[gothic-l] Re: Possible Non Indo-European substrates in Germanic?

[Francisc Czobor]

Dear Fernando,

It seems that Ingemar's explanation of Aesir/Vanir is plausible,
although I also have read that the Vanir could be originally the
chthonian / fertility-related goods of some agricultural pre-IE
population of north Europe. But it is also known that the Old
Germanic society reflected the original IE tripartite society:
priests / warriors / cattle breeders (reflected also, for instance,
in the old Celtic society or in the three higher, or "aryan",
or "twice-born" old Indian castes: brahmins, kshatrya, vaishya). When
the different IE tribes became sedentarized, the third section of the
society (the cattle breeders) moved partially to other lucrative
activities, such as agriculture, handicraft, trade. In the case of
old Germans, the Vanir could be the goods specific to this third
social section.
However, it is true that common Germanic has a substantially high
rate of non-IE terms, attributed usually to a non-IE north-European
population that mixed with the IE invaders from the east to form the
proto-Germanic population.
The source of the data of your mail are various on-line
encyclopaedias, like Wikipedia etc. etc., that have all (almost) the
same texts.
Surprising are for me two aspects, found in these encyclopaedia
articles:
1. Some of the so-called non-IE substrate words are in fact derived
from an IE root, but took a specific signification in proto-Germanic.
Such words are, for instance, bow (proto-Gmc *bugo from proto-IE
*bheugh "to bow") or bear (proto-Gmc bero, origininal meaning: "the
brown one", from proto-IE *bher "brown").
2. The battle-axe / corded ware culture of northern Europe I knew
(from many sources, including authoritative ones such as Marija
Gimbutas) that it is attributed to the spread of IE tribes in that
region, this culture being an offshoot of the kurgan culture,
attributed to the early IE people.
The pre-IE population was the bearer of the pre-Bronze Age megalithic
culture of northern and western Europe.
It was an on-line dictionary of non-IE substratum in Germanic
(http://www.muw.edu/~rmccalli/subsGerIntro.html)
but the link works no more. I have saved (some months ago) the page
on my computer at home and will send it to you as an attachment.

Best regards,
Francisc




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