Re: Cognates & etymology of English net

On 2007-11-15 10:54, tgpedersen wrote:

> Udolph (Namenkundliche Studien zum Germanenproblem, I don't have the
> book here) looks at river names in *not-, Notiec etc (cf. german
> nass, Dutch nat "wet"). In order to save Germania for the Germani he
> has to posit a proto-proto-Germanic 'backward' shift *t > *d etc,
> before Grimm's *d > *t, to explain the embarrassing fact that
> Germania has those names with *t. That can't be right; it seems the
> root is non-IE.

Or non-Germanic IE. If you mean the Notec' (Ger. Netze), its older
Slavic name was *notIsI. It is high on the list of suspected "Venetic"
names (meaning that the language it came from is supposed to be
Italoid), cf. ancient Natissa/Natiso: (the Natisone):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natisone

Perhaps one ought to allow for enclaves of residual IE languages here
and there in Germania, not yet completely engulfed by Germanic at the
time of Grimm's Law.

Piotr