Talk:Germanic substrate hypothesis

PLC

Would people please ponder the Paleolithic Continuity Theory, in the context of European Y-chromosomal lineages (like Haplogroup R1b (Y-DNA). As sketched somewhat simplistically here:

http://www.classicbattletech.com/forums/index.php/topic,56103.msg1523343.html#msg1523343

the geographic distributions of R1b / Centum-IE & R1a / Satem are strikingly strongly similar. This seemingly suggests, that the ancient Ice Age "super-ancestor" R1* = PIE, and that when these Paleolithic "proto-IE" peoples became isolated, for many millennia, during the depths of the last Ice Age (20-15 Kya), R1b / Centum-IE & R1a / Satem-IE evolved from that 'R1* / proto-IE common culture.

In this cultural context, the I1a Y-chromosomal lineages could correlate to the Germanic Substrate. If so, then the archaic "proto-Germanic" peoples were non-IE. That the Germanic Substrate creole (1) contains more words of IE origin; (2) and even words of both C-IE & S-IE forms; can be quickly explained, as resulting from (1) R1b & R1a clans containing more members, then as now; and (2) I1a clans living along the "cline" between C-IE (west) & S-IE (east). (Could that cline have come about specifically b/c the I1a clans were hemmed-in, in-between both those groups, roughly from the Rhine to the Oder, and thereby became a "buffer" between them ?) Such would also indicate, that this creolization came about after the split between R1b / Centum-IE & R1a / Satem — to wit, after the end of the last Ice Age (ie, Paleolithic period), which would be in the Mesolithic, when epi-Paleolithic peoples repopulated Europe.

Other simple suggestions (1) Bow (ship) = Bow (arrow) = Bough (tree limb) (2a) King = Kin-ig (cf. fog --> foggy), where the *ig ending means "full of or characterized by". Thus, the "king" is he who characterizes a clan of kin. (2b) Knight = Kin-ig-et (cf. wallet, baguette), where the *et ending is a diminutive (or, essentially the same suggestion, some other such suffix) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.235.27.79 (talk) 08:19, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

The Paleolithic Theory is rejected by the vast majority of linguists. The various Indo-European branches would be far more differentiated if the splits occurred in the Ice Age. Languages do not change as slowly as Alinei presumes. Especially before writing and education was widespread. Also, mtDNA studies of Paleolithic Europeans prove that maternal lineages have significantly changed. No success in extracting Paleolithic Y-DNA, but recent genetic research suggests that R1b1b2 evolved in southwest Asia about 4,000 to 8,000 years ago. The Paleolithic Theory was never credible based on linguistic grounds but now genetic research is also disproving it.Nicomer (talk) 03:05, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Is "Germanic substrate hypothesis" the right name?

Shouldn't this article be renamed to "Pre-Germanic substrate hypothesis" or "Non-Indo-European substrate hypothesis? After all, the whole point of the hypothesis is that the Germanic languages allegedly developed on a non-Germanic substrate. 109.130.162.203 (talk) 16:12, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

A fair question. I assume the logic here is the same as that behind Goidelic substrate hypothesis. If a change is to be undertaken, I would suggest "Pre-Germanic substrate" (either with of without "hypothesis") analogous to Pre-Greek substrate. It seems to get more hits on GoogleBooks, at least. --Aryaman (talk) 18:54, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

It's a substrate to germanic, that is, something that an indo-germanic language absorbed to become germanic. So it is a germanic substrate.--Wendy.krieger (talk) 10:35, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Twelfty and Germanic

PIE has a decimal system, with words for ten and hundred. However, some of the descendent groups seemed to have adopted other counting systems. These may have come from the substrate, but with IE names. For example, celtic 20, and welsh 20-by-fives (with eg, three-fifteen = 18) etc. Another number system that makes its way into IE is sixty (cf 'shock = 60' from persian 'sixty'.

We see in germanic, in eg Norse, gothoc and Western, a use of a number system of the order of six scores, or 120 in number, eg E.V. Gordon "old norse" § 107 gives hundrað as 120, and 200 as hundrað ok átta tigir. OE has words like hundteontig (100), and hundendleoftig (110= elefty), and hundtwelftig (120), but nimbers past this are in hundreds. Gothic also has a word 'teentywise' for describing hundreds of five score.

Putting reckoning by six-scores as particularly germanic, then the source is evidently not Indo-European but somewhere else, eg a substrate.--Wendy.krieger (talk) 12:35, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

On the other hand one can argue that a system based around 12 is more practical than one based around 10, as groups of twelve can be easily divided into 2 halves, 4 thirds, 3 quarters, whereas base 10 only divides into 5 halves and 2 fifths. 60 is even better, as it allows for fifths as well. It is entirely possible the counting system was innovated without a substrate. Ekwos (talk) 19:44, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Table

While looking at the table, I can't seem to notice that it doesn't appear very useful. There are few cases where the Germanic ord differ substantially from three other words that are cognate to each other, and there appear to be several words that are borrowed (mostly Latin from Greek, or Russian/Slavic from Germanic). The only good examples I could find in the table are "lamb"?, "drink", "bone" and "bride", then there are some examples with apparently at least two common cognates; sea, sail, north?, bear and wife. It is not known what words with asterisks are supposed to mean. (I guess semantic shift, although it's a bit sloppy.) The table should be remade with comparisions to derivations from common PIE roots in all other IE languages, and if one would like to mark semantic shift, it should be marked clearly in reference format. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 01:38, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I suppose I'm having difficulty understanding what you're trying to say here, but the first four columns should all be similar because they are known cognates (except for the Dutch word for stork: "ooievaar", which is why it is marked with an asterisk). The last three columns are not known cognates, but rather are the equivalent word in the other language. While looking at Schiff/navis/ploio, note that the words for the known cognates of father are: Vater/pater/pateras. The table shows how the German words while common among all the Germanic languages is yet inconsistent with Vern's Law, and Grimm's Law for tracing back to PIE. --Puellanivis (talk) 23:41, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't see how the table is illustrative in clarifying the hypothesis, when it shows four different language groups (Germanic, Latin, Greek, Slavic) having four different words for the same concepts. Also, words that seem to be borrowings(?) (Latin: guberno, carina, cyprinus, Russian: kil, karp) are misleading and should probably be replaced. Maybe the table is sourced, but it still doesn't appear very helpful. It doesn't give a reason why the substrate hypothesis should be valid, and as such, I doubt its place in the article. I.e. if the article should warrant a table, it should show why Germanic vocabulary differs from other IE language groups, and it doesn't currently, it mostly seems to be a listing of random words with not very much in common. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 01:15, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

So, you're complaining the the table shows four different language groups, where the Germanic entries have consistent forms, which is different from the other three language groups, and you're having difficulty understanding why this supports the hypothesis that the Germanic language tree uses different words from the rest of the Indo-European tree?

We use the dissimilarity of "pater/pateras/Vater" against "fuchin" to show that Mandarin Chinese is not part of the Indo-European language tree. Unlike Mandarin though, the Germanic languages are known to be Indo-European, so these dissimilarities have to have another reason. The Germanic Substrate Hypothesis is that it came from a non-Indo-European language. --Puellanivis (talk) 03:07, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

OK, One example: from the table: English: ebb, German: Ebbe, Dutch: eb, Swedish: ebb, Latin: decessus, recessus, Greek: άμπωτις (ampotis), Russian: отлив (otliv). This just shows that the Germanic languages are related. All other words are dissimilar, so it doesn't illustrate any relation between the three other language families, and it doesn't illustrate why the substrate hypothesis is a probable theory. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 13:45, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm trying to understand how you cannot make the connection from "the Germanic languages have a consistent form which other Indo-European languages do not have," which you openly recognize from the table, to how this demonstrates "the Germanic languages have words that are not apparently Indo-European in origin." The Latin, Greek and Russian don't have to line up to each other either to make this point. They need merely suggest that the Proto-Indo-European word is not what the Proto-Germanic word derived from. Pointing to the question of where Latin/Greek/Russian got their particular word from does not deflect the point that the Germanic word is not apparently Indo-European. --Puellanivis (talk) 20:56, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Okay, now I at least understand what you mean. But I still don't see how the table is illustrative. It would be more interesting and illustrative to see how common words differ from common Indo-European cognates. (Several examples seem too specific to have common PIE cognates, though, such as eel, carp and stork. I'm also aware that this is just a hypothesis, where a hypothetized substrate language is apparently lost forever. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 12:40, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Looking through the online etymology text for "carp" it seems that it was a Danube fish who's name was widely borrowed by nearly everyone from Gothic. The Latin word was also apparently "carpa", (I say "apparently" because I cannot find "cyprinus" or "carpa" in any Latin-English dictionary) this is based on the translations of "carpa" in Spanish, "carpe" in French, and "carpa" in Italian. As a result I'm starting to edge on taking that entry out, because nearly everyone copied from Germanic, but at the same time, if everyone essentially copied from it, then it is fairly clearly is a uniquely German word. The word also would have had to have been borrowed into Latin later than Grimm's law, (or the Latin word would still be "carpa" but the ProtoG word would be "!kharp-", or the Latin word would be "!garpa" but the ProtoG word would remain "*karp-").

But you are right... this is merely a hypothesis, no less a weak one, and no less a widely criticized one. I don't really know how we could really demonstrate in the table that "carp" was borrowed by Latin and Russian as opposed to all of them being related, and Greek being the odd candidate out with "kyprinos" (which still looks fairly borrowed.) --Puellanivis (talk) 21:07, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Maybe it should be revamped into something simpler, not primarily based on the root words in any particular languages, such as this. (Approximately what I had in mind.)

Examples
Proto-Germanic	Germanic derivatives	Common Indo-European equivalents	Alternative (IE) etymology
*ebbaz (ebb, low tide)	English: ebb, German: Ebbe, Dutch: eb, Swedish: ebb	?	?
*karpaz (carp)	English: carp, German: Karpfen, Dutch: karper, Swedish: karp	None, Vulgar Latin *carpa, Russian карп (karp) Germanic loanwords	?
*drinkan (to drink)	English: drink, German: trinken, Dutch: drinken, Swedish: dricka	*pi- : Latin: bibo, Greek: πίνω (pino), Russian: пить (pit')	?
*bainaz (bone)	English: bone, German: Bein (archaic or compounds), Dutch: been, Swedish: ben	*oss- : Latin: os, Greek: οστούν (ostoun), Russian: кость (kost')	?
*brudaz (bride)	English: bride, German: Braut, Dutch: bruid, Swedish: brud	*n?- Latin: nupta, Greek: νύφη (nyfi), Russian: невеста (nevesta)	?

It needs some proof-reading, though. Like fact-checking the Proto-Germanic variants, etc, but we wouldn't need to limit ourselves to any particular IE langages outside Germanic. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 21:16, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand your reference to Verner's Law, either. It isn't mentioned a single time in the article. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 01:19, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Verner's Law and Grimm's Law detail how proto-Germanic derived from proto-Indo-European. It's how we can see the direct similarity between "fader" (Germanic) and "pater/pateras" (Latin/Greek). Following a proto-Germanic word backwards through Verner's Law, and Grimm's Law, we can predict what the proto-Indo-European form is. Following the Germanic entries in this table back to what we would expect the proto-Indo-European forms to be, they do not match up with what we find in the other Indo-European languages. That's where it comes from. --Puellanivis (talk) 03:07, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

I could look up Verner's law in its own article, but there's no mention on how Verner's law is related to the substrate hypothesis. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 13:45, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Verner's law is related just as far as Grimm's law is related to this hypothesis, as Verner's law is a rule for exceptions to Grimm's Law. --Puellanivis (talk) 20:56, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Also, why is the Greek example for 'ship' ploio rather than naus, which is directly cognate to the Latin navis? --Quadalpha (talk) 23:34, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

And there are a few other examples of non-obvious ways of making a correspondence table. --Quadalpha (talk) 23:36, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

I think using four modern Germanic languages, three of them west Germanic, and using the modern meanings of the Germanic words instead of the eearliest attested meanings, is a serious mistake. It conceals the variation among the Germanic languages, and it compares the Germanic words to the wrong non-Germanic words. English guma, in bridegroom, first means man, and would contrast with vir, andros, etc. not maritus, gampros, zhenikh. Ananiujitha (talk) 03:59, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

ūp

The example with 'ūp' may be not relevant: this situation can be found in a few other examples, like 'at', -t in Nom.-Acc. Sg. in Neutra ('þat'), etc, and in all the three cases the voiceless stops can be better derived from i.-e. sandhi forms 'ūb', 'ad' and 'tod' passed through a normal consonant shift.

--Ahvalj (talk) 15:33, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Funny, I was just about to mention the same point – years ago, I independently came to the same conclusion that it is highly likely that *ūp simply reflects the final voicing sandhi rule that can be reconstructed for Proto-Indo-European (mainly based on Indo-Iranian and Italic evidence, with other branches such as Celtic and Germanic perhaps providing more indirect confirmation), especially considering Latin sub (besides super) which patently displays the same voicing (just like Latin ab besides *apó). Therefore, one would reconstruct *(H)ub besides *(H)upó (which is also reflected in Germanic). --Florian Blaschke (talk) 13:08, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Actually, it is not even clear how an alleged exception to the sound shift is relevant to the hypothesis – surely nobody intends to ascribe both the sound shift and its occasional absence to the effect of the substratum, I would suppose at least. Therefore, I have removed the example completely. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 13:34, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Greek forms in table

Not sure why predominantly modern Greek forms are used, instead of ancient Greek... AnonMoos (talk) 20:29, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Good point. I would even be inclined to use "u" rather than "y" to Romanise υ in order to make the etymological connection clearer. Instead we have "i" for η, which is pointless. We should really have a Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Greek to clarify such cases.—Greg Pandatshang (talk) 23:50, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

the non-indo-european substrate is neolithic and middle eastern

given recent genetic analysis, there *should* be a neolithic substrate in the region that is common to both celtic and germanic (and possibly italic and greek) and ultimately has a middle eastern root, probably similar to something like sumerian. while that substrate may have mixed with something related to basque, i wouldn't expect it to have been subsumed by it. note that the words that have been pulled out are agricultural, seafearing, etc - this is very consistent with a neolithic migration from the south by boat. further, there are comparative religious roads to travel down in linking the vanir to a levantine root. it all adds up very cleanly, somebody just has to put this together; the problem in doing so is that it requires casting aside all white supremacism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.48.181.24 (talk) 13:24, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Since Germanic is thought to be formed in Scandinavia, the language of Y-haplogroup I-M253 is the best candidate for the substrate in Germanic. YOMAL SIDOROFF-BIARMSKII (talk) 02:01, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

not really. it's certainly a good candidate for a substrate of the substrate, but it's historically rather removed. i get antsy when i see arguments that want to prioritize "nordic" peoples, because they're ultimately almost always either arbitrary (in the area of northern europe, we can trace multiple migrations from multiple directions. there's no good reason to pick that haplotype over others besides the always illusory ideas about "continuity" that are consistently proven wrong everywhere they're applied.) or not consistent with evidence (the substratum is clearly neolithic in origin, whereas this nordic haplotype clearly isn't).

as i mentioned up there, there's a broad confluence of mythological, genetic and archaeological evidence that creates a historical storyline of an invading warrior culture (indo-europeans, aesir in the old sources) making peace with an existing agricultural one (the vanir). the substratum seems to be cultural as much as it is linguistic, and represented by deities such as freyja. it seems reasonable to connect this substratum to the similar cultures that existed at the same time up the danube, which would give them near eastern origin. there's been talk of a semitic sub or super stratum, which i think is getting in the right direction, but one would have to speak of this substratum as diverging from a proto-semitic (or other transitional tongue) rather than as being derived from phoenician or jewish or arabic. again: it's easy to see why german nationalists reject this idea almost immediately.

that doesn't mean there couldn't have *also* been a "nordic substrate" but it would have been _underneath_ the near eastern one. the genetic analysis seems to make it clear that neolithic peoples came in first, then indo-european peoples did, so one would expect that kind of complex multi-layered substrate, rather than a simple one.

yet, as the neolithic substrate is the more recent one, it should also be interpreted as the dominant one. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.48.181.129 (talk) 02:55, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

It's a correct way of thinking. An attempt on finding the commonalities in Pre-Germanic and Pre-Greek substrates was done not long ago by G. Kroonen in this paper. Kroonen links that common substrate to the Linear Pottery culture. I wonder if someone with better English skills than me could add it to the article. Finstergeist (talk) 20:34, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

The map

The map is nice and informative. But it includes Tocharians(?), in central Europe(?). This must be explained, and references must be given. By the way, many scientists believe that Tocharians come from the urnfield culture in central Europe - so it really is attractive. But without references to their arguments it must be removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.133.155.68 (talk) 10:56, 31 July 2016 (UTC)