--- In cybalist@..., Piotr Gasiorowski <piotr.gasiorowski@...>
wrote:
>
>
>
> > What puzzled me was that the German knights (not the Hansa) would
use Low German. As you know, all of German Prussia showed only High
German.
>
> That's a much later affair, which started after the decline of the
Hansa and the spread of literary High German alongside Protestantism.
The knights of the Order were recruited from far and wide and
certainly spoke different varieties of German, but the real speech of
the town was Low German. That was the dominant variety of German
throughout the Hanseatic League in the Middle Ages. The Knights'
official communication was conducted mostly in Latin, but I suppose
they used Low German in everyday communication, just like everyone
round them, at least in addition to whatever happened to be a given
knight's native dialect.
I'm sorry, I should have expressed myself more clearly. I meant not
the German-ruled kingdom of Prussia, but the once German province of
Ostpreussen (which as far as I know was conquered without the help of
the Hansa?), the German dialects of which were always all High, not
Low German, in spite of the Northern location.
>
> > Beginning of the common era? That leaves room exactly between 50
BCE and 0. Interesting. Do you have evidence of Grimm operating
before 0?
>
> Grimm's Law, Verner's Law and the loss of non-initial accent (in
this order) are common Germanic, so you have to allow sufficient time
between GL and the dispersal of the Germani. There are a fair number
of GL-affected names attested BC, e.g. the Cherusci or the Marcomanni
(marko: < *marga: 'frontier').
As far as I can ascertain the Cherusci are mentioned for the first
time in 2 BCE
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/tacitus-annals.txt
http://www.slu.edu/colleges/AS/languages/classical/latin/tchmat/pedago
gy/chron/romchr7.html
and the Marcomanni in 9 BCE
ibid.
Casar met Ariovist, the king of the Germani (tout court), which
people on that occasion Tacitus later identifies with Tungri, in 58
BCE.
http://www.slu.edu/colleges/AS/languages/classical/latin/tchmat/pedago
gy/chron/romchr6.html
That leaves a good 50 years, in much contact with Iranian speakers,
with their Klingon-like speech habits (a word like <xs^aþiya-> is
enough to make you nervous) for the Grimm shift to take place.
As for the speed of the change, consider this: In the 60's and 70's
of the last century, under the influence of youth-, hippie-,
socialist and whatever rebellion, High Danish and Low Danish (Low
Copenhagen) swapped status. In this case what to a later observer may
look like a very rapid transition, was actually a reversal of social
status. Suppose some Bastarnae had for a long time cultivated a
Iranian-influenced dialect, with Grimm shift, which was frowned upon
by proper speakers. New Iranian-speaking leaders with plenty success
in war (and less at pronouncing proper Bastarnic) and presto! New
fancy high-status language.
As for allowing time for dispersal of the language; well, the
Taurisci -> Thuringia (-> Westphalia, -> Scandinavia) is part of my
model of the dispersal of Germanic, or rather the new (creole?) form
of it, different from that of the Sciri and Bastarnae etc, as Snorri
insists.
>
> > You're right, of course. Still, what is the etymology of
<tungri>, if
> it has nothing to do with <þuringi>?
>
> If they were really Germanic (rather than Celtic-speaking), perhaps
a derivative of *tung(w)- (< *dng^Huh2-) 'tongue, speech'? We can
only guess.
With an -r- suffix? I think I like my guess better.
>
>
> Piotr
But BTW, if the last element of <Ario-vist> is identical to that of
<Bure-bista> and related to (a -t- participle of) PIE <bH-
idH> "worship; trust"´, does that indicate a weakening -b- -> -v-,
(systematically) consistent with -t- -> -d-?
(and BTW, cf the ON god Buri).
Torsten