[tied] Re: Why did Proto-Germanic break up?

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski
<piotr.gasiorowski@...> wrote:

> 27-10-03 12:48, tgpedersen wrote:
>
> > Germanic has 30% non-IndoEuropean roots.
>
> Do you have to repeat this on a list devoted to discussing a

different

> language family? "30%" is an informal and subjective assessment (as

far

> as I know, nobody has ever done any precise calculations) of the
> proportion roots that don't seem to be regular reflexes of known IE
> morphemes. That's a far cry from claiming that they aren't IE. They

can

> also be:
>
> (1) loans from other (perhaps still unrecognised) IE sources;
> (2) words not borrowed but coined in pre-Germanic or Proto-Germanic;
> (3) IE roots that thanks to a quirk of chance happened to survive

in

> just one branch (of course it would be very hard either to prove or

to

> disprove their IE status);
> (4) roots mistakenly believed to be non-IE, because the correct
> etymology has not yet been discovered.
>
> As for "30%" as the number of problematic roots, the number is
> controvesial to say the least and ought not to be circulated so
> lightheartedly. Since it lacks scholarly substantiation, it's just

gossip.

>

Joe Salmons: Northwest IE vocabulary and substrate phonology
in
Perspectives on IE Language, Culture & Religion, vol II

"
...Indeed, a careful survey of the relevant vocabulary leads Markey
to conclude that 28% of the core vocabulary of Germanic is of non-
Indo-European origin [Thomas L. Markey: The Celto-Germanic 'Dog/Wolf'-
champion and the integratin of Pre/Non-IE ideals. NOWELE 11:23 and
elsewhere]. Likewise for Celtic, Campanile (1976: 138) finds,
coincidentally, that 28% of his sample uncompounded Old Cornish words
are of unknown origin, after subtracting Indo-European items and
loans from Germanic and Romance.
"

Gossip, my foot. I suggest the real reason you're so upset is that
people on the Austronesian list took my Germanic-from-Pontus idea
seriously and that you can't censor me there.

Torsten