Re: Check out Origin of Ancient Languages

--- In cybalist@..., george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote:

>
> --- tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
> > Given that the western Baltic languages (ie Old
> > Prussian) are
> > affiliated somehow with the Germanic languages and
> > (if you believe
> > this
> >
> > http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~histling/nytarticle.html
>
> *****GK: This is 6 years ago. I wonder if there have
> been follow ups.******

So do I.

> >
> > article) that Germanic was first influenced by
> > Balto-Slavic,
>
> *****GK: My understanding of "Balto-Slavic" is that it
> is an ancestor language of all Baltic and Slavic
> languages. So the affiliation mentioned here should
> affect not only Western Baltic tongues but everything
> else. As a matter of fact some of the linguistic
> authorities who dealt with this problem had
> hypothesized that there once existed a
> "Germano-Balto-Slavic" group, which then broke up into
> "Germanic" and "Balto-Slavic".******
>
> then by
> > Celtic, is it possible that there was once a dialect
> > continuum on the
> > South shore of the Baltic between the Baltic (Old
> > Prussian) languages
> > in (East) Prussia and the (Old) Germanic languages
> > of Denmark and
> > Sweden, a continuum that was breached by a Celtic
> > colonization of the
> > South shore (cf. Tacitus' remark that the Aestii
> > spoke a language
> > similar to that of the Britons)?
>
> *****GK: I think we should be careful in not reading
> too much into Tacitus' remark that the "Aestii" spoke
> a language like that of the Britons. This is a
> statement of the same category, it seems to me as
> Strabo's (if I remember correctly) comment that the
> Romans called the Germans "Germani" because the latter
> were "genuine Celts". The only thing I could think off
> to explain Tacitus was the possibility that some form
> of Celtic could have played the role of lingua franca
> along the Amber road as late as the 1rst c. AD.*****
> >

In at least Caesar's time, archaeologically there is the same culture
on both sides of the Rhine, I believe I read somewhere. That means
Strabo's remark would make sense (although it wouldn't be true),
since the Celts on the right bank of the Rhine would be free Celts.
It all mixes beautifully with a Germanic colonization of the area of
Germania at that time. Which I'm not the first to suggest.

Torsten