Re: [tied] Uralic Substrate in Germanic?

Dear Rob,

Most  Finnish scholars (Raimo Anttila, Jorma Koivulehto, Petri Kallio, Asko Parpola etc.)  reject the idea that there would be a Finno-Ugric / Uralic substrate in Proto-Germanic. 

See �Phonetic Uralisms in Indo-European� (pages 221-233) by Petri Kallio in

Carpelan, Christian, and Asko Parpola, 2001. Emergence, contacts and dispersal of Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Uralic and Proto-Aryan in archaeological perspective. Pp. 55-150 in:  Christian Carpelan, Asko Parpola and Petteri Koskikallio (eds.), Early contacts between Uralic and Indo-European: Linguistic and archaeological considerations. (M�moires de la Soci�t� Finno-Ougrienne, 242.) Helsinki: Finno-Ugrian Society or

�Uralic substrate features in Germanic� in �Journal de la Societ� Finno-Ougrienne�, 87, 123-130, Helsinki 1997.

The heated controversy is not solely due to Wiik�s claim about a Finno-Ugric substratum in Proto-Germanic. Rather, we must take into account the revolutionary aspirations of Wiik and his associates: they tend to reject many ideas of classical comparative historical linguistics and push forward time depths for language families that are thousands of years older than what the mainstream scholarship accepts.

Some of this controversy has taken place only in Finnish journals and publications which inevitably keeps it out of reach for many. However, the young firebrand Merlijn de Smit has created a web site

http://www.geocities.com/isolintu/voodoo.html that both captures the heated atmosphere - as well as fans the flames to even greater heights.

Best regards, Juha Savolainen

What does everyone think about the possibility of a Uralic substrate
in Germanic?  I think it's at least possible, given the following:

1. "The word corresponding to Old High German muoter is not attested
in Gothic at all, in its place we find aithai."  Bammesberger,
Alfred.  "Did the 'Indo-Europeans' Collide with 'Pre-Indo-
Europeans?"  http://www.lituanus.org/1994_1/94_1_04.htm.  Presumably,
the Gothic word was pronounced /'eTe/.  Compare Finnish �iti 'mother'.

2. The retraction of stress-accent across the Germanic family to the
initial syllable (presumably, the unaccented prefixes were added
later).

Although this isn't much evidence, I think it suggests a possible
connection.

- Rob

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