywie culture is closely related to Przeworsk and all
the peoples that emerged out off Wielbark and Przeworsk cultures were
nothing but Germanic speaking. When the Goths are mentioned by
Tacitus, they are seen as Germanic, also when they had their dealings
with the Markomanni in the first decades of the first century AD
there is little to suggest that they were not Germanic like the
Markomanni, and the Wielbark culture starts only in the first century
BC.





Oksywie is
> an offshoot of the Pomeranian culture (itself a
> development of the Lusatian culture). We don't know
> what languages these people spoke. Certainly
> Indo-European, judging by ancient topo- and
> hydronymics, but not proto-Germanic.


I think linguistic differences between an 'unidentified Indo-
European' and 'proto-Germanic' are almost impossible to draw clearly.
I picture this as a continuum, with some groups having completed the
sound-shift earlier than others, leading to dialectual differences
initially. I cannot imagine that anybody knows which language the
carriers of the Pommeranian culture spoke, apart from Indo-European.



 Early Przeworsk
> was a fusion of Pomeranian and Yastorf, and
> historically came to be identified with the Vandals.


That is correct, as far as I know.



> But these Germanic speakers were not the whole of the
> Przeworsk culture. It also had that Pomeranian origin
> element, very numerous, which cannot be assumed to
> have been instantly germanized.


When you say 'germanised' do you mean that they underwent the
Germanic sound-shift?





> It had at some point
> Celtic speaking elements too, and historically
> attested (more on that in a later post).


There is considerable agreement that parts of the Przeworsk culture
or of the contributors to this culture were Celts.





I don't doubt
> that as time went on, the Goths, Vandals etc. no
> matter what the origin of their constituents, became
> more and more obviously Germanic in speech, esp. as
> their wanderings and reshufflings continued. But I
> would not say that this was obvious at the beginning.



I think we have to be clear what we mean by becoming Germanic. I
think that this means little more than participation in the first
soundshift. Wolfram pointed out in 'Die Germanen' that the
Germanisation of northern Europe was likely a very fast process,
similar to the slavisation of half of Europe in the 6th/7th
centuries.

I like to hear more about that!







> I have to rush off to class, but I'll get back on this
> very interesting topic later today. See you. And for
> God's sake stop wasting your time with B.H.
> (:=)))*****


Good point!

cheers
Dirk





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