Re: Odp: Odp: Cowboys on Horseback

----- Original Message -----

From: Alexander Stolbov

To: cybalist@egroups.com

Sent: Wednesday, November 03, 1999 4:58 PM

Subject: [cybalist] Re: Odp: Cowboys on Horseback

 

What does force you to postulate that Northern (and actually we can discuss only Germanic) group belongs to the Westrn block?

There are evidences of the closeness of Germanic to both Italo-Celtic and Balto-Slavic. It seems to be obvious that one (either first or second) of such similarities is caused by the common genetic origin and another one by mutual influences (Sprachbund). I believe to those linguists who proves a close genetic kinship of Germanic and Balto-Slavic but the opposite opinion is respected too if one explains similarity between them by establishment of a Sprachbund as you do below:

It would take some explaining, but it is quite obvious to me that the nature of Balto-Slavic/Aryan similarities guarantees their genetic character (e.g. common phonological developments like the so-called RUKI rule), while the similarities between Germanic and Balto-Slavic (mostly lexical, in a few cases morphological) are more likely to be due to areal convergence. Germanic is not CLOSELY related to Italo-Celtic. Under my scenario, the two groups would have had about 4000 years of independent development behind them at the time of their first historical attestation.

 

There is an interesting alternative, though: Germanic could be more closely related to Tocharian than to any other branch; the common ancestor of the two would have left the homeland very early, before the division into the Western and Eastern blocks, via the Pontic area. Germanic would then be a residual member of the first "steppe wave" -- a sidestep migration across Russia into Scandinavia. What do you think of the idea that the Germani may have entered Scandinavia from the NORTHEAST, via Finland, probably as a group involved in the Battle Axe wanderings?

 

This would make the postulated Northwestern block a completely extinct branch; and ALL the special affinities between Germanic and Celtic or Balso-Slavic would be due to areal influence. The only problem is that Tocharian is so difficult to study.

Maybe it is better to locate Germanic (with other Northern) in the Eastern block together with Balto-Slavic? Germanic with its *h at the place of *k is not Satemic? And Iranian with the same *h is?

No, whatever else Germanic is, it's NOT Satemic. And you are wrong: Iranian does NOT have *h from *k! In Iranian, the Proto-Aryan palatal turned into *s (the word satem illustrates that!). Iranian *h (or rather velar *x, which is more correct for early Iranian) developed from PIE *s. The Germanic development *k > *x (part of Grimm's Law) is a manner-of-articulation shift (like the accompanying changes *g > *k and *gh > *g), NOT an instance of palatalisation. One essential feature of the Satemic languages is the loss of the labial element in the *kw, *gw, *ghw series. Since Germanic preserves the full labiovelar articulation, it simply cannot be Satemic. As in biology, phonological evolution is irreversible: once obliterated, a contrast cannot be reborn. Schematically, the main correspondences can be summarised thus (with more examples of satem and kentum languages to show more clearly where Iranian and Germanic belong).

PIE        Iranian   Indic     Slavic    Germanic   Latin     Greek

*kw   >    *k        *k        *k        *xw        kw (QU)   p (Myc. kw)

*k    >    *s        *ś        *s        *x         k (C)     k    

*s    >    *x        *s        *s        *s         s         h

Great! It is exactly that what I expected while Kassite were the first in Mesopotamia who used war chariots. As far as I know Kassite language can't be attested as IE. Perhaps the story was the same as in Mitanni wuth the Hurrites? If you know any datails please inform me.

Another place where I expect to find Aryan traces in the same period are Hyksos tribes (apparenly of Semitic origin but Aryan elite dominance could take place).

I suspects that if we had more information about the linguistic mosaic of the Anatolian and Middle Eastern kingdoms of the second millennium BC we would find traces of Aryan presence wherever chariot-driving was introduced. Aryan was clearly the language of the horse experts and all horsy people whatever their native background. Kikkuli, author of the famous Hittite treatise about horse-breeding and chariotry, was a Hurrite (that is, linguistically non-IE), but his terms for '1, 3, 5, 7, 9 laps (of a hippodrome)' are almost Sanskrit: aika-vartanna, tera-vart., pantsa-vart., satta-vart., nava-vart. Note the form aika, which is Indic rather than Iranian (cf. Sanskrit eka < *oi-ko-  versus Avestan aeva < *oi-wo-).

 

Piotr Gasiorowski