Transhumance [Re: etyma for Crãciun]

>
> 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 difficult 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, the Nordwestblock peoples were caught between a rock
and a hard place: Roman empire in the west, Swebian kingship in the
east.

BTW the above ideas are half Kuhn, half myself.

>
> 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.
>

England is full of -tun place names. They are found on the continent
too (very few in Scandinavia), especially in the area around Calais.
Mansion: 'Drie lessen over de geschiednis van het Nederlands naar de
plaatsnamen' says that the -thun names in that area are "eerder
gehuchten dan gemeenten, soms minder dan dat nog, ze geven eene
alleenstaande hoeve of eene groep van een paar huizen to kennen".
Udolph is very insistent that the place names (eg. -horst/-hurst)
indicate that the Anglo-Saxon migration took place from the interior
of Germany, thus Bede would be wrong in his claim that they were
Angles, Saxons and Jutes.
Another interpretation would be that young Angles, Saxons and Jutes
waiting for employment with some warlord during the landnam in
England would travel on their own to the Pas-de-Calais area and stay
there for some time before crossing the Channel for gainful
employment with carnage and such. While waiting, they would pick up a
West Germanic koine (which would be easy at the time, given the small
dialectal differences).

Torsten