Transhumance [Re: etyma for Crãciun]

From: g
Message: 29011
Date: 2004-01-02

On Fri, Jan 2, 2004, at 12:30 PM, tgpedersen wrote:

> Now you're talking!

Ain't I! :-)

> I think you'll like this quote from Hans Kuhn: "Das letzte
> Indogermanisch":
>
> "Der Wortschatz der nordgermanischen und der alemannisch-alpinen
> Almwirtschaft hat einige wichtige Termini gemeinsam, obschon in dem
> weiten Zwischenland von dieser Wirtschaftsfor nichts bekannt ist und
> die Bedingungen für sie auch sehr schlecht sind."

If the ancestors of the <<nordgermanischen>> (or, as they're
called here, outside the <<Preissnland>>: <<Nordlichter>>)
migrated to Skandza coming from Southern and S-Eastern territ's,
then I'd expect them having some common/shared <<Wortschatz>>
with inhabitants of middle and south-european regions --
shoudn't I?

> Kuhn explains them as a result of emigration from his Nordwestblock
> to Italy.

Jo, mei... I'm afraid this might be a... residue of the
"school of thought" of those who deemed Germanism to have
been primeval, primordial etcetera, sort of origin of
everything within the PIE frame. (BTW, in German, they still
use <<indogermanisch>> instead of <<indoeuropaeisch>>. :))

> I know very little of Scandinavian transhumance economy.

Neither do I know more of Romanian transhumance economy,
feta cheese and mutton chops, woolen sweaters, plaids
etc. :-) OTOH, I suppose it isn't too intricate and
complicated: a mere to and fro (Spring -- Fall), typical
of the temperate & colder geo-regions. (Inter alia, hence
the Altaic-Uralic impact too: in Summer the Altaic horsemen
were able to look for suculent pastures even in the remotest
N areas of the Uralic people.)

> I saw on TV someone did research there into cow-calling.

BTW, in the Romanian vocabulary, I can't find a "substrate"
equivalent for <vaca> "cow" and <vitzel/vitzea> + diminut.
<vitzeluS> "calf," <taur> "bull," <bou> "ox," nor for <oaie>
['oa-je] "sheep," <berbec(e)> "ram/aries," <miel/ñel> "miel,"
<capra> "goat" (here, at last: the goat's... husband is
<tzap>, cf. Alb. <thap>). :-)

[I wonder whether Hung. <borju> "calf" has anything to
do with the PIE kW*/bo* family and its diminutival variant
<boci> ['bo-tzi]; of <tehén> "cow," <ökör> "ox," <juh> "sheep,"
<birka> "sheep, ram," <bárány> "lamb," I know only of this
last one to be a Slavic correspondence. (I don't know whether
<birka> has anything in common with <berbec(e)> < Lat. vervex.]

> Torsten

George