--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski
<piotr.gasiorowski@...> wrote:
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...>
> To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Saturday, March 15, 2003 12:03 PM
> Subject: [tied] Re: Germanic Scythians?
>
>
> > T: I realise from Collynge "The laws of IndoEuropean" that the
whole matter of the sequence of Grimm and Verner isn't settled yet.
>
> P: One thing is certain: VL must follow the spirantisation of *p,
*t, *k, *kW. Its ordering with respect to the remaining subparts of
GL is irrelevant. Assuming for the sake of the argument that *þuringa-
< *tur-enko- (which is by no means the only possiblity), the
intermediate stage must be *þurenxa-, and however you manipulate the
oredering of the changes, *-ng- can't appear earlier than the initial
*þ-.
T: Not quite certain if we follow the glottalist formulation. Thus,
instead of starting with
k, g, gh etc
we start with
k, k', g
and Grimms law, instead of
k, g, gh > x, k, g
becomes
k, k', g > kh, k, g > x, k, g
then Verner's law, which remains as before (using the implicit
assumption that it should change only one feature of the phoneme),
can be used before Grimm; thus for Hermundurian (i.e. Proto-Germanic)
*tur-enko- > (Verner, i.a.) *tur-inga- > (stress shift) > *túr-inga-
(new Grimm) > *thúr-inga- > *þúringa-
and for the Tungri
*tur-enko- > (Verner, i.a.) *tur-inga- > (stress shift) > *túr-inga-
> (loss of syllable due to primary stress) *túr-nga- > (metathesis)
*túngra-
So now I'm down to two extra rules (syllable loss, metathesis) for
the failed language of Ariovist's colonisation, the first of which
also occurs in Germanic, albeit later.
T:
> > Therefore asking me to settle that question before *tur-enko- >
*tungra- can be settled is a fine move: no matter what I come up
with, unless I'm better than all my illustrious predecessors, will
contain holes. So I'll do something else:
>
> > *tur-enko- > *tur-nka- > *tunkra- > *tungra-
>
> > And then I can claim that the last rule was specific to the
language of Ariovist's Tungri. Not very special pleading, the rule
seems ordinary enough.
>
> P: Three changes (syllable loss, metathesis and voicing) posited
arbitrarily with the sole purpose to justify a dubious connection --
and you say it's no special pleading? Ordinary or not, the "rules" (a
single example doesn't make a rule) are ad hoc. Ariovist was king of
the Suebi -- a West Germanic people; there is no reason to exempt
their language from Grimm's Law.
T:
See below.
The Suevi, in the beginning, was an association of tribes, not a
tribe itself. When Caesar meets Ariovist, he is busy relocating the
Charudes to Gallia; obviously he was more than just the king of one
tribe.
P: Unless Tacitus was completely wrong about the Tungri, they were
Germanic too (the name does not appear to be Celtic, at any rate).
T: But since the colonisation failed, all that remained of their
early Germanic dialect was the ethnonym. And what exactly does the
name Tungri appear to be?
>
> Piotr
I better give my whole scenario:
Germanic Stammbaum
bef. 200 BCE
"Old Germanic" spoken in Scandinavia.
200 BCE
Old Germanic in Scandinavia, Scirian and Bastarnean in Southern
Poland moving southeast.
50 BCE
Old Germanic in Scandinavia, Bastarnean arrives in Thuringia, where
it mixes with the earlier arrived Iranian speakers to become
Hermundurian. Verner. Stress shift. The Hermunduri expands and force
Celtic tribes into their Suevian alliance.
40 BCE (?)
Near the Rhine the Tungri (= Thuringi) under Ariovist speak
Tungrian. Hermundurian plus syllable reduction (plus metathesis).
Colonisation fails. Language becomes extinct.
10 BCE (?)
Drusus and Tiberius conquer Germania including Thuringia. The main
force of the Hermunduri leave for Denmark and Sweden, which they
conquer. Among the remaining Hermunduri the Iranian language slowly
becomes extinct. They now call themselves *þúringa-. Their language
is Proto West Germanic.
Sometime between 0 BCE and 0 CE
The Old Germanic language is slowly becoming extinct, being
replaced by Hermundurian. The resulting language is Proto North
Germanic.
Torsten