Re: Spread of Early Germanic

Thanks, Piotr, for taking the time. It's much appreciated.

"Piotr Gasiorowski" <gpiotr@...> writes
<With these reservations, I must say I find the continuum scenario more
plausible than a hard separation. If Gothic had consolidated as a distinct
language somewhere in the south at an early date, I'd expect it to reveal a
good deal of adstratal non-Germanic (Dacian, Sarmatian, etc.) influence,
especially in the lexicon. I can't see anything of the kind, just some
sporadic loans and calques, mostly from educated Greek rather than any SE
European vernaculars. >

I must admit that reasoning has quite a bit of strength to it. But let me
try to at least make some points that might still leave the door open to a
Gothic origin in the south:

1. - Does Gothic (Ulfila's Gothic mainly) show much lexical adstrate at all?
Even the Greek loans are predominantly religious. Could it be that Gothic
was a language that for whatever reason was not prone to borrow?

After all, even if Gothic only made it down to the south after 100 AD, it
STILL had about two whole centuries to borrow from assorted non-Germanic
neighbors.

And are we to think that there was nothing new and dazzling to add to the
lexicon when the Goths came into contact with the opulence of the Black Sea
and with the Glory that was Greece. Even Scythia and Dacia should have
introduced many new and wonderful things into their experience. New foods,
new locales, a whole new set of flora and fauna, new kinds of clothes, dyes,
colors, textiles, machines, processes and materials. What words could they
have already had to describe polished marble or gold-lined triemes?

Where are all those words? Perhaps the New Testament does not provide the
subject matter for such an exhibition of new lexicon. Perhaps Ulfila
consciously tried to avoid obvious borrowings to make the new religion feel
more native.

So, maybe the expected non-Germanic adstrate is missing in any case - whether
Gothic was an old arrival or a new one - especially given the apparent
archaeological evidence, which shows some intense eastern contact shortly
before Ulfila's time.

2. Is there a Germanic adstrate in Gothic? If any convergence occurred among
"East" Germanic tribes, would it show as it does in Southern Slavic? Is
there an adstrate attributable to NW Germanic? My best understanding is that
the relationship with OHG and OE look vertical for the most part, from a
common ancestor. Perhaps that might argue that Gothic was isolated from most
such borrowings, whatever the source?

3. The Gothic words for wine and olive bother me. (E.g., wein, sn. OE, OHG,
win; Lat, vinum.) Why would Gothic borrow these words from Latin, given
where the first real life contacts would have occurred for the Goths at
least. Perhaps, over many generations, the source of borrowed words simply
changed.

4. And finally, given how much we have on Thracian, Dacian, Sarmatian, etc.,
is it possible that we would not recognize such borrowings, especially if
they were borrowed early and then adopted later in the west Germanic?

I don't know how much this affects the plausibility, but I think it leaves at
least a little breathing room for an earlier appearance of Gothic or East
Germanic in the south.

<<There is evidence, both archaeological and linguistic, of regular contacts
being maintained between the Pontic and Danubian areas and northern Europe
until the Hunnish invasion. Some very early borrowings from Iranian and Greek
diffused into West Germanic, and their form does not suggest any non-Germanic
intermediary.>>

But I think that both of those groups were quite capable of delivering those
borrowings themselves, even if Gothic had been isolated. Tacitus tells us
legends of Greek contact in the West and the Scythians pushed deep into
central Europe. As far as regular contacts - the evidence is really not
entirely that regular. And to the extent they reflect ancient trade routes,
we might expect that there would be intermediaries handling the goods, if not
the language. Finally, German tribes weren't always on the best of terms, so
maybe the bottleneck was sustained by the same animosity that caused the
original migration. And perhaps that was the nature of the cut-off.

<<If you're interested in such topics, I recommend D.H. Green's book
_Language and History in the Early Germanic World_, if you don't know it
already:..."

I'll take a better look at it. Thanks again, Piotr.

Steve Long