Re: [tied] Check out Origin of Ancient Languages

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From: x99lynx@...

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Monday, October 14, 2002 6:50 AM

Subject: Re: [tied] Check out Origin of Ancient Languages

> Just a small suggestion here that the idea that the "Aestii" represented a tribe may be creating the problem here.  Western Celtic outposts along the Danube show that one of their strategies may have been to take a strategic location -- without occupying a region or becoming a "tribe" in the modern sense. It's therefore possible that the language "like the Britons" reported by Tacitus was accurate, referring to the language of the trade route or traders at a certain point.  There were many instances in history where trade was carried on by what might be considered 'outsiders' and where "colonies" were not settlements but rather "trading outposts."  The influence of Celtic-like material culture in the area of modern Poland might support such a possibility.

 

I agree in principle. One immediately thinks of the "Veneti" in this context. The linguistic relationships of a number of extinct languages (Venetic [as known from north Italy], Lusitanian, Messapic) are probably best defined using my "para-" terminology. Italic originated somewhere in central Europe (Austria, Bohemia, Bavaria?) and although we find it in Italy in historical times, any number of residual dialects may have remained north of the Alps. The spread of Celtic and then of Germanic lead to their eventual extinction, but perhaps not everywhere.

 

> Another thought -- with regard to the names "Viadua" and "Adora" -- it may be that the names were never used in pre-literate Germanic.  We are not given the source of the names or who used the names.  They do look supiciously Latin. (I seem to remember via tria and via quarta from somewhere and "-dora" might apply to some kind of tax or duty.)  Perhaps they were Roman traders' notes on maps that were taken to be names.  America got its name in much the same way.

 

I find the etymologies *wi-adu-a: and *ad(u)-ra: very tempting. The element *adu-/*adro- (Pokorny's reconstruction) 'current, channel' is attested in Italic and Venetic hydronymy. I've heard of bivium, trivium and quadrivium, but what would "via duo" (?) mean in Latin? Note that there is something remarkable about the right bank of the lower Oder: there was a chain of small but distinct archaeological groups there in late La Tene early Roman times. Between AD 0 and 200 they remained differed from the Przeworks and Wielbark cultures, and while materially similar to the cultures of the Elbe Germani, they were not identical with them either.

 

Piotr