Fw: Re: [tied] Re: Frankish origins

> > > And on that standard assumption of Baltic Finnic loans from
> > > Baltic: don't forget that Baltic is now considered a newcomer
> > > to the Baltic
> >
> > How new exactly? Baltic-Finnic is not original in the area
> > either. I've indeed seen it proposed that Baltic Finnic
> > originally expanded on a Baltic substrate (south of the Gulf of
> > Finland, that is).
>
> At least later than Tacitus' Germania (written around 98 CE).
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germania_%28book%29

Doesn't sound too bad (even tho I can't say if I would agree with your interpretation of Tacitus). Recent datings for Uralic are generally younger than what has been previously assumed.

> > > which makes a common 'North European' substrate more likely as
> > > donor.
> >
> > Just as with Germanic, plenty of the loans to Finnic are from the
> > inherited Baltic lexicon, so direct contacts between the two are
> > needed (be it in the Baltic region or further east).
>
> No.
>
> > So direct contacts with Finnic and any substrates to Baltic may
> > still not be necessary.
>
> Yes.
>
> A North European substrate would be substrate to the Baltic as well as the Baltic Finnic languages so that's the only contact needed.
>
> Torsten

Hm, that's possible. Then however we would need it to not only be a substrate that happens to be around and vanishes; it would also have to transfer those words with an IE etymology to Finnic (not ALL of them are "North European" or whatever), eg. *ghombhos > Baltic *Zambas > F. *hampas "tooth".

And in that case I'd also expect to see some effects of the words not being assimilated directly by Finnic, but first by this substrate & then by Finnic. I'm not sure I can see anything of this sort going on.

John Vertical