> > Here's a *very* tentative idea:
> >
> > I have a suspicion the Germanic "heaven" is a loan
> >
> > Wortschatz der Germanischen Spracheinheit:
> > 'hemina, hemila m. Himmel, Zimmerdecke. g. himins m. Himmel;
> > an. himinn m. dass.;
> > as. heBan und himil m.,
> > afries. himel, himul,
> > ags. heofon m., engl. heaven;
> > ahd. himil m. Himmel, Zimmerdecke,
> > mnd. himel, nhd. Himmel.
> >
> > Davon abgeleitet
> > ahd. himilizi, himilze,
> > mhd. himelze, himelz n. Zimmerdecke, Baldachin,
> > mnd. hemelte Zimmerdecke, ndl. gehemelte Gaumen (aus
> > he-militia-).
> > Vgl. gr. kmélethron. (73:8)'
> >
> > 1) the odd suffix -et-,
> > 2) the inlaut alternation w/m and
> > 3) the auslaut alternation l/n (some kind of heteroclitic)
> > sets it apart from other Germanic words (except for *litel- and
> > *mikel- also having property 3)
>
> The inlaut alternation is due to *-mn- > *-Bn- in those cases which
> have zero-grade in the /n/-suffix. Old Norse has nom. sg. <himinn>
> against dat. sg. <hifne>. Old English <heofon> has simply
> generalized the -B- to all cases. See Streitberg, Urg. Gr. 143.
The -mn-/-Bn- thing has been shibbolethized in Swedish and Danish
ON nafn, Sw namn, Da navn "name" <- *na:m-n-
ON hafn, Sw hamn, Da havn "harbour" <- *haB(a)-no:-
ON jafn, Sw jämn, Da jævn "even" <- *yem-nó-
regardless of whether the origin was *-mn- or *-Bn-.
Even if this is regular in Germanic, there remain two other characteristics.
> The auslaut alternation does occur in other Gmc. words, e.g. Old
> Norse <freknor> 'freckles'. See Noreen, Abriss der urg. Lautlehre
> 193-4. This is Suffixwechsel, not heteroclisis as normally
> understood with the r/n-stems.
Miguel suggested a rule *-n# -> *-r# to explain the heteroclitic neuter stems. To propose something similar for what is traditionally termed Suffixwechsel for the masculine *xem-l/n- you'd have to assume the existence of an endingless (old nom.?) form of masculines.
> I see no good reason to regard all these as loans.
>
> > Now cf.
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tengriism
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tengri
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tian
>
> This is far beyond my realm.
You're no worse off than me.
> I cannot even read any MODERN Chinese, and in order to evaluate
> this material properly, one needs to be able to read the
> oracle-bone texts.
True. I just wanted to point out a possibility.
> > and I propose (sort of):
> >
> > tengri -> *c^iNri -> *k^imri
>
> Funny direction for the articulation to move.
Not if it is a loan, which it must have been in the other læanguage families.
*te- -> *c^e- is OK phonologically (cf. the Korean form)
*c^i -> *k^i- would be how PIE would accommodate the loan (it had no /c^/).
> > Voilà, Heaven, and Cimmerians/Cimbrians, assuming they were
> ultimately steppe nomads (and tengriists).
>
> Homer has only a dim knowledge of the Kimmerioi, but they are not
> nomads, since he mentions their city (Od. 11:14). Herodotus (bk.
> 4) has them driven out of their homes around the Palus Maeotis by
> the Scythians in the second half of the 7th cent. BCE.
The Urals and Western Siberia in the Bronze and Iron Ages
p. 215-6
'Material Culture of Nomads
In our efforts to construct a profile of the nomadic material culture, we cannot expect quick and easy results. In fact, herding as a special kind of activity requires virtually no tools (Cribb 1991: 69). Attempts to identify nomadic cultures by using a certain material complex have rarely been successful. Ethnography indicates that pure nomadism is extremely rare. According to Russian scholars, the specifics that indicate a nomadic mode of life are as follows: a portable house, a good saddle with stirrups, light equipment, and extensive animal breeding with annual herding. The basic nomadic markers provided by ethnography, however, do not always find a correlation with the archaeology.
What are the commonly accepted archaeological markers of Eurasian pastoral nomadism? These include a kurgan burial ground (Plate 6.2), a relative absence of permanent settlements and houses or the presence of only camp sites; the absence or a very limited scale of farming; wheeled transport; and the bones of animals capable of traveling long distances and grazing year round, plus devices used for the exploitation of these animals.
Frequently the sedentary population could use many components of so-called nomadic material complex, and vice versa (Cribb 1991: 69). For example, during the Iron Age, the complex of "nomadic" weapons and horse harnesses was widespread over a vast portion of Eurasia, including the forest-steppe and even the forest. The only artifacts that can be used to separate the cultures attached to different landscapes are pottery and settlements. Some of the latter are located in marginal zones that could have served as communication points, and could have been a concentration of various groups of populations, including a nomadic population. The Hsiung-nu, whose "nomadic" reputation is without doubt, had large fortified settlements with rather elaborate internal structures. Kradin (2001a) put forward an interesting hypothesis, that such settlements could accommodate the population of the Hsiung-nu and people working for them (craftsmen, agriculturists).
A nomadic material culture may be ethnographically defined as having three main artifact characteristics: site furniture (fixtures or portable objects), durable or perishable objects, valuables or expendables (Cribb 1991: 6675). The most characteristic feature of the early Eurasian nomads is the wide use of clay pottery. Almost every grave held some quantity of handmade earthenware. The vessels made on potters' wheels that were usually imported from statehood regions seem to have had more value. As recent research shows, vessels found in graves, could contain ordinary food such as milk, meat broth, and kasha (cereal or grain) (Koryakova & Daire 1997).'
> If we are
> to connect their name with 'heaven', the best hypothesis is to
> derive both from PIE *k^em- 'to cover' (IEW 556). The morphology
> is difficult, so this is only tentative, but in such a case the
> Kimmerioi would be 'Covered Ones', those dwelling in permanent
> houses, in CONTRAST to the Scythians and other nomads.
Waggons can be covered too. Pokorny's *k^em- is a grab-bag;
'3. k^em-, 'bedecken, verhüllen'.
Ai. s´a:mulyà- n., s´a:mu:la- n. 'wollenes Hemd',
s´amí: 'Prosopis spicigera; Hülsenfrucht';
lat. camisia (spät) 'Hemd'
(gall. Wort; entlehnt aus
germ. *xamiþja- 'Hemd';
erst aus dem Lat. stammen wieder
air. caimmse 'Hemd', acorn. cams 'alba', bret. kamps 'Meßhemd');
unklar ist der Anlaut in
mcymr. hefys 'Frauenhemd', akorn. hevis, bret. hiviz ds.;
ags. cemes ds. ist Lw. aus camisia;
ahd. hemidi n. 'Hemd', ags. hemede (*hamiþia-) 'Hemd';
anord. hamr m. 'Hülle, Haut, Gestalt',
ags. homa 'Hülle, Decke, Anzug';
li:c-hama, as. li:k-hamo 'Leib',
ahd. li:hhin-[*h]am.o 'Leib, Körper, Leichnam',
got. ana-, ga-hamo:n 'sich bekleiden',
anord. hama-sk '(*sich in Tiergestalt verkleiden, daher:) rasen';
anord. hams 'Schale, Hülse, Schlangenbalg' (*hamisa-), vgl.
norw. hamar 'Kernhaus'; hierher auch
got. himins, anord. himinn (Dat. hifne mit -Bn- aus -mn-, vgl.:)
ags. heofon, as. heBan 'Himmel', woneben
ahd. as. himil, md. humil 'Himmel'; ahd. himil auch 'Zimmerdecke',
ndl. hemel 'Gaumen, Dach',
nhd. Himmelbett, ahd. himiliz(z)i, mnd. hemelte 'Zimmerdecke';
kaum richtig oben S. 22 zu ak^- ;Stein'.
Eine s-Form sk^em-, sucht man unglaubhaft in
got. skaman 'sich schämen',
ags. skamian ds.,
aisl. sko,mm, ahd. scama 'Scham, Schande' usw.
('*sich bedecken' ?).
WP. I 386, Specht Idg. Dekl. 346.'
I still believe we should check outside IE, cf
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/65334
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/45814
> Whether some of the Kimmerioi became the Cimbri remains to be seen.
> > And since the PIE'ers were too, perhaps we should include
> > PIE dyw- "day; supreme god"
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyeus
> > and why not
> > Etruscan tin "day; supreme god"
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinia
> > and
> > Estonian taevas "sky"
>
> Etr. <Tinscvil> 'Production of Tin' vel sim., epithet of Minerva,
> shows that the /i:/ was long (otherwise *Tenscvil in recent Etr.).
> I believe <Ti:n> is borrowed from a pre-Italic IE language; the
> grade is the same as in Gmc. *Ti:waz, but with a different suffix.
>
> Est. <taevas> is patently borrowed from Proto-Baltic.
Torsten