Nordwestblock

[Mark Odegard <Odegard@means.net>]

Mallory, on p. 85, speaks of the _Nordwestblock_. There is an
extensive footnote to go with the mention, and locates this as the
region between the Oise (tributary to the Seine) and the Aller
(tributary to the Weser).  This is essentially what we in English
call the Low Countries, and if we exclude the francophone portions
of Belgium, is in what I've seen as classified as historically
Northwest (or Ingvaeonic) Germanic speaking.

The suggestion is there is a *consensus* that a non-IE speaking group
was here in antiquity, one that seems to have persisted. It's
suggested that Celtic got its pig-related words from this language,
and perhaps to some extent, Germanic as well. It's also said that
Nordwestblock-speakers spread further East, to Central Europe.

Are these the 'Old Europeans' I've heard speak of? Could this
represent the putative substrate that gives Germanic words such as
'ship' and 'king'?

What else can be said of these people?
--
Mark Odegard   mailto:odegard at means.net