Query Re: Post-Postscript on Przeworsk

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "fournet.arnaud" <fournet.arnaud@...>
wrote:

>
> As regards the maps in wikipedia,
> I'm quite perplexed by the alleged level
> of geographical precision.

The rest of us were quite perplexed at your placing Germanic somewhere
in Siberia. Welcome to linguistics.

> Is it really possible to reach such a precise
> reconstruction of the positions of Germanic people ?

Yes. The writers of antiquity have been most helpful.

> It seems more precise that present-day mapping of Chadic.

You might recall the standard classroom maps of Latin names of Gallic
tribes, reconstructed from those same writers. (As I asked the owner
of my favorite downtown cafe why she had that on the wall, she told me
it was 200 years old and bought in France for 50,000 kr. People are
strange)

> And my next question would be about Germanic dialectology
> Does the position of the people on the map reflect
> the Germanic dialectal tree ?

To answer that question we must find out what languages they spoke,
which is one of the things George and myself are discussing. Watch
this space.


Torsten