I would question the lack of dialectal continuity
between Scandinavian & Western --that's true now but
Scandinavian overran Jutland c. 400 and eliminated any
transitional dialects. I understand that while Low
Saxon was definitely Western, Anglian may have had
some transitional traits and we don't know anything
about Jutish or Geatish, etc.
And, as Brian says, Eastern split much eariler.
My question regarding Eastern is whether it split from
the N end of what was a dialect chain.
There is anecdotal evidence such as "Goth" names in
Sweden, the Old Swedish Royal Title "KIng of the
Swedes, the Goths and the Vandals" that suggest it
split from Scandinavia and crossed the Baltic.
Superficially,N German does look closer to E Germanic
but I'm guessing because it didn't share in the same
innovations as W Germanic and didn't riun into a
Celtic substrate --BUT correct me
What timeframe are we looking at?
c. 600 BC for E Germanic?
c. 200 BC for N Germanic?
c. 400 AD for split-up of W Germanic languages?
--- "Brian M. Scott" <
BMScott@...> wrote:
> At 1:15:38 PM on Friday, August 31, 2007,
> fournet.arnaud
> wrote:
>
> > Proto-Germanic then was cut in two branches :
> > the northern branch went to the north avoiding
> > Balto-Slavic at its south and then invaded
> Scandinavia
> > from Finland southwards. the southern branch
> (westic) went
> > under Balto-Slavic at its north and encroached
> upon Celtic
> > homeland, pushing them westward. Westic and Nordic
> > Germanic abruptly met in Schlesvig-Holstein. this
> is no
> > dialectal continuity between westic and nordic
> because
> > they had been separated for too long when they met
> again
> > there.
>
> And yet a pretty good case can be made that the
> primary
> split in Germanic is between Northwest Germanic and
> East
> Germanic. And it's obvious that the breakup of
> Common Gmc.
> can't be nearly as long ago as you would have it:
> there's
> far too much similarity amongst the early dialects.
>
> Brian
>
>
>
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