Re: Clonix, Clondicus

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

>
>
> --- On Sun, 8/16/09, tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>
>
> --- In cybalist@... s.com, george knysh <gknysh@> wrote:
> >
> >
> > --- On Sun, 8/16/09, tgpedersen <tgpedersen@ ...> wrote:
> >
> >
> > These are two of the three Bastarnian names we know (we know no
> > appellatives).
> >
> > http://tech. groups.yahoo. com/group/ cybalist/ message/13998
> >
> > GK: AFAIK "Chlonix" is only found in Gibbon (I don't know his
> > source). Henri Hubert's three names are : Clondicus, Cotto [both
> > in Livy 40:57,58], and Talto (Gibbon's "Deldon") which Hubert
> > gets from Muellenhof. Livy has this to say s.a 179 BCE: "The
> > Scordisci were expected to grant a passage to the Bastarnae
> > without any difficulty for neither in speech nor habits were they
> > dissimilar." The Scordisci are usually held to be a Celto-
> > Illyrian or Celto-Thracian complex (depending on their groups'
> > geography). The Bastarnae are even more complicated in early
> > times: a mix of Celts ("Galatae") Germanics ("Sciri") and Getans
> > (with Germanic slowly getting the upper hand). In 179 BCE Livy's
> > "similar speech" would most likely have been a Celtic dialect.
> > Hubert considers the three princely names to be Germanic.
> >
> > (Googling, I find Chl- only in the Gibbons footnote quote, Cl-
> > everywhere else, so I'll assume Cl-)
> >
> > Could they be the regularly Grimm-shifted relative of that
> > Aestian word *gl-a-s- which was loaned into Germanic (thus no
> > Grimm)
> >
> > GK: The Aestii could have been a Celtic group (Tacitus speaks
> > of their "British"-like language) /he knew nothing of British
> > Veneti/
>
> There is nothing Celtic about them, AFAIK.
> But the Aestii, as related here
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aestii
> might be related to the Osismi/Ostimoi
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osismi
> who lived next to and allied with the Veneti
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veneti_%28Gaul%29
> in Armorica
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armorica
> the inhabitants of which according to Posidonius were Belgae
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgae
> (who were also settled in Britain)
> just like the Aestii in the Baltic lived next to and probably
> borrowed the language of the Baltic Veneti
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vistula_Veneti
> which explains the long series of *balg- hydronyms from England to
> Poland
> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/60815
> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/60821
> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/62517
> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/64012
> ultimately related to the FU (or substrate to FU) *walg- hydronyms
> in the east (which means all the western *balg- names have
> experienced Venetic *w- > *b- shift, which means the Veneti had
> been there at some time.
>
> Easy, huh?
>
> ****GK: It's interesting that neither Pliny nor Ptolemy know
> anything about "Aestii" while both along with Tacitus have info
> about the Venedae.

The image I try to understand them by is that of English and Scotch in the British Empire, since they were both sea powers, one with an almost forgotten own language.

> All I really had to go on re the "Aestii" was that Tacitan
> "British" analogy. Could it have referred to a temporary population
> which was only present there for a brief time in some commercially
> or politically significant way [i.e. between say 75 and 105 CE] and
> outmigrated before Marinus of Tyre did his thing?****

Remind me?
As I said, we know the Aestian word gl(a)esum "amber". That word and its kin spread to neighboring languages, not surprisingly. It cannot be a Baltic Finnic language because of the initial cluster, but the root which makes up the cluster *gel- seems to appear in Uralic
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/64397
where it might be borrowed from a substrate. The form *gl-á-s shows Venetic(?) did not have initial stress, which I expected also from other examples (I think Venetic might appear in NWB, though also within Germanic as loans, as in this case). So they might have once spoken the ar-/ur- language or a Baltic Finnic language, then switched to Venetic, then disappeared (being a sea-people, therefore adaptable and having no particular tradition-bearing upper layer).

> Considering the ideology around the Sciri/Bastarnae names, the
> Bastarnian top dogs probably spoke Germanic from the beginning.
> And if the *danu- > Tanew etymology holds, Grimm had taken place in
> that general area.
>
> ****GK: Sounds possible. Though there must also have been a lot of
> important Celtic-speakers in the middle echelons for Polybius and
> Livy to have made their comments. At least to the mid-2nd c. BCE****

True. Which reminds that the argument that the Cimbri were Celts since Marius' spies learned Gallic to understand them likewise does not hold since to spy you only have to know what part of the army is saying, not all of it, and by that time they had been joined by the indubitably Celtic (but once Venetic?) Helvetii.



Torsten