--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
> > > I thought something like this: the Germani might have called
> > > themselves Ermani (< Iranian *aryaman), cf. Alemanni,
> > > Arminius...
>
> It's an idea I've been pushing for some years now: Germanic was a
> lingua franca that was born of the meeting between an Iranian
> people and some local folk in what is now southeastern Poland, the
> peoples known from history as Sciri and Bastarnae, and that that
> language spread westward from there. The archives are full of it.
I've checked in the archives and I found that Piotr has
deconstructed your hypothesis more than once in a convincing manner.
The best select quote from Piotr's messages in those threads is,
IMHO, the following one:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/13665
"A Germanic etymology is better for the simple reason that it's less
unusual while being quite satisfactory as etymologies go. One
normally expects a Germanic tribe to have a Germanic name, unless
there is a really important reason to think otherwise."
Also, one should bear in mind that a consensus has emerged among
Indo-Europeanists in recent years, that the Proto-Indo-Iranian terms
*ari-, *arya-/a:rya- and derivatives have no reflexes in other
branches of IE.
Best,
Francesco