ORIGIN OF GERMANIC LANGUAGES AND THEIR SUBSTRATES

Folia Linguistica Historica, 2017

Proto-Germanic (PGmc.) ai in stressed syllables shows varied outcomes in Germanic languages (ā, ē, ei), with many of these developments being conditioned by different phonological contexts. This article presents a reconstruction that unifies this variation by assuming that the monophthongisation spread over 'Germania' in two waves with different scopes and directions. The first wave expanded from north to south and was primarily limited to the contexts before-h and-r. A second wave, affecting the remaining instances of PGmc. ai, did not reach Old High German and Old West Nordic. The whole process covered the time between 400 and 900. The monophthongisation of PGmc. ai does not reflect any structural contrast among the Germanic languages, but the results had a differentiating impact on their vowel systems. The presented reconstruction is consistent with the information from runic inscriptions. It supposes a geographical configuration of tribes in a post-Migration setting.

Celto-Germanic: Later Prehistory and Post-Proto-Indo-European vocabulary in the North and West, 2020

Synopsis This book is a study of the inherited vocabulary shared uniquely by Celtic, Germanic, and the other Indo-European languages of North and West Europe. The focus is on contact and common developments in the prehistoric period. Words showing the earmarks of loanwords datable to Roman times or the Middle Ages are excluded. Most of the remaining collection predates Grimm’s Law. This and further linguistic criteria are consistent with contexts before ~500 BC. The evidence and analysis here lead to the following explanatory hypothesis. Metal-poor Scandinavia’s sustained demand for resources led to a prolonged symbiosis with the Atlantic façade and Central Europe during the Bronze Age. Complementary advantages of the Pre-Germanic North included Baltic amber and societies favourably situated and organized to build seagoing vessels and recruit crews for long-distance maritime expeditions. An integral dimension of this long-term network was intense contact between the Indo-European dialects that became Celtic and those that became Germanic. The Celto-Germanic vocabulary—like the motifs shared by Iberian stelae and Scandinavian rock art—illuminates this interaction, opening a window onto the European Bronze Age. Much of the word stock can be analyzed as shared across still mutually intelligible dialects rather than borrowed between separate languages. In this respect, what is revealed resembles more the last gasp of Proto-Indo-European than a forerunner of the Celtic–Germanic confrontations of the post-Roman Migration Period and Viking Age. This 2020 edition puts into the public domain some first fruits of a cross-disciplinary research project that will continue until 2023. https://www.wales.ac.uk/Resources/Documents/Centre/2020/Celto-Germanic2020.pdf

2009

A major, well-documented branch of Indo-European, the Germanic languages have spurned a number of comparative surveys over the years, beginning with Grimm's pioneering Deutsche Grammatik (where deutsch signifies Germanisch), through the works of Rosen, Hutterer, Nielsen, Robinson etc. But whereas these books are set in the philological tradition and tend to focus on the early periods, a new line of work is now emerging whose outlook is more synchronic and theory-informed. König and van der Auwera's edited volume The Germanic Languages (1994) has been the pioneer of this trend so far, with separate chapters dedicated to single-language surveys in partly historical, partly genetic order, and a uniform basic structure imposed on the individual chapters so as to ensure comparability (cf. Leuschner, 2004 for discussion). Starting from the same synchronic orientation, the methodology adopted by Wayne Harbert is very different: the basic structure of his book is provided, not by self-contained descriptions of entire linguistic systems, but by the fundamental domains of morphosyntactic organisation (viz. the noun phrase, the verb phrase and the clause), which are then compared systematically across the Germanic languages. A notable consequence of this approach is that all languages in question are treated ''on a par'' from a synchronic point of view (p. 3), regardless of space and time, with interesting and unusual juxtapositions as a result. The individual Germanic languages are thus made to appear as ''different variants on a common theme'' (p. 3), a perspective which is still quite unusual in the literature on Germanic. Although Harbert's chapters on the NP and the VP each start with historical preludes of their own (cf. below), most historical information is concentrated in the Introduction (pp. 1-20), which discusses divergences and convergences within the Germanic family (including brief discussions of SAE and typological classification) and also presents brief surveys of four genetic groupings: East Germanic, West Germanic, North Sea Coast Germanic, and North Germanic. Even in these sections, the focus is firmly on language-internal matters, with only an absolute minimum of external information given per language or group. Next come two relatively short chapters on the lexicon (pp. 21-40) and the sound systems (pp. 41-88) of Germanic. The remainder of the book then consists of extensive chapters on the nominal system (pp. 89-269), the verbal system (pp. 270-368) and the clausal syntax of Germanic (pp. 369-481), followed immediately by the references (pp. 482-504) and a subject index (pp. 505-510). The absence of a Conclusion may come as a disappointment to some readers, and although Harbert does not explicitly comment on it, it may be due in part to the encyclopedic nature of the book (cf. below). Surprisingly, Harbert seems to downplay this part of his achievement when he distances himself implicitly from the ''encyclopedic approach'' of earlier surveys (p. 1). While his book may not be an encyclopedia of Germanic languages, it is in effect an encyclopedia of Germanic language structures, and its very success at this task deserves being acknowledged. What, then, are the main strengths of Harbert's approach? One is the flexibility brought by the morphosyntactic focus, which allows for anything from a simple comparative enumeration of structures to in-depth, problem-oriented discussion whenever the author deems this desirable. Another strength is the impressive coverage of languages within the family. Not surprisingly, Harbert's book is almost identical on this point to König/van der Auwera's (1994), with the sole exception of the Germanic-lexified Creoles, which (naturally, given their non-Germanic structure) are not discussed by Harbert at all. The secondary sources on which his book is almost entirely based vary hugely in terms of breadth and depth per language, and obviously it would have been neither possible nor desirable to feature every language at each point in the book (one reason being that the Germanic languages ''are much more alike than they are www.elsevier.com/locate/lingua

2.1 The oldest information on Germanic peoples from ancient writers (Mette 1952, 29, note 1818), its anticipated nom. pl. *Guiones has no parallel in any of the known Germanic ethnonyms. If we consider emendation of G-for S-, we get the form Suiones, which we know from Tacitus's description of Scandinavia [ §44]: "And now begin the states of the Suiones, situated on the Ocean itself, and these, besides men and arms, are powerful in ships." 2. From Pliny's quotation of Pytheas's report which might refer to Danish islands as well as to southern Sweden, only the reference of the Teutoni can be considered certain. The Teutoni appear again on the historic scene in the last quarter of the 2nd century BCE when they together with the Cimbri and most probably also with other tribes, the Ambrones and the Charudes, set out towards the Southeast across the Hercynian Forest where they were driven back by the Boii. Then they headed for the Danubian Scordisci and afterwards to the West for the Helvetii [Strabo 7.2.1-2]. In 113 BCE, the Cimbri invaded the province Noricum where they defeated the Roman army of consul Gnaeus Papirius Carbo for the first time. Then they headed for southeastern Gaul and after a couple of minor battles, they clashed with Romans for the second time in 109 BC and together with Teutons, they again achieved victory. Not even then did they gain any land in densely inhabited Gaul. Four years later in the Battle of Arausio (today's Orange), they defeated the Romans for the third time. However, they did not gain the favour of the local inhabitants and therefore they left for Hispania where they experienced a similar fate. Thus they decided to invade Italy itself. Previous military failures led the Romans to an effective reorganization of their army. Therefore in 101 BCE, Gaius Marius defeated the Cimbri, Teutones and Ambrones in the Battle of Aquae Sextiae (today's Aix-en-Provence). It can be stated with certainty that the ethnonym Germanic was first used by Caesar in the first book of his "Commentarii de Bello Gallico" written in the 50's of the 1st century BCE. His interpretation of this name designated only some tribes living along the lower Rhine: "Then at least of necessity the Germanic people, drew their forces out of camp, and disposed of them canton by canton at equal distances: Harudes, Marcomanni, Tribocci, Vangiones, Nemetes, Sedusii, Suevi" 3 [1.51]. At another place it is mentioned that "... Ariovistus the king of the Germans, had settled in their territories, and had seized upon a third of their land, which was the best in the whole of Gaul, and was now ordering them to depart from another third part, because a few months previously 24,000 men of the Harudes had come to him, for whom room and settlements must be provided." 4 [1.31]. Caesar ascribed Germanic origin also to Cimbri and Teutoni who had fought with the Romans already in 2nd century BC judging from his words: "the Germans should by degrees become accustomed to cross the Rhine, and that a great body of them should come into Gaul, he [Caesar] saw [would be] dangerous to the Roman people, and judged, that wild and savage men would not be likely to restrain themselves, after they had possessed themselves of all Gaul, from going forth into the province and thence marching into Italy (as the Cimbri and Teutoni particularly as the Rhone [was the sole barrier that] separated the Sequani from our province." 5 [1.33]. Pliny (24-79 CE) in his Naturalis Historia uses the term Germani in a wider sense than Caesar. He is the first one who offers a classification of Germanic tribes [4.99-100]: "There are five German races; the Vandili, parts of whom are the Burgundiones, the Varini, the Carini, and the Gutones: the Ingaevones, forming a second race, a portion of whom are the Cimbri, the Teutoni, and the tribes of the Chauci. The Istaevones, who join up to the Rhine, and to whom the Cimbri belong, are the third race; while the Hermiones, forming a fourth, dwell in the interior, and include the Suevi, the Hermunduri, the Chatti, and the Cherusci: the fifth race is that of the Peucini, who are also the Basternae, adjoining the Daci previously mentioned. The more 2) Suionem hinc civitates ipsae in Oceano, praeter viros armaque classibus valent. Translated by Alfred John Church & William Jackson Brodribb (1942). 3) Tum demum necessario Germani suas copias castris eduxerunt generatimque constituerunt paribus intervallis, Harudes, Marcomanos, Tribocos, Vangiones, Nemetes, [S]Edusios, Suebos. 4) Propterea quod Ariovistus, rex Germanorum, in eorum finibus consedisset tertiamque partem agri Sequani, qui esset optimus totius Galliae, occupavisset et nunc de altera parte tertia Sequanos decedere iuberet, propterea quod paucis mensibus ante Harudum milia hominum XXIIII ad eum venissent, quibus locus ac sedes pararentur. 5) Paulatim autem Germanos consuescere Rhenum transire et in Galliam magnam eorum multitudinem venire populo Romano periculosum videbat, neque sibi homines feros ac barbaros temperaturos existimabat quin, cum omnem Galliam occupavissent, ut ante Cimbri Teutonique fecissent, in provinciam exirent atque inde in Italiam contenderent, praesertim cum Sequanos a provincia nostra Rhodanus divideret. Translated by W. A. McDevitte & W. S. Bohn (1869).

Altaic-related German words represent namely substrate, i. e. basic (not cultural) lexicon which might be inherited from ‘macro-Altaic’ (Y haplogroup C, longhouses) Linear Pottery culture. ‘Hamitic’ (non-Semitic Afro-Asiatic)-related cultural lexicon was possibly accepted from Ertebølle (fishing and swine-herding, reflected in language, while ox may be wild). Pictish as well as several pre-Proto-Germanic substrate words might be Yenisseian-related. Kartvelian and North Caucasian elements might be preserved from Basque (Caucasian, mainly Daghestanian-related) Bell Beaker culture. Hurrian elements in Proto-Germanic are confirmed by genetic link with Cyprys and Aegean influence on the Nordic Bronze Age. Etruscan consonantism is similar to Armenian and Germanic as a result of the substrate influence or preservation of archaic features

Scientific Committee: Letizia Vezzosi - Coordinator; Rolf H. Bremmer Jr; Concetta Giliberto; Patrizia Lendinara; Martti Mäkinen. Editorial Board: Patrizia Lendinara - Editor-in-chief; Verio Santoro; Marina Buzzoni; Letizia Vezzosi., 2017

Le lingue del Mare del Nord - The North Sea Languages

The Method Works: Studies on Language Change in Honor of Don Ringe, 2024

By current consensus, the Germanic languages may be classified into three subgroups, called East, North, and West; the latter two in turn belong to a higher-order grouping, Northwest Germanic. In contrast to North and West Germanic, both characterized by numerous isoglosses, East Germanic is usually defined in terms of its relative archaism; furthermore, the sole East Germanic language known from connected texts is Bible Gothic of the 4th-6th cc. AD. This raises two questions: to what extent does it make sense to speak of a subgroup encompassing only one language; and what light can the meager remains of other languages shed on the status of East Germanic? This paper examines the evidence of Crimean Gothic, Vandalic, and Burgundian and argues that none of the features traditionally regarded as diagnostic of East Germanic constitutes support for a subgroup in the phylogenetic sense. The only innovation of Bible Gothic common to all of these languages is the nonlow reflex of PGmc *ē, which may rather be an archaism; in addition, Crimean Gothic shares fortition of PGmc *jj and pronominal n.nom/acc.sg -ata. Raising of long mid vowels, monophthongization of PGmc *ai and *au, and weakening of unstressed vowels may reflect diffusion or parallel innovation. It follows that East Germanic should be viewed not as a subgroup, but as a peripheral set of varieties that lost contact early on with the rest of Germanic; this conclusion accords with the historical and archeological record.