Re: etmyology of Germani

> >
> > Torsten, which are the Iranic elements in Germanic then? I really
> >failed
> > to see where should be at least the linguistic connection since
> > historicaly there is no clear connection between iranians and
> > germanics:).
>
> Now _that_ is a good question and one I wondered why no one else
> asked. All I have to show is the possibly Iranian name Hermunduri

and

> the possibly Pontic-and-Caucasian-from-Iranian origin of the name
> Wodan. And Piotr mentioned that 'path' might be an Iranian loan.
> There is the an romantic discredited idea of a special relationship
> between the German and the Iranian languages, and on the net you

can

> find long lists (usually compiled in the 19th century) of supposed
> similar cognates in Germanic and Iranian, which just might be
> interpreted as the result of a 'semantic alignment' process by
> Germanic caused by a putative Iranian Führungsschicht, similar to

the

> influence German has had on Danish, but as for loanwords - no,
> nothing similar to the number of Iranian loans in Slavic. Doesn't
> look good. But then, anything may be hiding in the non-IE 30% of
> Germanic. But then one would have to postulate the existence of a

non-

> IE language with no known affinities in the Pontic area at a time
> when it supposedly was populated with Iranian-speakers (on the

other

> hand some of the Iranian etymologies for the names then and there
> don't convince me).
>

But note also that although there is plenty of evidence for Germani
under Hunnic command, and Priscus mentions Hunnic was used along with
Gothic as a lingua Franca, there are no (officially recognized)
Hunnic loan words in Germanic (they would be Turkic, and closest to
Chuvasic), and, until recently, no archaeological remains of the
Huns' stay in Europe had been found.

Torsten