Re: Re[2]: RE : [tied] Re: North of the Somme

A large number of adjustments can be made

to the idea of an east-to-west drift of Proto-Germanic :

- Gothic remained there and only one group went away,

- only one group instead of two

- passage thru East Europe under Balto-slavic

- passage thru North Eurasia on top of Baltoslavic

etc

MAybe items 2 and 3 are the best.

The similarity of dialects can also be explained because the initial PG group

was a small number of people who spread afterwards.

----- Original Message -----

From: Brian M. Scott

To: fournet.arnaud

Sent: Saturday, September 01, 2007 7:44 AM

Subject: Re[2]: RE : [tied] Re: North of the Somme

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