Re: An Italic Europe?

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "dgkilday57" <dgkilday57@...> wrote:

>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@> wrote:
> >
> > I've been wondering how to fit in the Venetic culture in present
> > Poland and the Kuhn's 'western Wend-' names
> > with the Adriatic Veneti and the Italic languages in general
> > http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/57554
> >
> > [...]
> >
> > Jastorf (and later Przeworsk) was a Germanic expansion.
> > Hallstatt was a Celtic expansion.
> > Was Urnfield a Venetic expansion?
> > Are Krahe's Old European names Venetic?
>
> Probably older than Urnfield. See P.R. Kitson, "British and
> European River-Names", TrPhS 94(2):73-118 [1996], esp. 103-4:
>
> "... Bell-beakers are in fact the _only_ archaeological phenomenon
> of any period of prehistory with a comparably wide spread to that of
> river-names in the western half of Europe. The presumption must I
> think be that Beaker Folk were the vector of _alteuropaisch_ river-
> names to most of western Europe. Rivers in the base _Arg-_, which
> we have seen there is cause to think was not already in use at the
> earliest stage of the river-naming system, and which therefore
> should be associated with such a vector if one existed, fit their
> distribution exceptionally well. ..."

from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaker_culture
'Since Lanting and Van der Waals put forward a chronology for the
development of Bell Beakers from the earlier Corded Ware forms and
Funnelbeaker culture (TRB) antecedents [9], the Netherlands/Rhineland
region became the most widely accepted site of origin, (J. P. Mallory,
EIEC p. 53). As such, it is often suggested as a candidate for an
early Indo-European culture or, more specifically, an ancestral
proto-Celtic or proto-Italic (Italo-Celtic) culture. Bodmer(1992)[10]
suggested that the Celtic populations of Britain trace their origins
to an early settlement of the British Isles by Paleolithic Europeans,
rather than by a later migration associated with the spread of the
Celtic culture from central Europe in the first millennium B.C.'

> > It would explain those 'western Wend-' names.
>
> See W. Hazlitt, _The Classical Gazetteer_ [1851], s.v. Veneti:
>
> "... It is to be observed, that the various peoples in Paphlagonia,
> Italy, Gaul, and Germany, who were anciently called Veneti or
> Heneti, all occupied the same description of country -- marshy
> districts on the coast. ..."
>
> That is, the various peoples known as Veneti, or *Weneto:s 'Beloved
> Ones' vel sim., occupied marginal areas in protohistorical times;
> this is consistent with the relics of the Bell-Beaker expansion at
> the end of the 3rd mill. BCE, mostly superseded and assimilated by
> later expansions.

One should reconsider partly the designation of those areas as relic
areas; it would be possible in those times, where cultures were
separated by forests, to maintain an identity based on seafaring
between those relic areas (cf. the geography of the former British
Empire). In the long run, such water-based cultures were only safe in
very wide swampy areas or on islands. The occurrence of the Wend- name
in southern Brittany, north of the Limfjord (the safe passageway to
the Baltic for small unsteady craft)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limfjord
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendsyssel
and at the mouth of the Odra makes me suspect a trading network is
involved. I read somewhere that the Vandals in Andalusia were the only
one of the migrating peoples who had a navy (which is why they
defeated the Romans).

> > How about Wend- names in Britain?
>
> Does Hans Kuhn mention any?

No, the Kuhn article I referred to mentions Wend- names only in
Northwestern Germany. In general Kuhn doesn't seek to involve British
toponyms, staying with appellatives and personal names (presumably on
the assumption that those would have come along with the Saxon invasion).

> If there are none, the presumption is
> that there were no enclaves of peoples still calling themselves
> Veneti in Britain, all of them having been assimilated by Celts.

How about
Wendover http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendover
Wentbridge http://www.biffvernon.freeserve.co.uk/wentbridge.htm
(cf the River Venta
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venta_River
along which 'Weneden' are supposed to have lived
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/57554
?

Do the various places in Winter- have a good etymology?


Torsten