Re: [tied] Re: Aryans etc.

Grimm's romantic fantasies were later corrected by the Neogrammarians, most of whom were also Germans (and I personally don't blame Grassmann, Sievers or Brugmann for the rise of Nazism -- they were extremely clear-headed scholars). Whatever the Nazis made of Kossina's work, it isn't quite fair to blame him retrospectively either. The factual stuff of his theories (as opposed to their racist interpretation or the chauvinist conclusions drawn from them) has stood the test of time after all. It's clear today that most of what is now Poland was once occupied by various Germanic-speakers (Vandals, Goths, etc.). Polish scholars don't deny it any longer; however, a generation or two ago it was not only Kossina's name that was anathema in these parts -- also, any historical linguist or archaeologist questioning the location of the Proto-Slavic homeland in the basins of the Oder and the Vistula risked the suspicion that he was playing into the hands of German revisionists (an absurdly exaggerated bugaboo, as it turned out at length). That's all gone, thank God.

Piotr

----- Original Message -----
From: vishalagarwal@...

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Tuesday, November 06, 2001 10:36 PM

Subject: [tied] Re: Fwd: Aryans - Summarizing Asko Parpola's views

--- In cybalist@......, naga_ganesan@...... wrote: > --- In cybalist@......, "Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@......> wrote: > > Dear Naga, > > VA: See also - "German linguists played an important role in the development of Indo-European scholarship, and as early as the mid-nineteenth century Jacob Grimm was to explain the distribution of various sound changes by referring to the ethnic character of the speakers. Gustaf Kossina (1858 - 1931) whose principal work, Die Herkunft der Germanen, published in 1911, became a key text in Nazi Germany, provided an important ideological plank for territorial expansion. He argued that specifically Germanic material culture could be identified in archaeological sites and where such material was found this was evidence of the original extent of Germany."[page 4]