Re: [tied] Re: Non-Indo-European in Germanic

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 29002
Date: 2004-01-02

01-01-04 23:29, Joao wrote:

> Does this seems to point that Germanic in Scandinavia is older than Saami?

I don't know, frankly.

> And if Saami original language was not Uralic?

The Sámi languages are a crucially important component of Sámi identity.
"Being Sámi" is to a large extent a matter of belonging to one of the
linguistic communities in question (rather than of Blut und Boden). Does
it make sense to talk about "the original Sámi" who didn't speak Sámi?
There must have been a time when some other languages, neither Germanic
nor Finno-Ugric, were spoken in Scandinavia, but their speakers were't
Sámi, even if there has been a certain degree of biological and cultural
continuity in the area over all those millennia (just as the ancient
Gauls and the French aren't "the same people").

> For example, what would be the origin of Germanic *selXaz "seal" ? Can
> it be related to Greek selakHos "shark" ? Or does this word come a
> Pre-Germanic substratum?

It isn't Sámi, at any rate (the Sámi word for 'seal' is <njuor(j)ju>).
An etymological connection with Finn. hylje (hylk-) and similar words in
other Finnic languages looks possible, but I don't feel qualified to
offer a definitive opinion. Perhaps they're loans from a common
substratal source. The Greek word is just a lookalike: Gk. selakHo- and
Gmc. *selxa- don't match up formally and there's only a _very_ loose
semantic connection between 'seal' and 'shark/ray'.

Piotr