Re: The spread of Germanic (Was Re: Morimarusa)

From: george knysh
Message: 65662
Date: 2010-01-16

--- On Sat, 1/16/10, Torsten <tgpedersen@...> wrote:

>
> > (2) Przeworsk itself was earlier Germanized by Yastorf elements
> > coming in from the West and Northwest.
>
> That's where I'm not so certain. If Celtic was an elite language,
> who knows what language the masses of Przeworsk spoke before the
> invasion of the inhumating people.
>
> GK: Whatever that language was ("Venedic" perhaps) it was
> submerged by incoming Yastorf influence (we know there was no
> Przeworsk before that happened)whose language was just as
> prestigious as Celtic.

Is this a linguistic thesis you propose?

****GK: Am I talking about grapefruits?*****

> The "invasion of the inhumating people" is a fantasy which exists
> only in your brain.

Because?

****GK: There is no evidence of any "invasion" such as you propose. The adoption of an inhumation rite (with no discernible Sarmatian characteristics) rather suggests "influence" (not necessarily Sarmatian) on local aristocracies.*****

> The Bastarnians had chieftains with Germanic names in the early 2nd
> c. BCE,

http://tinyurl. com/yl7kc6j
I have proposed to explain the Bastarnian names Clonix and Clondicus on the basis of a Grimm-shifted root that would exist in Germanic otherwise only as a loan from a substrate language of people connected with amber-mining. On the basis of that Bastarnian seems to have been para-Germanic. We reached that conclusion years ago. What do you think you achieve with a behavior like that?
http://tech. groups.yahoo. com/group/ cybalist/ message/64761

****GK: "Para-Germanic" means nothing to me. My "behaviour" consists in restating my view that these names were Germanic, and that the Germanic linguistic identity existed long before the time of Caesar. *****

> and their culture (Poeneshti-Lukashiv ka) was created by the same
> Yastorf impulses which produced Przeworsk and Oksywie. The carriers
> were known as "Sciri" to the people of Olbia as early as 240
> BCE.

It seems you are arguing here against the origin of Germanic coming in from the east.

*****GK: That is correct.****

But the inhumating invaders would have spoken either an Iranian language, or, if they were former mercenaries for the Romans (cf. the Golden Cementery), Latin.

****GK: All this is fantasy. The inhumations of Przeworsk do not intimate Iranic or Latin speech or any linkage to Kuban area culture. Cf. above.****


The candidates for the title of ancestor of the Przeworsk language are:

1) Jastorf
2) Some previously existing language in the Przeworsk area.

***GK: One thing archaeologists have demonstrated is that the local Pomeranian culture was not instrumental in the development of the Przeworsk culture in its initial phases. Which suggests that there is very little backing, if any, for hypothesis (b). On the other hand, the archaeology of Zarubinia suggests a rather important role for the Pomeranians (with Yastorf and La Tene playing second fiddle here). It is my view that in Przeworsk, Poeneshti-lukashovka, and Zarubinia there was a period of functioning multilingualism at the top: Germano-Celtic in Przeworsk and Poeneshti-Lukashovka (the latter, Bastarnian, would explain some of the comments of Polybius and esp. Livy, as well as the Protogenes statement), and Venedic-Germanic-Celtic in Zarubinia.****