Re: Bow and arrow

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "andrew_and_inge" <100761.200@...>
wrote:

> --- 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.
> >

Yes, I admit the aspect of hitherto unknown ethnic group making up
part of the Anglo-Saxons is horrifying.

> >
> > 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.
>

And that's what made America what it is today? BTW why should
I 'realise' that? Is it a moral imperative? If you want to believe
that this is necessarily the way things happened I won't tell you to
realise otherwise.

> > 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.

Erh?

>Everyone fought everyone in dark ages
> Britain, and everyone allied with everyone else at one time or
> another.

Odd. I got the impression the Anglo-Saxons drove back the Celts.

>In any case, it was the Normans, French speakers, who armed
> the peasants of England before Agincourt.
>

If the French-speaking Normans were so keen on archery, how come
their colleagues back home weren't?

> >
> > >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?

That's right, I mean they were Celtic-speaking Celts.

>If any ancient people
> known to history was Nordwestblok it was surely the Belgae.

Surely, my foot. Please list a couple of Nordwestblock words that are
known in a Belgae context, in Britain..

>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?

Around the time of Caesar and later. Ariovist and his army would have
been Germanic, but Arminius and his uprising was at least partly
still Nordwestblock.

>
> >
> > >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?

I think you misunderstand. The *ark- root would have been not a
Nordwestblock loan into Germanic and Italic, but a gloss common to
these three languages.


Torsten