Re: Darkness

> > *dh- > *þ- > *f- is commonly accepted for Italic,
> > and many of its
> > speakers were grown-ups. I can't remember if it's
> > Kuhn or Vennemann
> > who posits an Italic-like *dh > þ, d > *d, *t > *t
> > for some dialect on
> > the Rhine, from where it might have been picked up.
>
> I don't know exactly what you're implying.

The way I understand it, Germanic is the result of an expansion into
what later came to be known as Germania from the east in the first
century BCE over earlier cultures which spoke other IE languages, one
of which is the IE Nordwestblock; the area of the middle Rhine might
have spoken another.

> In Germanic th>f is not regular, therefore the
> alternation in this root needs some specific
> explanation.

These languages appear as substrates in Germanic, therefore they don't
have to be analyzed as Germanic.

> I'd give the same explanation for timira- (with loss of syl-final C,
> spread of the V to another syllable, both good indications).

??


Torsten