Re: Schöffe I (a few details on OHG)

From: Torsten
Message: 67436
Date: 2011-04-30

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "t0lgsoo1" <guestuser.0x9357@...> wrote:
>
> > > >So you're saying there was a settlement boom in Transylvania in
> > > >the 16th-17th centuries?
>
> > > No boom, but the spreading of such suffixes as a... fad.

> >I don't get it. If there was no settlement boom, then the boom of
> >new -eşti names would have spread in existing settlements.
>
> Imagine a gradual "growth": after the first mentioning of
> such place names, a *gradual* increase in number in a long
> period of time: several centuries. Do not imagine a boom as
> if a massive immigration had taken place (in 1-2-3 years)
> (as if many people had run thither upon hearing one had
> found... gold! :))

Oh, it was a slow... fad.
Bucureşti 1459
Plorescht 1503
lasting until today.


> All written material (from a long period of time = centuries)
> show that the place names with this ending are a quite late
> occurrence.

Except for Bucharest and Ploeşti?


> (Usually, such options are... whimsical. Look at
> the map: where do you find most of Germanic place names ending
> in -ham? Practically only in England and Bavaria+Austria;
> although in all Germanic countries -ham (< heim) has been
> known. Or -weiler: chiefly in the areas that happen to be
> interesting to you because of Ariovist. Although all over
> the territory with German-speaking populations use the
> word/notion Weiler, in other German-speaking areas such
> place names are scarce or better said: non-extant.)
>
> Such peculiarities might be a marker for the presence of
> some ethnic groups, but they are not a... *must*. (BTW,
> as far as the Dacian and Thracians are concerned: a similar
> situation, the area of place names ending in -dava, -dova
> and in -para have prompted some researchers to conclude
> -dava means the presence of Dacians and -para the presence
> of Thracians, but who can tell that this really was so
> 2,000 years ago?

If I'm right that the root of -dava is the same as that of Dacia
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/66620
then that conclusion is true by definition.


> In the case of English and Bavarians
> everyone knows the same -ham doesn't mean the same
> population, but in 2,000 years scholars will also be
> tempted to say "those living near London, Munich and
> Vienna must have been the same ethnos". The'll be
> partially right: they live in the same "country" - the
> European Union. :)

I know you want me to clean up your mess after you, but I think I'll let this stand, so you'll have to read it again ;-)


> >It wouldn't really have to as such, if old naming habits
> >for anthroponyms and toponyms survived (ie. the suffixes).
>
> Of course. But it's a far way between a sudden "what if?"
> and an advanced phase where there is a sufficient gathering
> of "Merkmale".

That was a general case if, not a 'what if'.


> >I know. High German became important because all the important
> >institutions were in the High German area. That's circular.
>
> Above all: the Church. And where the Frankish kings, marshalls
> and seneshals had their "Pfalzen" & other important places.
> They were more in the south; although Oche (Aachen/Aix la
> Chapelle) and Fulda are not quite southern places, when seen
> from Switzerland, Austria, Bavaria and Bohemia. :)

I said circular.


> >Sounds German alright ;-)
>
> Es ist nicht zu fassen: you again quoted the whole stuff!
> Why did you do that? Were you afraid that the original post
> could get lost and the honorable cybalist readers wouldn't
> be able to read the cited paragraphs from the Atlas der
> deutschen Sprache? :) (Torsten, puhleeze, learn to quote.)

George, puhleeze, stay on the subject.


> >That Ariovistus came from the east? Here:
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poland_in_Antiquity#Early_Roman_wars_and_movement_of_tribes
> >and check the archives.
>
> This is no explanation, no illustration, no demonstration.
> This is only a molecular info saying that A. traveled from
> "sunrise" to "sunset". This is as if I'd say Willem van
> Rubruk traveled from "sunset" to "sunrise", where he met
> Batu's underlings, greeted "merhaba" and asked for a cup
> of kumis.

George, stay on the subject.
'Much circumstantial evidence points to the participation of Germanic people from Polish lands in the events that took place in the first half of 1st century BC and found their culmination in Gaul in 58 BC, as related in Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico. At the time of the Suebi tribal confederation led by Ariovistus arrival in Gaul, a rapid decrease of settlement density can be observed in the areas of the upper and middle Oder River basin. In fact the Gubin group of the Jastorf culture disappeared then entirely, which may indicate this group's identity with one of the Suebi tribes. The western regions of the Przeworsk culture were also vacated (Lower Silesia, Lubusz Land and western Greater Poland), which is where the tribes accompanying the Suebi tribes must have come from. Burial sites and artifacts characteristic of the Przeworsk culture have been found in Saxony, Thuringia and Hesse, on the route of the Suebi offensive. The above mentioned regions of western Poland had not become repopulated and economically developed again until in 2nd century AD.

As a result of the consequent Roman efforts to subjugate all of Germania, the member tribes of the Suebi alliance became displaced, moved east, conquered the Celtic tribes that stood in their way and settled, the Quadi in Moravia, and the Marcomanni in Bohemia. The latter tribe, under Marbod, formed a quasi-state with a huge army and was able to conquer the Lugii tribal association among others. What archeologists see as the Przeworsk culture, by this period (early 1st century AD) is believed to consist first of all of the Lugii tribes. A Roman defeat known as the Teutoburg Forest Battle (9 AD) stabilized the situation at the peripheries of the Empire to some degree. The Lugii and other tribes on Polish lands were increasingly becoming involved in trade and other contacts, through the Marcomanni and Quadi intermediaries, with the Danubian provinces of Rome. The Lugii, according to Tacitus, was a very large union of tribes. In 50 AD they invaded and pillaged the Quadi state created by Vannius, contributing to its fall. The motivation for the expedition were the rumors of the enormous riches that Vannius had accumulated by plunder and charging duties. In 93 AD the Lugii, fighting a war with the Suebi, asked Emperor Domitian for help, and received one hundred mounted soldiers.'


> >>Until then, I'll
> >>tend to accept the mainstream finds, namely that, at such an
> >>early stage of the language transformations it did not matter
> >>whether Elbe Germanic groups or Rhine-Weser-North Sea groups
> >>had the "upper hand" 500-600 years prior to the colonization
> >>of the South.
> >
> >??? What??
>
> What "what"?

I have not mentioned Elbe Germanic groups other than when you asked me and the Rhine-Weser-North Sea groups not at all, so I have no idea what you are talking about.


> Show me the significant pre-German population
> in the South before the real pre-Germans came in.

You mean before the real Germans came in? Here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helvetii


> Show me
> that the pre-existent pre-German population had that kind of
> Germanic language that deserves being called "high German".

You have either completely misunderstood what I have proposed, or garbled your sentences, or you're deliberately trying to derail the discussion.


> These are the two chapters of your... task.

Those are two wild goose chases you hope to set me on.


> >Under Ariovistus or in the decades after him under other
> >leaders. The Helvetian lands on the upper Danube had become
> >deserted.
>
> But, until the massive Germanic colonization of the territory
> in question there is a chronologic gap consisting in *centuries*
> not in mere decades! A missing link 4-6 centuries long.

I suspect the 'massive Germanic colonization of the territory in question' they told you about in school is an artifact of linguistics, set so late in time because one tends to place undocumented, reconstructed events of undocumented times as recent as possible, to avoid the feeling of uncertainty.


> >>Linguistically they were rather Suebians.
> >
> >After they moved south.
>
> What sources tell you Langobards hadn't been before that?

If you look at their history,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langobards
their self-identificaltion was that of a local, bodenständig group.
Here's my attempt to explain the name.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/60000


> >Poland had been cleared of Germanic-speakers (except Jews,
> >I think, and a few splinter groups) by that time.
>
> At that time no Jew spoke German(ic) (except for a few
> translators :)).

Sez the traditional proposal / scenario.


> >I mention them when they are relevant, or when I'm asked.
>
> Now you've seen they aren't relevant in the Ariovist-Bastarnae-
> Hochdeutsch-Schöffe context, so give them a break, coz they
> didn't have Easter holidays.

If Slavs followed Bastarnian Germans and Jews all the way from Bastarnia (in Moldavia) to Germany they are relevant to my scenario, so I might mention them again.


> >The Bastarnae spoke Bastanian. If the Bastarnae are the ancestors
> of those social and geographical groups in Germany which speak
> >High German, then Bastarnian is the ancestor of High German.
>
> If! Sharing some artefacts doesn't automatically mean *"must"*.
> I also possess computers & al. electronical hardware made by
> American and South-Korean companies, but I ain't neither
> American nor Korean; and have several baseball caps, but I
> don't play and don't like baseball.

So from that future... archaeologists may falsely conclude that your... country was once occupied by... Americans? You should prepare your... metaphors better... George.
How do like my new Celine style (me and my three dots)?.


> >In order to show that the Bastarnae spoke Proto High German I
> >thus have to show that the ancestors of the social and
> >geographical groups in Germany which speak High German
> >were the Bastarnae.
>
> Hehe, at laaast!

At last you get it?


> >That I will have to do with archaeological and historical
> >evidence alone.
>
> Archeological evidenc will help you only if someone one day
> will unearth some fragments of a text written in Hochdeutsch
> saying "Liebe Lait, des, wos ets lest, des is gwiss
> Bastarnisch!" Until then, the recently discovered metal plates
> have a bigger chance to be seen as older than the Qumran
> scripts.

That's written evidence, not archaeological evidence. All you your little pointless spiels detract from the substance of your postings.


> >But their old territory was in the Low German speaking area,
> >so we need an explanation why the Frankish upper layer spoke
> >a High German language then. That won't fly.
>
> What if the differentiation betw. low and high German really
> started much later and what if during Bastarnae's time this
> differentiation wasn't there?

Yes, that is the standard scenario. Then we'd still have to explain why Frankish is High German. I don't think anyone provided one yet.


> >According to Kuhn, the area was being Germanized at the
> >time, which means the Cherusci and Arminius weren't even
> >German.
>
> What were they then? Maybe Illyrians?

NWBlock. He hints at that being Venetic.


> >>I'm even ready to accept a thesis of yours stating "there were
> >>no Franks actually, the so-called Franks were Bastarnians".
> >
> >I never said that.
>
> I know. But this could be a scenario.

You're free to develop one.


> Or that they appear later on under another "disguise".

The thing that made the Franks stand out from the other Germanic groups is that they, or at least the bulk the bulk of the population were bodenständig, ie they were not about plunder in a far and foreign region, but were trying to extend their own country in a sustainable way. Still I think the upper layer came from the east
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/65038


> For, if they really were so
> important, and a superior social stratum at that, acknowledged
> by the others, and if they were supposed to further play a
> leading & ruling role, they must have been one of the populations
> we know (and this would also satisfy the objection that they
> had another name for themselves, an endonym, and not that
> derogatory name given to them by Romans).

As I said, I think they were distributed evenly over all Germanic peoples. That means that all the later wars between Germanic people were originally family feuds; that's also how contemporary sources present them. The derogatory term, Iranian in origin, were probably given to the by the Scirii, reflecting their attitude to them, which didn't exactly improve relations with them after the occupation.


> >As I said, in later times, the language of the upper layer in later
> >times is High German, also in nominally Low German areas. The
> >people of the suddenly appearing Fürstengräber in old Germania were
> >the upper layer of that society.
>
> Thus, the Frankish ones too (actually, especially them!).

No, the Lubieszewo type graves
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poland_in_Antiquity#Princely_burials
The Frankish graves are related.


> >Provided there was no linguistic upheaval in the meantime, the
> >latter are the ancestors of the former and would have spoken a
> >language which was the ancestor of High German.
>
> Yes, but why only the Bastarnians? Why not some neighbor? E.g.
> Burgundians, Alamanians, Suebians, Langobards.

If it had been one of these peoples, the archaeology of the princely graves people would have had an archaeology ancestral to it among that people. It doesn't, their archaeology is totally foreign.


> The ancestors
> of the Bavarians also showed up as though "out of the blue"
> around AD 500: they also might be candidates (how do you know
> that Bavarians aren't the real Bastarnae survivors? They went
> to Bavaria and Austria coming from Bohemia, which is closer
> to Bastarnaes territory and on the same NE-SW line).

You keep wanting to identify the new layer with an existing German tribe. Archaeology doesn't want to grant you that.


> >Furthermore, the upper layer with their Fürstengräber appears
> >in Germania exactly at a time when the Bastarnian 'state'
> >collapses, and are archaeologically similar.
>
> Oh, now I see: you're basing the whole thing only on this.

No, I am making a scenario, then
1) checking that it doesn't contradict known facts, then
2) checking whether it explains facts other scenarios don't

An alternative scenario, in which a known Germanic tribe takes over doesn't match the archaeological facts. On the other hand the Sueui in a sense fits that bill historically, since they built up an alliance system with other (subjugated?) tribes and kept harassing the Rhine-near tribes. The Sueui were Ariovistus' people. In a sense, the Sueui was, or supplied, the new upper layer in Germania. I think they were the Bastarnae.


> >The Vangiones, Triboci and Nemetes were part of Ariovistus'
> >army, according to Caesar. Get your facts straight.
>
> These are indeed important. (I mentioned myself in one
> previous post.) So: what happened to them between the 1st c. BCE
> and AD 600? Did they become a major Germanic > German population
> of South Germany? And the next significant question: if so,
> were they Bastarnae known under other ethnic names?

I think, as I said, they were fickle opportunistic tribes joining Ariovistus in his adventure for profit, judging by the fact that Caesar let them stay on the left Gaulish side of the Rhine, in Alsace, where they remain to this day. So I don't think they were Bastarnae. Here's what I think of the Nemetes:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/58318
Piotr objected that -et- doesn't fit Slavic -ec
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/58347
but I think it is a case of suffix substition (cf. Lipsk/Leipzig, Gdańsk/Danzig), cf the Hungarian last name Nemeth.


> >>Yes, but Hochdeutsch is a German dialects group chiefly
> >>extant south of the Limes.
> >
> >No.
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_german
>
> That what has been North-East of the Limes is to chiefly be
> seen as the result of later medieval Ostsiedlung (i.e. the
> re-Germanization of territories that were emtied of Germanic
> populations during the Great Migrations and repopulated by
> Slavs). Those German dialects are actually sub-dialects
> (at least in my opinion), since they can't compare with
> the other dialects as far as the differentiations are concerned.
> (And no wonder that the common language which evolved as
> the standard written Hochdeutsch after Luther developed
> around Weimar.)

Ostsiedlung north of the Limes? No way.


> It would have been the other way around if the Völker-
> wanderungszeit would have left there a compact massive
> population with nonstop continuity, that would have
> influenced the rest in the 7th-15th centuries, and if
> the center of the Frankish royal and imperial power
> would have been in Thuringia, Saxony, Silezia etc.

The Germani were present directly north of Limes in all of its existence. If you think otherwise you are misinformed.


> >>(Show me that chieftains of South-Germans had Bastarnian
> >>origins.)
> >
> >I can't.
>
> If your assumption is correct, namely that Bastarnae, as a
> respected social class continued its "career" in the
> Germanic world, then they must have perpetuated under an
> other name or been assimilated, in high or highest positions,
> within one Germanic population or another. IMHO, the best
> candidate would have been the Frankish nation. I for one
> would examine the plausibility of such a hypothesis.

Go ahead.


> >>It is the main point of *your* topic!
> >
> >I decide what is the main part of my topic.
>
> From the moment on in which you stay face to face with
> the jury, you don't make any decision: the monopoly of
> making decisions is in the claws of the jury (peer view :)).
> Otherwise you'd despise the court and you'd be in to
> support the consequences (including getting a piece of
> ostrakon ;)).

So I'll be exiled from Germany? You're out of your jurisdiction, Herr Schöffe, go pick on some Westphalian.


> >>(roughly
> >>between Frankfurt and South-Tyrol).
> >
> > Yes.
>
> Which roughly means "south of the Limes".
>
> >This is where Ariovistus' troops came from
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poland_in_Antiquity#Early_Roman_wars_and_movement_of_tribes
> >That's probably how much you can get out of archaeology wrt that
> >queation.
>
> But do you realize that those tribes could have had relevance
> only if they would have built a Germanic population/nation
> in South Germany in those centuries (4-6 centuries) before
> the real great Germanic colonization set in? I put his
> question some paragraphs before. This is the central issue!

I don't know where the idea of a German colonization of Southern Germany in the 4th-6th centuries comes from. If I were you, I'd take a look at what that supposed event is based on.


> I've never heard, read, I've never been taught in school of
> such a pre-existing German/ic population in what's called
> South Germany (or the South of the former Holy Roman Empire
> of German nation). The Germanization of the south started
> with the victories of Alamanians, Franks, Suebians and with
> the retreat of the Roman Empire (3rd-4th-5th centuries).

The Roman empire never controlloed the land north of the Danube. That leaves a lot of Germany to Germani.


> And the real, in-depth colonization ("Besiedelung") occurred
> in the 7th-8th centuries, when the Anglo-Saxon and Irish
> Christian missions were also on their peaks. Only the Rhine
> valley had earlier Germanization.

Yes, so you tell me.


> Are you able to make a synthesis between the wanna-be
> continuators of Ariovist's Germanic tribes and the massive
> immigration of Germanic populations (the future Germans
> speaking lingua teodisca) 400-500 years later?

If you tell me what that the evidence for that supposed event is.


> This is your topic and task! Otherwise, the "jury" will show
> thumbs downwards.

I'll get some binoculars.


> >I'm not talking about Franks being Bastarnians, actually I think
> >their upper layer has another provenance, namely from Pannonia
> >(according to their own chroniclers). As for how I can show that
> >Bastarnae were the Verhochdeutschers, see above.
>
> This is of no help. The Pannonian link might be better.
> It would open a gate for speculating on movements to and fro
> of those three Germanic population in the West (after Ariovist)
> who might have combined forces with others and came back.
>
> >It is standard, AFAIK. If anyone else knows different, please tell.
>
> But at least they could have contacts with Germans along the
> Rhine border (from the upper to the middle and lower Rhine).
> At the beginning of the 1st century BCE Rome already had a...
> "Wacht am Rhein", right?

No. Not until after
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaul
was conquered by Julius Caesar 58-51 BCE


> >No, it didn't.
>
> Maps available on the Net show that Rome was West of the Rhine
> in the last decades of the res publica. So, even if that presence
> wasn't as massive as 100-200 years later on, there was the
> possibility for them to great Germanic fellas across the water
> "buon giorno, come stai?" :)

Mars attacks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsi_(Germanic)
hint:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Attacks!


> >Into all groups. The were the nobility everywhere in Germany. A >conquering people became a class.
>
> Oh, this is something new, and interesting. Why don't you
> talk of this in the 1st place?

I did. Glad it got through eventually.


> So, the idea would be then
> that they were sort of an elite or even a "noble" or "royal"
> class, as were in the Scythian-Turkic world, in the same
> period of time, the "blue Turks" and the Dulo clan or dynasty
> (to which seemingly belonged Attila and his family as well).
> Or much later as royal clans such as of the Merowingians,
> Carolingians, Guelfi, Hohenstaufen, Babenberger, Hohenzollern,
> Hapsburg etc.

Yes.


> But then you should also think of the Gothic Amalii and other
> highnesses, incl. Geiserich the Vandal, & al. lineages: they
> all might have had some ancestors from among such elite groups
> with Bastarnian ancestry. So, much the more in the case of
> the Merowingian-Carolingian Franks.

Yup.


> >All of them. Archaeology tells us the new upper class spread
> >out as a homogenous layer over heterogenous populations.
>
> OK, I agree, it is tempting. But does archeology really show
> such a development?

That's where I got it from. I've been through the literature.


> (Anyway, if your hypothesis were justified,
> then the Gothic

No, I think Goths (= Jutes etc) were disgruntled natives fleeing the new upper class who arrived in Scandinavia. But since part of them were disgruntled member of the new upper class, and they alone knew runes, Gothic ended up as a standard Germanic language.


> and the Frankish nations/states could be seen
> as the epitome of Bastarnae's endeavor.

Secondary endeavor. They had been driven from their homes in the east.


> Only that the timegap
> is enormous in the lack of a certain cohesive ideology and
> religious+customary program... Because something like this
> requires the idea of a "mission", of some kind of "mesianism",
> as it is called.)

True. But I think the Bastarnae were making the best of a bad situation in a foreign (or half foreign, the native Proto Low German must have sounded like a strange dialect to them) land. Ariovistus / Harigasti may have perished in war under Kritasiros against Burebista trying to get his people home.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/60404
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/66377


> >Ariovistus was Germanic. Burebista attacked the Germani.
>
> It would be not singulary for ancient and medieval scribblers
> to mix up legendary characters & heroes. (E.g. scientists say
> that many features of Siegfried are those of a Rhineland
> Frankish king of the 5th or 6th century, Siegbert, and
> Kriemhild of Siegbert's wife.)

Yes, but Ariovistus was Germanic, Burebista Dacian and Burebista attacked the Germani. If they were the same, he would have attacked himself.


> >Because the Romans were active south of the Danube.
>
> Where they could have recruited Dacians without having to
> pay for them. (Again: Dacia wasn't only the septentrional
> Dacia. South of the Danube there were further Dacias, and
> these were engulfed in the Roman empire earlier.)
>
> >That's not what those sources say. They say that Dacia was
> >an especially heavily exploited area of slave procurement
> >in the 70's BCE.
>
> Awright if you prefer the term "heavily exploited", I don't mind.
> But what's important: the main mass of slaves coming from
> among Dacian tribes must have been Dacian and not... Germanic.

Of course.


> And even if in some years Dacians would have managed to
> supply x thousand Germanic slaves it looks like a bit weird
> to me that out of that Germanic slaves contingent those
> three Germanic tribes pop up in Alsace and Baden-Württemberg
> and the same tribes multiplied in so far as to build a
> compact Germanic population near the Alps in order to
> pass on Hochdeutsch to the bulk of Germanic "late-comers"
> of the 5th-6th-7th centuries.

So? Millions of Germans perished in WWII in Eastern Europe and millions fled. Where's the dilemma?


> What respect could have had
> the newcomers (more numerous and militarily a superpower)
> in order to let themselves be subdued by those semi-Romanized
> "cousins"? (And I've never heard of such a significant
> Germanic population there preceding the great invasions
> that occurred after the Roman army and administration
> had gone home.)

That supposed Germanic invasion of Southern Germany in the 4th - 8th century CE keeps recurring in your arguments. I'd like to see the evidence for it.


> >So what are you objecting to?
>
> I was only referring to those theatrical comic characters
> as source of inspiration.

More here:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/66620

Oh, and BTW, I re-found this supposedly dubious source on Burebista's attack on the Germans:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/23719



Torsten