Re: Hachmann versus Kossack?

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote:

>
>
> --- tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>
> > That makes the languages of the
> > cultures you mention siblings (titled 'Para-') and
> > parents of that
> > Przeworsk language. And I think it was not so much
> > Grimm-shifted, as
> > Grimm-shifting, ie. it was in the process of
> > shifting, probably in the
> > sense that there was an upper crust who had
> > Grimm-shifted, and that
> > the Grimm-shifted words became shibboleths in
> > relationship to the
> > surrounding para-Germanic languages,
>
> ****GK: But what is missing here is an explanation as
> to why this role should be assigned to "the Przeworsk
> language" in particular.*****
>

Theories compete. The competition of this one has a problem with the
fact that the Germanic language groups we know must have split up
appr. 2000 years ago; Runic is pretty close to reconstructed PGmc.
This one can explain that as a consequence of a language spreading
from a small area, the competition has no explanation why this should
suddenly happen in a static society (as they assune). I hope the
detour we made recently, over the nature of diglossia, pidgins and
creoles makes it understandable why it could be possible that Gothic,
the language of the Wielbark culture, at least in its elite version
(which is what we may assume they used for their Bible translation)
was the language of Berig's people.


Torsten