Re: Scandinavia and the Germanic tribes such as Goths, Vandals, Angl

At 7:04:04 PM on Monday, November 3, 2008, tgpedersen wrote:

>> In principle the possibility of an extra-Gmc.
>> relationship at a much earlier date still exists, but as
>> Piotr pointed out earlier, a relationship involving
>> unknown sound changes in unknown languages is fantasy.

> That's not something you can point out, it's a modus
> operandi which is the result of a choice.

Only in the sense that employing reason is a modus operandi
that is the result of a choice.

> This is how I see it: the assumption that a word belongs
> to some substrate Trümmersprache should not be made unless
> all other options have been exhausted,

It's a pity that you don't operate on that principle.
You're substrate-happy and routinely prefer that
explanation to others.

> and should preferably be backed up by extra-linguistic
> arguments for the existence of speakers of that language.
> I think that is the case here: the oddly loose
> distribution of documented folks named Jute, Eudosii,
> Eucii etc all over Europe.

You have nothing to support an identification of the the
'Gaut' and 'Jute' words in the face of a very plausible Gmc.
source of the former. (I observe that the existence of this
etymology is a fact that you're happy to ignore.)

> Just calling such an assumption a fantasy is a cop-out, as
> I see it;

I know. You don't understand science or the evaluation of
evidence.

> the facts are still there and won't go away.

You're confusing facts with your arrangement and
interpretation of them. You're considerably more
sophisticated, but it's still the von Däniken technique.

Brian