[tied] re Why did Proto-Germanic break up?

I am reporting someone else's tale, not my own (and perhaps it could
have been made more explicit). I think the argument was that there
had to be some Germanic speech if the Gaels took over Germanic names,
rather than devising Gadelic ones of their own (as of course happened
for some settlement and other toponyms). If the earliest Gadelic
settlements are in the late 300s (well before the Viking raids begin
at the end of the eighth century CE), then there must have been
another Germanic speaking presence before then. The fact that there
was Norse influence later is irrelevant to this process. And that is
without moving in to the question when and in what form Celtic speech
reached Scotland.

Best wishes,


Gordon
<gordonselway@...>

At 2:34 yesterday afternoon GMT Jim Rader wrote:

>Given the Norse influence on Scottish Gaelic toponymy and lexis in
>the historical era, how would you detect prehistoric Germanic
>presence in the Hebrides? When you weed out the loans that are
>obviously from a later distinctively Norse era, what's left that
>looks unmistakably Germanic?
>
>Jim Rader
>
>> But then, I seem to recall that the names of geographical features in
>> the Western Isles of Scotland (a) have non-Gaelic(/non-Celtic) names,
>> which (b) appear to suggest a NW Germanic speech presence there in the
>> perhaps 200 years before the common era. Or is the date derived from
> > a view of the splitting up of Germanic?
> >
> > Best wishes,
> >
> >
> > Gordon
> > <gordonselway@...>