14-10-03 17:58, Egijus wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Romanians have GARD, Albanians have GARDH, Gots have GARDS,
> Lithuanians have GARDAS, but Slavs have GRAD. So, I think, that GARD
> can't be loan from Slavic.
Of course it _can_ (the prototype of the Slavic word is *gordU, and the
phonetic form of that in very early Slavic was *[gardu]; /grad/ is the
modern reflex of the word in southern Slavic). The question is only if
it _is_ a loan from Slavic, and whether Slavic borrowed it from Gothic.
I regard such a scenario as likely, given the geographical configuration
of the languages in question and the and areal relations between them.
> Also, was Gothic language popular much
> enough to inflect Romanian, Albanian, Baltic and Slavic languages?
> language.
Popular or not, the Goths and other East Germanic peoples could be found
all over the area during the Great Migrations period. There are lots of
Gothic loans in Slavic, there may be some direct East Germanic loans in
Albanian and Romanian, and there are a number of ultimately East
Germanic loans mediated by Slavic.
> I'm not sure that Old Prussian language was Proto Germanic
> language.
Rest assured it wasn't.
> But I have read articles, which suggests that Proto
> Germanic language belonged to Satem group of languages
Either you didn't read it carefully, or the article was a load of crap.
Germanic doesn't meet the defining criterion of being Satem (the
unconditional fronting and affrication or spirantisation of the *k^
series, and the loss of labialisation in the *kW series), so it can't be
called Satem, full stop.
> and had cases.
_All_ early Indo-European languages had cases -- also non-Satem ones,
such as Latin and Greek. In other words, having cases and being Satem
are independent things. No-one doubts that Proto-Germanic was a fully
inflected language, but that's simply part of its IE heritage.
> Also, words HAILAZ and HELMAZ were been presented as Proto
> Germanic words. Word HAILAZ means HELLO. Prussians have KAILAS for
> HELLO.
Prussian had <kails>, actually. And Slavic has *ce^lU 'whole, sound' <
*kailu-, with numerous derivatives. The word is inherited from
Proto-Indo-European, so little wonder that similar reflexes occur in
different branches.
> Word HELMAZ means HELMET. Prussians have SALMAS for HELMET.
This is an early loan from Germanic into Slavic and then from Slavic
into Baltic. The direction of the borrowing can easily be demonstrated:
The characteristic palatalisation of the initial consonant and the
retraction of the vowel could only have taken place in the Slavic
intermediary: *xelmaz > *s^elmU > *s^olmU (cf. Pol. szl/om). *s^olmU was
borrowed into the Baltic languages as *s^almas, with the normal phonemic
substitutions.
> Also, words STIKLS and GARDS were been written here as Gothic words.
> There are Baltic words STIKLAS and GARDAS with same meaning as
> Gothic ones.
PGmc. *stiklaz > Goth. stikls is the source of the loans meaning
'glass', including Slavic *stIklo.
> Also, Baltic word PLUGAS is in Germanic languages too.
> It means PLOUGH.
Again, compare Slavic *plugU (same meaning). It's a rather recent
"wandering word" without a secure etymology. Whatever its ultimate
source, the vocalism of the Baltic word shows that it's a loan from
Slavic, not the other way round.
> Germanic and Prussian tribes were neighbours in
> ancient times. I'm wondering what are opinions of other members
> about relations between Old Prussian language and Proto Germanic
> language?
Germanic, Slavic and Baltic peoples have been neighbours for a long time
and have influenced one another's vocabulary through borrowing.
Furthermore, Baltic and Slavic are closely related, so many of the items
they share are simply inherited from Proto-Balto-Slavic. Old Prussian is
(or, strictly speaking, was) just one of the West Baltic languages, the
only one in that subbranch with a corpus of written records; otherwise,
there's nothing special or mystical about its position. In particular,
it isn't any of the following:
(1) the ancestor of Germanic,
(2) the ancestor of the remaining Baltic languages,
(3) a descendant of Thracian,
(4) the source of every travelling loan in Central Europe,
(5) a plausible basis for explaining Romanian toponyms.
By exaggerating the role of Old Prussian you transform the actual story
of a real language into a surreal fantasy. To a linguist, it looks like
a Monty-Pythonesque travesty of Old Prussian as we know it. Sorry, but
some linguistic knowledge is necessary if you want to discuss such
matters. Desultory reading is not enough.
Piotr