Re: P.Gmc. *skakula-

>
> More relevant for the time is
> pp. 606-607
> 'More fundamentally, and also more interesting given that it has
> been so much less discussed, is the effect of the Völkerwanderung
> upon barbarian Europe. By the sixth century, Germanic-dominated
> Europe as it had stood in the Roman era had almost completely
> collapsed. Where, up to the fourth century, similar socioeconomic
> and political structures had prevailed over a huge territory from
> the Rhine to the Vistula in the north and to the River Don at their
> fullest extent in the south, by c.550 AD, their direct descendants
> were essentially restricted to lands west of the Elbe, with an
> outlying pocket on the Great Hungarian Plain, which was about to be
> terminated by the arrival of the Avars (Map 15). The Völkerwanderung
> had played a central role in this revolution, though not by actually
> emptying these landscapes of all their inhabitants. Settlement did
> completely disappear in some restricted localities, but, even making
> maximum assumptions, the exodus from Germanic Europe from the fourth
> to the sixth century was not on a large enough scale to denude
> central and eastern Europe of its entire population. What the
> Völkerwanderung clearly did do, however, was empty much of the old
> inner and outer peripheries of the Empire of the armed and
> organized, socially elite groupings which had previously run them.
> From the perspective of barbarian Europe, the period saw not just
> the collapse of the Roman Empire, but also the collapse of the
> larger state-like structures and organizations of its periphery, the
> vast majority of which relocated themselves, in the course of the
> migrations, on to parts of just the old inner periphery - between
> the Rhine and the Elbe, and the Great Hungarian Plain - and actual,>
> largely western Roman territory.
>
> This first extraordinary revolution in barbarian Europe marked a
> caesura in over half a millennium of broadly continuous development
> over large parts of central and eastern Europe. It also allowed a
> second and equally dramatic transformation. In the aftermath of
> Germanic collapse, population groups from the third zone of Europe
> as it stood at the start of the Roman era started to develop, for
> the first time as far as we can see, substantial political, economic
> and cultural interactions with the rest of Europe. The Romans had
> some kind of knowledge of the Venedi who inhabited that part of
> Europe's low-speed zone closest to them. Tacitus in the first
> century knew that they were out there, beyond the Vistula and the
> Carpathians; Ptolemy a couple of generations later could add the
> names of a few of their broader social groupings. But, remarkably,
> there is no evidence at all that these populations were sucked into
> the political events of the first half of the millennium in any
> shape or form. Venedi mounted no known raids into Roman territory,
> find no mention in narratives of the Marcomannic War or the
> third-century crisis, and do not even seem to have participated in
> the structures of Attila's Empire, which incorporated so many of the
> other population groups of central and eastern Europe. Nor do the
> distribution maps of Roman imports suggest that these European
> population groups from east of the Vistula and north of the
> Carpathians played a major role in any of the trade networks
> stretching out into barbaricum in the Roman era, though some of the
> routes surely passed through their territories.'
>

As to what happened to the Venedi
Zbigniew Gołąb
The Origins of the Slavs
pp. 77-87
'There is no doubt that Proto-Slavic basically belongs to the satem branch of Indo-European, in spite of numerous kentum elements in its vocabulary which come from prehistorical times.
...

The problem is whether, in addition to "regular" satem-forms, i.e., with s, z from *k', *g' *g'h, there can be found in Slavic forms which show the kentum treatment of the corresponding IE palatals, i.e., with k (or later č/c), g (or later ž/z,) from *k', *g' *g'h. Such forms, if not explicable by special phonetic laws, must be treated as loan-words from some prehistorical kentum dialects with which the linguistic ancestors of the Proto-Slavs were in contact. I have devoted a special article to this problem (Gołąb: 1972), the results of which I will simply summarize here. In that article I presented 47 words with the kentum treatment of PIE k', g', g'h for which there is positive evidence in other satem languages, chiefly in Aryan (but sometimes we have also kentum : satem doublets in Slavic!). Of course the above list of satem words could be easily extended. For example, a quick look at some basic words I took for the sake of testing resulted in 61 obvious satem items. So everything seems to indicate that the oldest (deepest) layer of Slavic words clearly represents a satem dialect of PIE. Only among later layers does one discover kentum borrowings. This would prove that the linguistic ancestors of the Slavs belonged primarily to the eastern, i.e., satem zone of PIE. Such an assumption harmonizes well with the old correspondences between Slavic and Aryan. A later shift of the Pre-Slavs westward brought them into closer contact with the PIE kentum dialects. This hypothetical fact can be illustrated by such lexical pairs as: *zordъ : *gordъ; zętь : svekry, svekrь; koza : *korva, etc. (for more examples, see below).

Before I proceed with the presentation of the respective material, I would like to mention further steps which will be taken in this chapter. Namely, after presenting the so-called old kentum elements in Proto-Slavic, I will discuss the very controversial problem of the old lexical connections (correspondences) between Proto-Slavic and Iranian, or in a broader framework: between Balto-Slavic and Indo-Iranian (Aryan). The old ties of Slavic with (Indo-)Iranian can be considered as proof of the more eastern orientation of the original Proto-Slavic vocabulary. As we will see, the problem is open to discussion. The next point under consideration will be the so-called North-West Indo-European vocabulary (established by A. Meillet) which encompasses Italo-Celtic, Germanic and Balto-Slavic. In this field some new data will be quoted, showing old lexical connections of Slavic with Italic (Latin). Then we will move to the problem of the North European vocabulary common to Germanic and Balto-Slavic, or Baltic and Slavic separately. Here again some new data will be quoted. The last point of our discussion will be represented by the Balto-Slavic innovative vocabulary, which, of course, can only be attended to without any pretense of its exhaustive treatment. At the end of our survey, an attempt will be made to point out some typical Proto-Slavic lexical innovations which prove already purely Slavic linguistic creativity. At the end of each particular paragraph, I will try to draw from the semantic analysis of respective words some extralinguistic conclusions concerning the social and cultural prehistory of the Slavs, and their probable geographical location at a given time.

Let us start with the kentum elements in Slavic. Words will be quoted in the Proto-Slavic form (according to the traditionally accepted late Proto-Slavic shape one finds in the etymological dictionaries of Berneker, Machek, Sławski, Sadnik-Aitzetmüller, and Vasmer). If a given form is identical with an attested OCS word no asterisk is used. In order not to repeat dictionaries the exemplification is quoted very sparsely, the reader being referred to appropriate sources.

1.) *bergo,, *berkti 'guard, preserve', e.g. OCS brěgo,, brěšti (attested only with the negation ne), Russ. beregú, bereč', etc. (cf. Bern. 49, Vasm. I. 153): Pokorny 145 derives this verb from the root *bherg'h- from which also *bergъ (see below) is derived.

2.) *bergъ 'shore, slope', e.g. OCS brěgъ, Russ. béreg, Pol. brzeg, etc. (cf. Shev. 143) - Arm. berj (satem form) 'height'; for details see Pokorny 140.

3.) *borgъ 'the roof on four poles covering a stack', e.g., Pol. bróg, Ukr. ohoríh, gen. oboróha, etc. (cf. Bern. 73, Vasm. I. 153): an old apophonic derivative from *bergo,; cf. also Gallo-Rom. (Rhaeto-Illyr.) barga 'gedeckte Strohhütte.'
...

6.) *bьrgъ 'den, cottage, tent' attested only in Czech: brh (cf. Bern. 49 under *bergo, and Vasm. I. 153 under beregú); an old apophonic derivative of *bergo,, with an exact correspondence in Germanic: *burgs e.g., Goth. baúrgs f. cons. stem 'city', etc.
...

11.) gladъkъ 'smooth' (cf. Shev. 142 quoted in connection with *žьltъ), attested in all Slavic languages; derived from the same root *g'hel(ə)- (cf. Pok. 429) as the verb *ględjo,, *ględěti (see below).

12.) *ględjo,, *ględěti 'look', e.g., Russ. gljadét', in OCS only the iterative ględati is attested, similarly in Pol.: -glądać, etc.; the palatal *g'h is well attested, e.g., Lith. želiù, žélti 'grow green' (the primary meaning of the root is 'glänzen, schimmern' or as an adjective 'gelb, grün, grau' etc. (see Pok. 429); for a detailed discussion, see Gołąb, 1972: 57.
...

16.) *gorditi 'fence in, build' (cf. Bern. 330), e.g., OCS graditi 'build', Russ. gorodit' 'fence in', Pol. grodzić idem; an old derivative from *gordъ (see below).

17.) *gordja f. (*gordjь m.) 'fence, wall; building material' (cf. Bern. 330), e.g., OCS graždь m. ' Hürde, stabulum', Russ. goróža 'Zaun', Pol. gródza 'Damm', Cz. hráze 'Lehmwand, Gartenmauer, Damm', etc.; an old derivative from *gordъ (see below).

18.) *gordъ 'fortified, fenced-in settlement' (cf. Shev. 142), attested in all Slavic languages, e.g., OCS gradъ 'town, city', Russ. górod 'town, city', Pol. gród 'castle', etc. â€" *zordъ 'kind of wooden construction', known only in Russ. and Byeloruss., e.g., Russ. dial. zoród (old-acute!). The identical variation between kentum and satem forms occurs in Baltic: Lith. gar~das 'corral' : žardas 'kind of wooden construction'; for a detailed discussion, see Gołąb, 1972: 57-8.
...

41) *kury (kurbъ-a) 'whore' (Bern. 651, Vasm. II 423, Mach. 249), in the latter form attested in all Slavic languages, already in Serb. Church Slav. kurьva. The best etymology seems to be the one proposed by Martynov (1963: 208-9), who compares the word with Gr. κύριος 'powerful, lord', OI śú:ra- 'strong, hero', Av. sūra- idem, all from *k'euH- 'swellen, etc' (cf. Pok. 592). In this connection *kury (*kourūs) would simply mean 'mature, grown up woman'; for details see Gołąb, 1972: 69.
...

59.) *žьrdь 'perch' (Shev. 142), attested in most Slavic languages, e.g., OCS žrьdь, Russ. dial. žéred', Pol. żerdź, etc.: a zero-grade form of the PIE base *g'herdh- treated under *gordъ.

As we see, there are 59 words which can be considered kentum elements with a high degree of probability, i.e., old borrowings from kentum dialects in early Proto-Slavic or even Balto-Slavic, since most of them also have correspondences in Baltic. From among these 59 words some 14 should be eliminated: they have close correspondences only in the North-West IE languages (Italo-Celtic and Germanic), therefore they can represent a later stratum of either North-West IE or even North IE vocabulary (cf. below). These 14 words are as follows: *bergo,, *bergъ, *borgъ (?), *braga, *brъkati (?), *bьrgъ, gładъkъ, ględěti, kamy, *melko, *mogo,, *moktь, *molka, puga. So we are left with 45 old kentum words in Proto-Slavic.

Now it will be interesting to establish some semantic groups to which the above kentum words belong, because in this way we can obtain insight into the cultural (and ethnic?) prehistory of the Slavs. First of all we have some terms referring to cattle breeding: *čerda, *kopyto, *korva, *kotiti sę, *kъrdo, *kъrmъ/a, *kъrmiti, *kъrvъ; then some terms referring to wooden constructions: *gordъ, *gorditi, *gordja, klětь, ko,tъ, *ko,tja, *žьrdь; there are also some names of tools: cěva, *jьgъla, kosa, and some social terms: *kury (kurwa), praskurъ//praśćurъ, svekry svek(ъ)rъ; in the latter we can also include: klęti (sę) and kotora. It should be remembered that in the above list mainly the kentum words which cannot be suspected of belonging to a later North-West IE stratum have been quoted.
The fact that 40% of these kentum words represent important cultural words seems to suggest close socio-cultural relationships between the two ethnic layers of the early Proto-Slavs: a kentum and a satem tribe. The former could be considered as substratum, the latter as superstratum. We can imagine that the satem superstratum (moving from the east?) ultimately absorbed the kentum substratum, but as is the case in such ituations, the language or dialect of the ethnic superstratum was impregnated with some elements of the substratum language or dialect. An instructive example of a similar phenomenon in relatively recent times is provided by the Polish language of the rural gentry and the urban class which was developing since the sixteenth century east of the Bug and San rivers on original Ukrainian territory: it absorbed many words of the Ukrainian substratum with their phonemic characteristics, and transmitted them to Standard Polish (e.g., the words with typical East Slav. polnoglasie like czereda, czerep, czeremcha, etc., or with h instead of g like hołota, hulać, hoży, the latter even with the East Slav. ž instead of the West Slav. dz, etc.). So it is probable that a kentum tribe was absorbed by the satem core of the early Proto-Slavs, most probably moving from the east. As the semantics of the words analyzed above indicates, that kentum tribe lived by cattle breeding and farming, dwelt in fenced-in or fortified settlements (*gordъ) with highly developed wooden architecture, etc. Such a situation would correspond well to the so-called Lusatian culture which flourished on the present-day Polish territory between 1300-600 B.C., although I think that in many cases this chronology of kentum elements in Proto-Slavic would be too late.'

I think Zbigniew Gołąb's kentum layer here is Venetic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venedi#Ethnolinguistic_character

Case in point: words 11, 12 cognate with (most likely) Venetic glesum and with Slavic *glaz- "eye"
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/65805?var=0&l=1
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/64391 (end)

Further I think his Italic layer is too (consisting of those Venetic words which happen to have a cognate among the Italic languages). In other words there is no need for him to eliminate those 14 words from his list; they are the Venedic words which happen to have NW Europen cognates.

Now note the "enclosed area" senses of *gord- (vel sim.) in 16, 17, 18
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gord_(archaeology)

We have that this people, which was run over by the Slavs, were interested in, according to Zbigniew Gołąb, cattle breeding, wooden constructions and tools for building them.

The trade in cattle went with the trade in slaves. So another function of those 'wooden constructions' would be as slave fortresses.

This
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gord_(archaeology)#Evolution_of_the_word
'Some other gords, which did not stand the test of time and were abandoned or destroyed, gradually turned into more or less discernible mounds or rings of earth (known in Russian as gorodische, in Polish as grodzisko, in Ukrainian as horodyshche, in Slovak as hradisko and in Czech as hradiště)'
'many places named Hradisko (Slovakia) or Hradiště (Czech Republic)'
suggests to me the idea that Venedic had sg. *-sk-, pl. *-st(y)- might be correct.


Torsten