--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, g <george.st@...> wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 2, 2004, at 12:30 PM, tgpedersen wrote:
>
> > Now you're talking!
>
> Ain't I! :-)
>
> > I think you'll like this quote from Hans Kuhn: "Das letzte
> > Indogermanisch":
> >
> > "Der Wortschatz der nordgermanischen und der alemannisch-alpinen
> > Almwirtschaft hat einige wichtige Termini gemeinsam, obschon in
dem
> > weiten Zwischenland von dieser Wirtschaftsfor nichts bekannt ist
und
> > die Bedingungen für sie auch sehr schlecht sind."
>
> If the ancestors of the <<nordgermanischen>> (or, as they're
> called here, outside the <<Preissnland>>: <<Nordlichter>>)
> migrated to Skandza coming from Southern and S-Eastern territ's,
> then I'd expect them having some common/shared <<Wortschatz>>
> with inhabitants of middle and south-european regions --
> shoudn't I?
>
> > Kuhn explains them as a result of emigration from his
Nordwestblock
> > to Italy.
>
> Jo, mei... I'm afraid this might be a... residue of the
> "school of thought" of those who deemed Germanism to have
> been primeval, primordial etcetera, sort of origin of
> everything within the PIE frame. (BTW, in German, they still
> use <<indogermanisch>> instead of <<indoeuropaeisch>>. :))
>
Except that Kuhn is seeing the place names he uses to back up his
theory not as Germanic but as Nordwestblockese, or rather as
transfers of pre- and non-IE place names from the Nordwestblock.
According to the Dreiautorenbuch (as Udolph calls it), Hachmann,
Kossack, Kuhn: "Völker zwischen Germanan und Kelten" the
Nordwestblock (the country from Weser/Aller to Somme/Oise) was
germanisiert in the time between Caesar's and Tacitus' descriptions,
which is also seen in the archaeology: new forms appear everywhere,
of which nothing is derivable from earlier forms, except in Thuringia
(but also there not all): the Celtic area south of the Main, the
whole Celtic-like area east of the Middle Rhine where knowledge of
the potter's wheel and of coins disappears and fortified oppida are
deserted and replaced by small settlements, and also the
Nordwestblock sees the sudden appearance of the same type of finds.
Kuhn (in "Das letzte Indogermanisch") finds a type of river and
island names in *((s)C)[ur-/ar-/ir-] surrounding Krahe's Old European
river names, also in the western Nordwestblock, in the eastern part
it's confined to a narrow coast strip and continues into Scandinavia.
He mentions some of them as being endungslos in the nominative: <Dur>
in Ireland, <Nar> in Italy.
Now if it were the case that the non-IE substrate language in the
Nordwestblok had no cases (slim evidence, I admit), then probably the
(non-Celtic, non-Germanic) Nordwestblock languages that replaced them
had no cases either (it is very diificult for people that grow up
without cases to see the usefulness of them, cf Scandinavians or
English trying to speak German). The same situation (no cases, etc)
would then apply to the Germanic language that replaced the
Nordwestblockese (most likely several dialects, note that Arminius,
most likely a Nordwestblock speaker could not maintain his position
as dictator after the present danger was done with, whereas the
Swebian (in the cultural sense) Marbod could; the newly introduced
Germanic, ie Swebian would have much fewer dialects than
Nordwestblokese).
In other words, in the Germanic dialects in the old Nordwestblock
space, we would expect some people to speak proper Germanic, cases
and all, but the remainder to speak a horrible creole, simplified
with respect to case, number and person. But, aha, this is just what
is the case in the Low German plus Dutch area (and Jutland). And to
my knowledge, no German dialect on old Celtic territory, south of the
Weisswurstäquator, show signs of creolisation, eg lost case
distinctions (and Celtic does have four cases).
Of the people that according to Bede colonised England, the Saxons
were a "reconstitued" Nordwestblock people. Jutes, if my
interpretation is correct, was a collective designation for
Nordwestblock/Jutland people, which leaves the Angli, which were also
well out of the way of the Thuringians to begin with. In other words,
a good part of those people that occupied England probably didn't
speak a proper Germanic, but a creole version.
In other words, I don't think the Scheisspreissn emigrated to
Scandza, Thuringians did. Östen Dahl believes the uniformity of early
Runic was due to the fact that inscriptions were composed by a
special class (Heruli?), I think so too, and would like to add that
they introduced the Germanic language in Scandinavia, cases and all,
and spoke Tok Germanic with the natives.
Torsten