From: Torsten
Message: 67122
Date: 2011-01-18
>What happened in the 1st-2nd-3rd centuries CE (= AD) is irrelevant to what happened in the 1st century BCE (= b. Chr.), which is when the Ariovistus invasion took place.
>
>
> >>In the 1st-2nd-3rd centuries, of course there was almost
> >>no "Germania" south of the Limes.
> >
> >Irrelevant. You should read up on history (and now you get
> >a hysterical fit and add a whole Reader's Digest article
> >about the 1st-2nd-3rd centuries situation).
>
> You underlined that in Ariovist's time South & West of
> the Limes there was no Germanized Germania. I retorted:
> "of course". Now you reply to my "of course": "irrelevant".
> What kind of discussion is this?The kind of discussion that results from one of the participants not knowing basic facts on the subject.
> >I don't think so.I think it happened earlier.
>
> Then look up history texts dealing with the Germanic
> colonization of Southern Germany; in which time periods
> happened the "Landnahme" and became... German.
> >No linguistic trace of Scandinavians there.There are no linguistic or archaeological traces of 'Scandinavians' in Southern Germany.
>
> In the above paragraph I mean all the tribes that lived
> beyond the Limes. Some of them moved to the South during
> the "Völkerwanderungszeit", others didn't.
> >No, I don't. I believe in the standard result that theYes. Except by that that time they were no longer an independent community, but a social layer in Przeworsk.
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Przeworsk_culture
> >lasted until the 5th cent CE. And I propose that the upper
> >layer there spoke Bastarnian, which was Proto-Hochdeutsch,
> >ie. a language from which all later High and Central
> >German dialects, including Yiddish, descend.
>
> OK! But at the same time you say those people moved to what's
> now Germany (esp. Southern Germany, Switzerland, Tyrol etc.).
> In addition you say some Bastarnians didn't move and managed
> to preserve their "Proto-Oberdeutsch" language in Poland.
> Now go on, substantiate your assumption ("proposal"): whatWe'll have to discuss method here: the first thing I have to show is that the scenario is feasible, that no hard facts prove that it was impossible. After that we can try to match the scenario to alternative scenarios, eg. the standard one. I don't have facts at this time which show that this is the only way it could have happened.
> hints, attestations etc. are there for such a thesis?
> The fact that the German language also generated Yiddish isn'tTrue.
> contested by anybody.
> Your topic is:That stayed on as the upper layer until they were all (Bastarnian upper layer, Przeworsk lower layer, Slavic douloi(?)) pushed out by Attila
> (A) the Bastarnian group that never left the Przeworsk geogr. area
> &Well, this is the part I haven't finished considering, so my proposal is *very* tentative and rickety, and probably easy to shoot down: I think the Bosporans, who made up part of the Bastarnian army, and were therefore part of the new upper layer in Przeworsk, became the Ashkenazi Jews.
> (B) this group, *there*, either became Jewish or passed their idiom
> on to a Jewish group, the new idiom being called Yiddish.
> >That was not the case. The Suevi, Marcomanni, Triboci,Now, they *are* my thesis. The relevance of that to the history of how the Jews ended in Europe just occurred to me about a month ago.
> >Nemetes and Vangiones, plus the Slavic Harudes followed
> >Ariovistus south towards Alsace. Some tribes of the area
> >followed later. Some stayed, but they all had a new upper
> >class speaking Bastarnian.
>
> Again: all these tribes, once that they stayed in
> Southern Germany, are irrelevant for your thesis.
> Relevant are only their "nephews", who went "back"I agree they are important, but I think they are not the only source of German dialects in Eastern Europe.
> to Poland one thousand and two or three hundred years
> later. Nobody denies that.
> Pls. do develop your theorySee above.
> on the Bastarnae who never migrated from Poland. :)
> >The (northern) Bastarnae had ceased to exist as anActually it's a conservative theory. Jews were present in the
> >independent people, whoever still spoke it after the
> >Germani vacated Przeworsk was either a Jewish merchant
> >or part of a surviving Proto-Hochdeutsch speaking
> >splinter group.
>
> Jewish merchants in Poland anno Domini 0-until-100?
> At that: speaking a protodeutsche Sprache? Geht's noch? :-)
> >The Germanic idiom (Bastarnian/Proto-Hochdeutsch)Really? Then why do you go on about my equating MHG with Bastarnian?
> >that they kept would have been kept up to date by the
> >trading network so that by the time of the Ostsiedlung
> >it would not be much different from the MHG of the settlers.
>
> I understood this assertions many posts ago.
> It's you whoName one.
> doesn't understand what I understand, and it's you who
> are not able to understand why this idea can't work when
> a bunch of conditions can't be fulfilled.
> In the Mittel-Isn't that exactly what the Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazi did?
> and Oberdeutsch region of Germany it was the most normal
> thing on earth that the population could develop, out of
> old Germanic dialects (or only based on Bastarnian :))
> the language called deutsche Sprache (lingua teodisca) -
> no wonder: a compact, linguistically homogenous population
> of a few million people. But to assume that some small
> group, lacking any institutions, written culture, influence
> and whatever, in a "sea" of Slavs stayed there as an
> "intact" group, incognito, and went through all linguistic
> transformations at least 10 centuries, as though their
> "scholars" had periodic summits together with some
> "Duden committees" in Germany, well that's (I better
> censor myself :)).
> You don't realize, OTOH, that the assumed tiny groupsNo, they would have to rely on resident Bastarnian/Proto-Hochdeutsch speaking Jews.
> of Jewish merchants, which really had that mobility and
> contacts with different populations, exactly for this
> reason (and, on top of that, being in command of several
> major languages, e.g. Greek, Latin, Hebrew, common
> Slavic, common Turkic), couldn't depend on an isolated
> Bastarnian group that barely could keep contacts with
> Germans living 1,000-2,000 km away.
> A simple logic mustYour proposal requires a back-and-forth migration. Mine doesn't. And of course your proposal had worked if Yiddish were a trade language or Lingua Franca, but it is a first-language mother tongue. What good would it do a group to switch to the trade language of outsiders and forget the one they already spoke?
> prompt you understand that rather the opposite could have
> been plausible! That merchants coming from the South-West
> might have been in good command of the German spoken
> in those early epochs and thus were able to teach that
> vernacular anyone between the Elbe and the Ural range. :)
> (By and large, this fits the theory by those scholarsYours, you mean.
> who maintain that Eastern Jews and their Yiddish is a
> South-Western, Rhineland, German population that moved
> to the East; yet way after AD 1,000.)
> >You asked me to explain my proposal, and that's what I did .Ariovistus. He's not Slavic.
>
> But don't explain the Ariovit's adventures,
> don't explain the arrival of Germanic tribes in SouthernAs I said, they already spoke it. They probably learned it in the Bastarnian exodus. Or they might already have been resident traders among the Bastarnians in PoieneÅti-LukaÅ¡evka-land.
> Germany. Do explain how Jews learnt their German Yiddish
> in their contacts with Bastarnians who never migrated
> from that Pzhevorsk area! This is your topic in the
> discussion.
> >Yes, that is the standard theory and you believe in itWell, I just made one.
> >strongly.
>
> Because I have no alternative given, to it. (I mean, in a *real*
> word, not in the realm of fiction literature, of course).
> > > In Ariovist's epoch, the South-Western part of today's Germany,'In Ariovist's epoch' you wrote, which is the 1st century BCE. Please don't misrepresent your earlier statements. I can always look back in the postings.
> > > Switzerland, Austria, Western Hungary and entire Yugoslavia
> > > was... "Romania"!
> >No, it wasn't. None of the South-Western part of today's
> >Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Western Hungary and
> >entire Yugoslavia was yet Roman at that time, in the
> >1st century BCE. This is elementary history, and I'm
> >really getting tired of your amateurish elementary mistakes.
>
> I meant the ENTIRE PERIOD OF TIME, starting with your
> darned Ariofick and ending with the DISAPPEARANCE OF ANY
> MENTIONING OF THOSE BASTARNAE: about FIVE centuries.
>Does that mean you only pretended not to understand?
> >Yes! In Ariovist's time! Exactly! Finally George gets it!
>
> Not "finally": I got it from the first messages I read.
> But I thought the man must have chosen some awkwardProto-Oberdeutsch.
> sentences and phraseology, giving the impresion of
> confusion. But now I see that you really mean that some
> Germanic fellas spoke Oberdeutsch in Ariovist's time.
> >(Not, in the next posting he'll be ranting and ravingThank you, kind sir!
> >again about what he thinks I have said)
>
> I won't: I see that I must adjust my impression of
> the Ariovist's fan, and everybody avec son plaisir,
> mit seinem Steckenpferd! It's a free country. :-)
> > > So, you implyMy previous lines were not an independent statement, as you make it out to be, but an answer to a question from you, which I have re-inserted.
> > > that Germanic tribes in Caesar's time spoke dialects that
> > > barely differed from what's called Oberdeutsch and Yiddish.
> >No, they were predecessors of Oberdeutsch and Yiddish and
> >may have differed greatly.
>
> Of course, nobody denies that
> (and this is taught inAs if I had denied that.
> elementar school here in Germany, where the earlier
> Völkerwanderungszeit is perhaps of a greater interest
> than in Denmark).
> But predecessors here, not there, inYes, that is the standard theory.
> Poland. Germanic languages spoken 100 years BCE and
> 100 years CE have *all* of them the same relevance
> to what became 1500-1800 years later on as the Mundart
> called Yiddish.
> >Zzzzzz.I don't think many do, good ideas usually start out in the head of one individual.
>
> Then start an opinion poll: ask all the members of cybalist -
> how many agree with your assumption and how many don't.
> > > >Wrong.The Hypsistarians in the Bosporan Kingdom traded thousand times more with real Germans in Germany than with the Bastarnians? You are being incoherent.
> > > >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypsistarians
> > >
> > > What do these ancient worshippers have to do with
> > > people speaking German Yiddish between the 14th
> > > century and 2011? (I mean linguistically, not genetically.)
> >They traded with the Bastarnians.
>
> They traded thousand times more with real Germans in
> Germany!
> Read German history. Read of Worms, Speyerextant
> and other cities of the first 1-2-3 centuries after
> AD1000. How on earth can you assume that a non-extant
> Germanic population in Poland
> would have taught GermanWhat is this fantasy of yours of a non-extant Germanic population in Poland teaching German to incoming German Ostsiedler in the first 1-2-3 centuries after AD1000? Are you imagining that is what I proposed?
> a class of merchants and scholars who had at the same
> time some of the highest levels of culture in that
> European era?
> Look up facsimiles of the books in theOn the contrary. I'm being conservative on the source-poor time, I assume the null hypothesis: people stayed where they were if I don't have evidence to the contrary.
> possession of those communities.
>
> >They would have been represented in the motley army
> >Mithridates sent to attack Italy through the Balkans,
> >of which the main part was Bastarnian.
>
> You talk all the time of situations and peoples
> who had lived thousand years before the epoch which
> is relevant to Yiddish speaking Jews. To you, this
> enormous time gap doesn't mean anything (as though
> you were a fan of Fomenko and Illig :)).
> >According to Wexler, that theory is fantasy.Ah, I see, you are of that school who believes that the Ashkenazi are Khazars.
>
> Of course it's a fantasy to any Jew who believes that
> the whole Jewry is of ancient Yahudim descent. This
> is why many scholars also say that the conversion
> in Khazaria was minimal, and relevant only for a
> part of the upper crust. Everybody knows that.
> >>Yeahs sure, and the earth is a disc. :-)The Bastarnae were contemporaries of Ariovistus.
> >
> >Is that your new theory?
>
> It's yours, not mine. Your disc's name is ... Bastarnae
> contemporaries of Ariovist.
> >Bastarnian of the 1st cent BCE was as precursor of Hoch- andI don't think so. If we want to stick a name to the new upper class in Przeworsk, Bastarnian fits the bill. If you have a better candidate, mention it, and I will try to shoot it down.
> >Mitteldeutsch = High and Central German, in my proposal.
>
> Nobody will contradict you, since virtually any other
> Germanic tribe of the same epoch could have been the
> ancestor of medieval and modern German.
> You insist onThe Celtic or Para-Celtic Helvetii who lived in Southern Germany the were not literate, and Ariovistus' people had no interest in them other than kicking them out.
> this because some major groups that lived for a while
> in territories neighboring the Elbe indeed moved to
> Germany, and South Germany and beyond (common knowledge,
> illustrated with maps in manuals for the 5th grade
> Hauptschule here and in abridged manuals for the history
> of the German language or history of the German "reich").
> >Yes. Most of them were illiterate, if you can believe that?
>
> How the heck can an illiterate group teach convince
> a literate group adopt its coarse idiom?
> Wexler:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radhanite
>
> >he mentions multilingual Jewish merchant travelers
>
> You see? Multilingual.
> >traveled between Western Europe and China via Kiev.9And who knows where else.
>
> You see? Western Europe! In Western Europe they were
> able to have conversations in Frankish and Suebian.
> >It is difficult to determine the extent to which these >peregrinations led to permanent Jewish settlements'It is difficult to determine'; because we have so few facts.
>
> Of course, since it was not enough, it can't be enough
> for a such enormous change (switching from a national
> language to another) only by some merchants, but neglecting
> rabbis, neglecting groups of immigrating German Jews
> and German Christians from the "Reich". This is why
> Wechsler inserted "it is difficult", since he must have
> been a no-nonsense commentator.
> >though in the Slavic lands traversed, Jewish settlementsErh, and?
> >came into existence by the 11th century, e.g. in Regensburg,
> >Erfurt, Äernihiv and perhaps PrzemyÅ¡l.
>
> You see? Regensburg! Erfurt!
> >Local sources also record the presence of Jews in West Slavic landsThank you for the compliment.
> >by the 9th-10th centuries.10
>
> Of course! But Wexler doesn't dare say: "Yiddish-speaking
> Jews". Only Torsten has that courage.
> >A Hebrew letter composed in Saloniki perhaps in the year 1000p. 88
> >speaks of a monolingual Slavic-speaking Jew from the East
> >Slavic lands.11
>
> You see? Wexler quotes a source saying some Jews in the
> Slavic area were "monolingual Slavic-speakers". Is there
> any source attesting in Poland rests of German(ic)
> populations in the same period?
> >In addition to uncovering the location of the earliest JewishNo, those are his 'earliest Jewish settlements' which he assumes were Judeo-Slavic speaking.
> >settlements, there also remains the problem of ascertaining
> >whether these early settlements continued to exist up until
> >the arrival of the Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jews.
>
> By Ashkenazic Jews he means German Jews (Jews immigrating
> from Germany), while, in this context, keeping mum on the
> numerous East-European Jews, the genuine Ashkenazim of Khazar
> extraction.
> >It is unlikely that many Jewish communities in the UkrainianOkay.
> >lands could have survived the destruction of the Tatar
> >invasions in the 13th century;
>
> Why unlikely? Even Tatars became Jews; some of them. QIrIm-
> tatardzha is virtually the same dialect as that one spoken
> by the Caraites and by those Tatars who were colonized in
> Poland and Lithuania.
> >The linguistic evidence gathered hereI know.
> > (...)
> >In other words, Jews were present in Eastern Europe before the
> >German Ostsiedlung started.
>
> Of course. The presence of *west-European* Jews (from
> the Frankish Empire, from Italy, from Spain, as well
> as from the Byzantine Empire). But these authors (with
> the relevant exceptions) are very cautious towards the
> really Ashkenazic group, that in the 10th century still
> had a rest of a state, a former Eurasian superpower,
> Khazaria.
> And the topic is - whenever talking of the YiddishOh, so that's what you think happened.
> language - how *this* group managed to switch from
> Old Turkish to Yiddish German, and where this happened,
> in which period of time.
> >Wexler assumes they would haveI disagree.
> >spoken Slavic, but he has presents no evidence that they
> >couldn't have spoken Early Yiddish.
>
> Of course he couldn't: at that time it was impossible
> for Yiddish to have been "born".
> It had to "wait" untilI don't think so.
> the deutsche Sprache itself, at home, in Germany, first
> arrived at the appropriate stage of transformation.
> And, although German Jews were not as numerous as thoseAs opposed to the unreal ones?
> semi-anonymous in the East (Ukraine etc.), they were in
> real command of real German dialects, no doubt about
> that.
> And the main theory is based on them; this is whyYes.
> in the mainstream perception Ashkenazic Jew has the
> meaning German Jew; this theory saying that in a period
> betw. the 13th-16th century these Jews were in a
> migration (due to pogroms, during the Crusades, and
> the great epidemies), to Bohemia, then to Poland etc.,
> where their population got bigger, millions. The other
> theory says the East-European Jews were initially
> another linguistic group sharing the same faith, and
> that this group switched the language under the influence
> of groups/masses of colonists/immigrants from the
> West (Jewish + Christian Germans). But all this happened
> towards the middle of the 1st millennium.
> >What don't you doubt; that I don't believe that? But thenWhich ones?
> >why do you keep telling me (now 34 times) what you think I
> already believe?
>
> You didn't understand, because some aspects of the
> discussion seem difficult to you, although you are
> aware of myriads of details.
> You do not understandProto-Ober/Mitteldeutsch developed into MHG. Danish and Oberdeutsch are not in that relationship.
> that all dialects that developed into the so-called
> German language were 1,000-1,500 years earlier than
> MHG as different as is is your Danish compared with
> Oberdeutsch:
> you say (I assume) hviid,[við?]
> and der Oberdeutsche say [vais] or [voas]. The entire hv- clusterIf that paragraph means anything then anything is true.
> ist futsch. Das sind sprachhistorische Merkmale. If
> they don't mean anything to you, well then any theory
> is true. :)
> >When did I say something idiotic like that?Don't be flippant. Please answer the question.
>
> Re-read your own posts.
> >Oh yes, he does. He is full of doubt, unlike you.Like the world north of the Weisswurstäquator to you. But at least I'm trying.
>
> You don't understant a iota of what Wexler says,
> and what he doesn't say and why he doesn't.
> (And I dare say the Jewish world is a terra
> incognita to you, too.)
> >Like the Bastarnians in Przeworsk.Yes, that is the standard theory.,
>
> It is here the place/moment where/when your judgment
> runs astray, and you can't understand that: your
> Bastarnae might have been everything you say. Perhaps.
> But at the time when the Jiddische Sproch evolved,
> there were no Bastarnae whatsoever in the Jewish
> world. They merely were, perhaps (we don't know
> exactly), a part of the ancestors of a part of
> the German population.
> That's all. Everything else is bunkum, malarkey, until you findNo, if a scenario is possible, it is a possible solution. And the scenario which best explains the facts is the winner.
> evidence.
> The "Yiddishization" of a certain European JewryI appreciate that.
> has various other explanations that more or less
> fit, since there are lots of evidences (and whole
> lotta traces in the very language).
>
> > Thank you for the RD article.
>
> You're welcome.
>
> >Would you like to switch the subject to something you feel
> >more comfortable with? We can do that.
>
> This is the last time I give you a reply, so don't worry.
> > No, you asked me to explain my proposal which takes place inThat's because I'm a nice guy. Also when I see tourists lost in the city I try to give them directions.
> > Ariovistus' time.
>
> No. You can't concentrate on the content of my posts.
> I asked explanations on those Basturds who stayed
> "back home". For those who moved to Germany, I have
> whole lotta explanations, written in German, or
> taugh in German by university professors whose
> Vorlesungen I can attend, getting out of the bed
> and going a few hundred of yards and enter the
> appropriate premises. Note that I don't make any
> Fisimatenten concerning the history of your language
> and Denmark, but you teach me about my own ancestors,
> who might have really lived in Przeworsk. :-)
>Why don't you come out and say it, instead of hiding behind the scientists of your imagination?
> >You mean like in short sentences without digressions? And if
> >you want to accuse me of mixing up epochs and events (like
> >you did between the 1st cent BCE and the 1st cent CE) or
> >ignoring linguistic evidence, why don't you come out and
> >say it, instead of hiding behind the scientists of your
> >imagination?
>
> Don't ask me, ask the community here. They'll tell you.
> >Yes, that is the standard theory.Why are you ascribing statements to me that you made up yourself?
>
> How the heck can it be standard theory (you repeat it
> for the n-th time), when you state above it's "science
> of your imagination"? Merkst Du was?
> >Yes I did because I've written appr. 15% of the postings myself.I think they (and Oberdeutsch) were the same.
>
> I wrote "direct link". Where the is the direct link
> between Bastarnian and Yiddish?
> Nowhere. On top ofBut it arrived there with Ariovistus from the Przeworsk culture in Silesia, and I think we have good reason to believe the upper layer language of that was Bastarnian.
> that nobody knows how Bastarnian was, in order to
> infer conclusions that Bastarnian was sort of an
> ancestor of Althochdeutsch (Althochdeutsch was
> really a German spoken around the Alps in the
> Alemanian-Suebian and Bavarian region and has a
> continuum up to nowaday's German in the same
> region).
> So you wrote whole lotta posts, but nothing aboutWhich was?
> what you've been requested to write.
> >In what German dialect does 'Geschlecht' mean "Adelsgeschlecht"?You didn't answer the question:
>
> It depends on the context. Geschlecht means "gen(u)s",
> "clan", "tribe". The first meaning that crosses your
> mind is "sex", because you learnt *modern* German
> and because the primordial meaning vanishes: lineages,
> genealogies in connection with *civil rights* in the
> society don't play a role any longer.
>
> But if your knowledge of German is at an advance level,
> you should be able in a quarter of a second to grasp
> everything in the appropriate context in order to
> be sure: is it "lineage" or is it "sex"?
> >It doesn't make sense to adopt the central terminologyOh yes we are, as should be painfully clear from the
> >of a profession from outsiders. The only situation that
> >would happen is if the outsiders are present at the
> >introduction of that profession.
>
> Perhaps in Denmark you aren't aware of the extent
> of the German cultural impact in the early medieval
> periods, and especially after the important waves of
> migrants from Germany and Netherlands esp. starting
> in the 12th-13th centuries.
> And the tremendous importanceSame here.
> of the German inheritance law: only one brother could
> inherit the farm, all the others either accepted being
> his underlings or had to go away.
> Germany alwaysI know.
> had big diasporas (at least every seventh American
> has German extraction).
> City culture in medieval EastThe Polish Szlachta had nothing to do with city culture.
> Europe was the work of Germans and Italians. Kings
> and dukes there encouraged waves of such immigrants
> from the West.
> >They would reject the question as irrelevant, since weI know. Been there, done that (see archives).
> >don't know anything of the Bastarnian language apart
> >from three names of their leaders. Besides I am a
> >linguist by education myself.
>
> I see! :-) If you're fond of protochronisms,
> why aren't you attracted by the idea of Sarmatian
> ancestry of the Slavic upper crust (an idea that
> was or has been popular in Poland, Russia, Ukraine,
> Croatia).
> Sarmatians were proud and efficientObviously you don't know what your talking about. The Bastarnae was a military threat to South East Europe through all their existence. They were part Sarmatian, according to Tacitus.
> warriors, who brought to the Roman empires various
> techniques and military customs, unlike "your"
> Bastarnae, a quite anonymous, temporary collection
> of backward hinterwäldlerische Germanic rubes.
> >to the consternation of the GermansI know, but if I may express it this way, there is not really the same emotional drive in German self-identification that there was before 1945, before which they did give a darn, very much so, I hear.
>
> Yea sure. Most Germans give a darn. Most of them
> don't even know that there is a tiny Dansk minority
> in Schleswig, and it has an ethnic political party.
> To most Germans all Northerners "an der Waterkant"
> are "Fischköppe". :^) And to the "Fischköppe" all
> Southerners are "Seppel".
> >since they believed the Danes would happily acceptTo Tarantino?
> >becoming Germans (there was a famous cartoon in a
> >satirical magaziene here then: Kaiser Wilhelm had
> >sent a telegram to the Royal family after having
> >been to Fredensborg, to the effect that he felt as
> >a 'Sohn des Hauses'; the cartoon, with the caption
> >'En Søn af Huset', was of the Kaiser sitting like
> >a kid, and dressed as such, with his familiar
> >Schnurrbart,
>
> But Willy von Hohenzollern had Suebian-Alemanian ancestry,
> that is, he was a genuine... Bastarnian. So, pay heed! :)
> >I suspect Gustaff Kossinna's idea of picking DemmarkWho? The Germans? The Danes? I didn't know that.
> >as the home of all Germanic peoples came from some
> >desire to placate the Danes, it doesn't fit the
> >linguistic and archaeological facts.
>
> Then be placated by the idea that earlier, when
> they had been "Indo-Europeans", they had lived
> in Tartaria, around the "Khazar Sea", around the
> Aral and in Kurdistan.