Not "catching the wind " , or, what ARE we discussing? Was (Query

> ****GK: Just to clarify my own involvement:
> (1) We have a group of contemporary languages (and
> dialects) labeled "Germanic"

Yes.

> (2) Each of these has a genetic history, and a
> potentially recoverable circumstantial history (i.e.
> when and where)

Yes.

> (3) Each has certain fundamental traits or
> characteristica which might be imputed to an original
> "Common Germanic"

Yes.

> (4) What are these traits? The Grimm consonental shift
> is certainly one. There are others.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Germanic
Note that the NWGermanic change e: > a: must have taken place within
NWGermanic common period: Sueui > Germam Schwaben, Rö stone
Swabaharjaz, the Valkyri name Sváfa etc.
http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svebere

> (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?

That's kind of circular. Those traits and clusters, as seen in
Wikipedia, are defined as those we observe in those Germanic languages
we know actual words from.

> (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?*****

Partly out of habit, linguists are focusing on the Grimm shift. In the
much discussed loans from Germanic into Baltic Finnic and Saami (if
that's what they are) the Germanic side of the pair is always written
as if the Grimm shift had taken place, even though the shifted stops
then corresponds to non-shifted stops in Baltic Finnic and Saami (eg.
Gmc *hanso: <-> Finn. kansa); the assumption is that Germanic was
still at the x- stage in *k- > *x- > *h-, or even the *k stage, except
that is never written in the equations. The problem is that if we take
away Grimm, there's not much Germanicness about the word (*o > *a
happened in Slavic too).
To answer your question, yes, I am. That's very untraditional, and
that's where all the hubbub about it in cybalist comes from.


Torsten