Re: Grimm shift as starting point of "Germanic"

From: george knysh
Message: 54778
Date: 2008-03-06

--- tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...> wrote:

> > --- tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Rick McCallister
> <gabaroo6958@...> wrote:
> >
> > I see your point. At one time, there were
> transition
> > dialects between IE families but they got squeezed
> out
> > or fragmented as some IE groups moved out and new
> > families moved in
> >
> Not really. I said that once the Germanic family was
> bigger, but some
> members died since Tacitus' time, so now we see a
> much more narrow
> picture of what 'Germanic' was then.
>
>
> Torsten

****GK: Whatever "Germanic" was in the time of
Tacitus, Bastarnian was a part of it.
And whatever it was, it shared then with other
"Germanic" groups, some of which became extinct, and
some of which continued to develop.
The problem with this extinct Bastarnian language is
that so little of it has survived for analysis. Three
"leader" names. Possibly some Germanic
toponyms/hydronyms in the area of their historical
habitation. So we can't have conclusive evidence
either way on strictly linguistic grounds. We can't
prove to the satisfaction of protervientes like
Torsten that Clondic, Cotto, and Talto were Germanic
names. But the protervientes,on the other hand, cannot
prove that they were not. And there is the additional
difficulty of "borrowed" names (like Ambiorix: if we
didn't know from Caesar that he was German would we
not take him for a Celt?)Here we rely on authorities,
and if one insists on Gibbon and the other on
Muellenhof, it's flip a coin time.(where the penny is
worth as much as the dollar) (:=))

But Tacitus is more than just a casual authority in
these matters. And I return to my first sentence.

Torsten is incapable of demonstrating how the
Bastarnians, or the Goths became "Germanics" on the
basis of his theory of Przeworsk origins for Germanic.
Indeed he is incapable of demonstrating something even
more basic: how Przeworsk itself became Germanic. And
Przeworsk (Vandalic/Lugian/Suebian) is just as extinct
as Bastarnian. And just as Germanic (linguistically!)
as Bastarnian, if we are to believe Tacitus.And why
shouldn't we?****





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