Re: [tied] Satem

Would a Middle Bronze Age society with the Early Baltic (West Baltic ?) substratum and the West IE superstratum (which later will produce Italic, Celtic, Venetic) be a theoretically appropriate model for the origin of PreGermanic?

In such a model the Early Baltic substratum with the vocabulary which can be called the "shared BaltioSlavic/Germanic lexicon" is to be divided in 2 parts. The Western part was integrated with (or conquered by) a Centum West IE people and the words of this lexicon underwent the Grimm's Law (as West IE was the winner in the competition). The Eastern part kept on developing according to the own tendencies and the same words of the "shared lexicon" developed naturally, including Winter's Law etc. and produced Slavic as a branch at a later stage.

Or there is no sense in it?

Alexander

----- Original Message -----

From: Piotr Gasiorowski

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2002 2:21 PM

Subject: Re: [tied] Satem

...

What is remarkable, on the other hand, is the impressive number of lexical correspondences between Balto-Slavic and Germanic, often extending to Italic and Celtic as well (the so-called North European vocabulary). Those words are affected by Grimm's Law in Germanic (when applicable), but not in their Balto-Slavic form (they _are_ affected by old Balto-Slavic processes such as Winter's Law), so we must date their spread to a very early period. They suggest the existence of a relatively stable linguistic area in prehistoric northern Europe, long before the East Germanic migrations.

Piotr