Re: Uralic Loanwords in Germanic

From: Torsten
Message: 65859
Date: 2010-02-15

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, johnvertical@... wrote:
>
> > > > I proposed that the *IE* s-stems were based on a
> > > > reinterpretation of the *IE* genitive -Vs as nominative (which
> > > > BTW I think is the origin of the IE nom.sg. -(V)-s.
> > >
> > > Okay. Then what does Finnic have to do with it?
> >
> > It borrowed both from PIE thematic stems (Germanic a-stems) (like
> > rengas) and PIE s-stems, and PIE (and Germanic) s-stems (like
> > lammas), with the same result (the vieras declension). One
> > explanation for that is that they borrowed the stem of the
> > nom.sg., which would have the same *-os ending (<- *-as in PPIE
> > and -> *-as in some dialects, including Germanic), but *not* in
> > Germanic, which had lost the s-stem nom.sg *-s. The cognates of
> > the borrowed items may be found in Germanic, but the donor
> > language can't be PGmc, as you also remarked (below).
>
> Aaah. So the lack or presence of -s in Finnic would be not so
> erratic after all? It IS commonly left away entirely or substituted
> (hanhi "goose" < B. *Zansis, karja "cattle" < Gmc *xarjaz, mair-ea
> "smeering" < Gmc *smairjaz), but you're saying that where it does
> appear, all have it if not from the nom.sg, then from an old -s-
> stem. Right?

No, that's what Vilhelm Thomsen said might be the case in 'Über den Einfluss der germanischen Sprachen auf die finnisch-lappischen. Eine sprachgeschichtliche Untersuchung (1870)'
http://tinyurl.com/yllj6f6
and what de Vries tacitly implied
http://tinyurl.com/yf4ugrs




> The words of wider Finnic distribution where this -s appears
> appended to an Uralic root seem, then, like an issue here, if we
> are to make this suffix unproductiv.

There's no way of avoiding it being an issue if we insist that its origin is in loans from Germanic.

> Some of them could be
> explained by being original -ks stems that were changed to -s due
> to the example of IE loans (old Finnic words in -aks are rare), as
> _oras_ "thorn" vs. Livonian _voraaks_ explicitly suggests. The
> Uralic status of _uros_ "male" and _nauris_ "turnip" is uncertain -
> Hungarian _úr_ "lord" "has been considered a separate Iranian loan"
> according to Häkkinen, and Ob-Ugric _*nëëG@... means "cedar nut"
> (this would also be the only Uralic root featuring *-kr-), with no
> other internal cognates.


> Also have you spotted any examples of -s- stem correlation other
> than *lambaz?

As you can see in the Thomsen locus
http://tinyurl.com/yllj6f6
there are
Finnish
lammas "sheep"
mallas "malt"
Saami
labbes "lamb"
males "meal"
more dubious are
Finnish
lannas "ground, beach"
lunnas "ransom" (cf. German Lohn), with lunnastaa "to ransom"
porras "stair, path"
teuras "animal for slaughter"

> A word lacking an IE etymology is not really a prime
> candidate for loaning from a para-Germanic language, or
> pre-Germanic.

That's what I thought too.
Food for thought:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/37461
or not, as the case may be.


Torsten