Re: Finnic substrate in Slavic?!

Sorry I haven't answered this before, I seem to be coming down with something

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote:
>
> --- On Thu, 3/4/10, Torsten <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>
>
> --- In cybalist@... s.com, johnvertical@ ... wrote:
> > > > > > What leads you to choose a Finnic substrate in Slavic
> > > > > > over a Balto-Slavic substrate in Finnic?
> > > > >
> > > > > Because historically the Finnics were the losers.
> > > >
> > > > Seriously now.
> > >
> > > I am serious. The Finnic speakers have historically been
> > > retreating before Balto-Slavic speakers.
>
> ****GK: This is true as of the partly documented period beginning
> with the first centuries BCE, esp. in the area of "classic" central
> Russia. It wasn't true earlier, as far as we can tell from
> archaeology. It's hard to say whether the carriers of the Fatyanovo
> culture might already be viewed as proto-BaltoSlavs, but the
> advance of the Finno-Ugrians westward undoubtedly pushed back and
> assimilated these IE groupings. Some of this was lost in the period
> 200-600 CE when Balts pushed eastward again at the expense of the
> FU, reaching once more into the area of the Moscow river. We thus
> have a geographical configuration between (roughly)
> Latvia/Lithuania and the Middle Volga where it seems rather
> difficult to determine what (and when) is "substrate" and what
> isn't...*****

There's another argument: these features are unique to Balto-Slavic within IE and to Baltic Finnic within Uralic (IIRC). On the basis of that, you'd assign it a common substrate.



Torsten