Re: Yeneseic and Na-Dene

From: george knysh
Message: 54972
Date: 2008-03-10

--- tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...> wrote:

> If the identity proposed between the Huns and the
> Hsiung-nu/Xiongnu
> holds, perhaps we should look for unexplained
> Germanic words in Ket?
>
>
> Torsten

****GK: The Xiongnu were a very large empire, which
did not only include the original Yenissean nucleus.
Two preliminaries to consider before embarking on the
above:
(1) Are there any Yenissean elements in the surviving
data on the Hunnish language (Cf. Maenchen-Helfen and
esp. Pritsak)? Off the top I would think not. The
European Huns may have been "political" rather than
"linguistic" Xiongnu.
(2) Is there any evidence that some Hunnish remnants
fled all the way back to Eastern Asia after Nedao or
later? Attila's power only reached to the Volga. Some
Huns actually made it to Armenia (in the 6th c.). Any
traces of Germanic in proto-Hungarian (left "on the
way"? Doubtful).

As to the proposed "Ket-Germanic similarities
(mentioned by Fournet). How do we know these did not
belong to some old Baltic area substrate?****
>
>
>




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