Re: Not "catching the wind " , or, what ARE we discussing? Was (Q

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

> --- 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

****GK: Just to clarify my own involvement:
(1) We have a group of contemporary languages (and
dialects) labeled "Germanic"
(2) Each of these has a genetic history, and a
potentially recoverable circumstantial history (i.e.
when and where)
(3) Each has certain fundamental traits or
characteristica which might be imputed to an original
"Common Germanic"
(4) What are these traits? The Grimm consonental shift
is certainly one. There are others.
(5) Which trait or cluster of traits is it necessary
to assume as existing before a language or dialect may
be labeled "Germanic" say ca. the beginning of the
common era?
(6) Are we focusing primarily on the Grimm shift, and
on the contention that it was initiated by the people
of the Przeworsk culture, when we are discussing the
"genesis" of Germanic (that's what I thought), or is
something else involved, viz. other traits?*****

>
>
>

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