Re: Bow and arrow

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...>
wrote:

> > >
> > > Which is enough for me to suspect they these archers were
> > descended
> > > from Nordwestblock peoples arriving in England with the Saxon
> > > invasion.
> > >
> >
> > You mean that their language and skills derive from immigrants

of

> > the continent, which is not precisely the same thing.
>
>
> Seems to me you're imagining a situation similar to today, where

an

> immigrant would be immediately swamped (ideally) by the

Englishness

> (or similar -ness) of the place.

No my point is that you should realise that skills, languages and
institutions can move, or cease, quite independently of the people
who use them. I am saying that you only have an argument that a
certain skill came from Europe, and there is no reason to assume
that anything else came.

> Actually they were part of an
> invasion, but must have served as a lower class. Kuhn found traces

of

> that instituton in Nordwestblockland. They were not immigrants
> leaving a mark, they were part of the definition. That's why I

think

> there was such a difference in the attitude of the 'plebs' being
> armed I think. Would AngloSaxons have trusted Celts enough to arm
> them?
>

Why not? You seem to have a neat idea of language boundaries
matching political boundaries. Everyone fought everyone in dark ages
Britain, and everyone allied with everyone else at one time or
another. In any case, it was the Normans, French speakers, who armed
the peasants of England before Agincourt.

>
>
> >However
> > firstly your theory ignores the possibility of arms race being

the

> > case (the English developed better bows, and encouraged the
> > peasantry to practice and compete).
> And why is that, was the question.
>
>
> >Secondly, I would think the most
> > obvious period for NWBlok entrance into Britain would have been

the

> > Belgae (perhaps = Fir Bolg in Ireland) who fled the Romans.
>
> Yes, if they should have made up a free component of British

society.

> And the Fir Bolg were Celts, the NWBlock people wasn't.

You mean they were Celtic speaking, don't you? If any ancient people
known to history was Nordwestblok it was surely the Belgae. But by
Caesar's time it seems likely that the Nordwestblok language, if
there was one, was on the way out.

> I would think
> the most likely period for the NWBlock people to enter Britain

would

> be after their societies were overrun and Germanicised by their
> Eastern ex-Jastorf neighbors.
>

Ah. You mean earlier than Caesar?

>
> >Thirdly, why would Eastern Germanic contain a word from NW Europe?
>
> Good question. In order for that to happen, the *ark- stem would

have

> had to be part of the language expanding out of Thuringia, which

is

> not a totally unlikely proposition. The -azna part of the Gothic

word

> also sets it apart from the other Germanic occurrences.
>

Any path for words from Thuringia to Gothic territory would surely
be much later than the demise of the Nordwestblok language?

Best Regards
Andrew