The Neolithic Hypothesis (Germanic)
Robert Whiting
whiting at cc.helsinki.fi
Sat Apr 10 10:16:43 UTC 1999
On Wed, 7 Apr 1999 X99Lynx at aol.com wrote:
Subject: Re: The Neolithic Hypothesis (Germanic)
>I wrote:
><<Or isn't it more likely that Germanic was
>either cut-off, isolated or geographically distant from the
>"innovative core" - all external factors.
What all? What are the subtle differences in meaning that you
see between "cut-off", "isolated" and "geographically distant"
that makes this three factors instead of one?
<snip>
>The 'Germanic' we are talking about happened @3000 years ago.
>Its speakers were primitive, poor and had lost contact with the
>rich and "linguistically innovative" regions to the south.
<irony>
Ah, I get it now. The Ur-Germans were too poor to afford new
words and too primitive to think up their own so they were just
stuck with what they had. I can see it all now:
Ur-Hans: What are you doing?
Ur-Fritz: I'm making a shoe for my hand.
Ur-Hans: What are you going to call it?
Ur-Fritz: Call it? -- You know we can't afford new words.
Ur-Hans: Well, we sure can't make up any of our own, so I guess
it's just a handshoe.
Ur-Fritz: Yeah, it's a pity none of those rich foreigners ever
come by so we could borrow a word from them.
(Author's note: This exchange has been translated from
Ur-Germanisch for the benefit of the audience
since the purpose is dramatization, not
reconstruction.)
</irony>
>Is this the only explanation for its archaism? No. But it is
>better than pop sociology.
Well, I'm glad to know that "poor" and "primitive" are not
sociological factors. Or are you saying that your pop sociology
can beat my pop sociology? :>
Bob Whiting
whiting at cc.helsinki.fi
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