Re: immigration, Germanic and Indo-Aryan

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "koenraad_elst" <koenraad.elst@...>
wrote:

>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@> wrote:
>
> >
> > They might be old, but that doesn't make them Germanic. Place
> > names etc which do not make sense in the language of those who
> > live there are perceived by them as 'old', in contrast to those
> > in their own language which are made up of recognizable elements.
> >
> > Cf. the end of Snorri's prologue, where gets into place name
> > research
> > http://www.sunnyway.com/runes/prologue.html
> > 'Odin kept by him the son called Yngvi, who was king of Sweden
> > after him, and from him have come the families known as
> > Ynglingar. The Æsir and some of their sons married with the women
> > of the lands they settled, and their families became so numerous
> > in Germany and thence over the north that their language, that of
> > the men of Asia, became the language proper to all these
> > countries. From the fact that their genealogies are written down,
> > men suppose that these names came along with this language, and
> > that it was brought here to the north of the world, to Norway,
> > Sweden, Denmark and Germany, by the Æsir. In England, however,
> > there are ancient district and place names which must be
> > understood as deriving from a different language.'
> >
>
>
> Wow, that's pretty sophisticated. Snorri was already wary of folk
> etymology, he seriously considered notions of language migration,
> language adoption because of elite dominance, substrate elements,
> and an "Asian" origin of Germanic.

Consider the possibility that it is the other way around. Rasmus Rask
who studied Old Norse extensively would certainly have known this passage.

> Of course, the immigration of Germanic from the east was already
> pretty far removed in time from Snorri, a few thousand years, so I
> don't want to give his opinion too much weight as a testimony, but
> all the same, his statement is there.

But glottochronology says Germanic split up appr. at the same time
Romance did. A recent expansion in the style of Latin would explain
that, the traditional timing doesn't. That's why I believe
Proto-Germanic was Przeworsk-talk, which became the common language of
Ariovistus'/Harjagist's army, and that all other languages of the
later Germania were para-Germanic, at the most, and died out.

> Contrast this with India, where strictly nobody and no
> single line in the whole of Indic literature refers to any
> proto-Indo-Aryan immigration, as Elphinstone already observed in
> the 1840s and as has only been confirmed since.

Food for thought.


Torsten