From: Tommy Tyrberg
Message: 271
Date: 1999-11-14
----- Original Message -----
From: markodegard@...
To: cybalist@eGroups.com
Sent: Sunday, November 14, 1999 8:50 PM
Subject: [cybalist] Re: Voting Results: The Branch Most Closely Related
to Germanic
I'm the one who voted for none of the above. I felt a little contrarian
when I voted.
It could just be that Germanic and Celtic each stand alone, albeit not so
alone as the Anatolian branch, and whatever similiarties they have with
other groups can be explained as areal influences.
While this is mostly an artifact of the linguists' terminology, Germanic
can be called the youngest of the IE branches, in that we are not allowed
to apply the word to any group prior to ca. 500 BCE. I've seen Golab being
cited as giving1000 BCE for the approximate date of the genesis of
proto-Slavic; before then, they were in unity with Balto-Slavic.
Germanic is as peculiarly conservative as it is radically innovative. Of
the original stock of IE consonants ('obstruants' is the fancy word here),
Germanic has retained most of them, albeit having changed them as with the
Grimm-Verner laws; the analogy here is to music, where you arrange the
score for different instruments and change the key: the original notes are
the same, but the realization of the sound is quite different. It's as if
pre-Germanic was off by itself, in its own little sprachbund. There's also
the issue of the Germanic substratum, which seems to be quite old.
In one of my books, there is a map that shows Corded Ware horizon sites
extending up the coast of Norway clear past the North Cape; the
accompanying article notes that this archaeological data is otherwise
little noted in the literature. As to what this has to do with the genesis
of Germanic, I could only guess. Since the Germanic substratum has never,
ever been related to Uralic, and since the CW horizon is so universally
assumed to be IE (I heed Mallory's cautions here), the suggestion that the
substratum may derive via Scandinavia offers some interesting food for
thought. My own theory here is that much of this part of the world built
its economy around pristine Atlantic salmon runs: working hard for just a
few weeks once a year and using minimal food preservation technology (air
drying, salting, smoking), you could gather a year's worth of protein.
As I write this, I am not in the mood to spin speculative scenarios. But
the story of Germanic is not yet completely written, I think.
Mark Odegard.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
I'm not all that sure about the position of Germanic myself; that's why I
started this poll. My votes for Italic and Celtic (that is, in effect, for
Italo-Celtic) were half-hearted. My second favourite theory is that
Germanic is a sole survivor of a whole nother subfamily of IE which once
occupied a large part of northern Europe and whose speakers perhaps arrived
there via the east Baltic area, Finland and southern Scandinavia, rather
than from the south or southeast.
Piotr
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A shoppers dream come true! Find practically anything on earth at eBay!
Come and browse the more than 2 million items up for bid at any time.
You never know what you might find at eBay!
http://clickhere.egroups.com/click/1140
-- Create a poll/survey for your group!
-- http://www.egroups.com/vote?listname=cybalist&m=1