>
> > So, under no circumstances can Finnic tribes have lived closer to
> > where Tacitus places the Fenni?
Â
> ****GK: Ptolemy also places them pretty far north in his chapter on
> Germania: in Scandia to be precise, north of the Gautae.
> Schutte has a theory about the presence of "Finni" below the Goths
> on the Vistula. He thinks that particular sequence applies to the
> Baltic coast and was artificially positioned further south. I don't
> particularly agree with this version, but there is something else of
> value in his analyses. He has shown that the "Ptolemy constructor"
> very frequently misplaces or "double places"Â individual peoples
> (lots of examples). So independently of the archaeological
> difficulties, one has to ask why the "Finni" of the Vistula should
> be exempted from such an interpretation. Have a look at his work and
> see which other alleged misplacements you would disagree with.*****
>
These are the linguistic reasons I think there existed a 'Southern Finnic' group:
Several Polish linguists have assumed a Finno-Ugric origin for river names incorporating the root *wolg-
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/64012
(UEW walka- 'hinabsteigen, hinabgehen', ie "descend, go down".
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/62508
)
MoszyÅski noted an alternation *wolg-/*bolg- in river names, the former belonging to a compact western area; he assumes the Slavs borrowed those river names directly from the Finno-Ugrians in the *wolg- area, but through an intermediate language in the *bolg- area, in which *w- > *b-. I had earlier noticed the *w- > *b-, judging from other toponyms (eg. Vesontio -> Besançon) seemed to have occurred in the Venetic language.
Udolph points out that *bolg- occurs in hydronymics all over the European North Coast (he doesn't mentions the Belgae, but I think he should have), all the way to England (and perhaps further in *bai-/*baiul-, cf.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/34887
)
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/60815
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/60821
From this he concludes that the root must be 'voreinzelsprachlich', ie before the individual IE languages (this is code speak for Old European, and that Udolph thinks Old European is PIE or its single European descendant), and rejects without argument the proposed Finnic origin of the root.
My solution:
The root *wolg- is Finno-Ugric,
the root *bolg- is the same root borrowed by Venetic-speakers.
This means that all of the North European coast was once Finno-Ugric speaking, and later shifted to the Indo-European language Venetic.
I know of course that this is pretty drastic and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalevi_Wiik
territory, but I can't see any better solution to the data.
BTW, according to this interpretation, the Belgae were (once) Venetic-speakers.
The *draN-(ent-) hydronyms
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/58459
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/60773
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/58459
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/60853
gives us independent confirmation of the proposed extent of the Ventic language area.
In the concrete case, there might have still have existed Finnic-speaking groups among the Venetic speaking groups in Ptolemy's time.
Torsten