Ancient germanic languages

The religion of the ancient Germanic people is largely unknown to modern historians. It exerts signs of being the predecessor to the later Norse religion, as well as the successor to the proto-Indo-European religion. Using ancient sources, etymology, and archaeology this paper seeks to uncover what is known of the early Germanic religion during the Pre-Roman Iron Age, roughly from 500 B.C - 100 A.D.

The Ossolineum bought the coin discussed in this article at the 58th auction of the Warsaw Numismatic Centre held on 8 November 2014. It was initially identifi ed as a Gothic imitation
of an aureus of Severus Alexander, most probably made in the Chernyakhiv culture. Only after close examination was it revealed that the coin had a runic inscription, which was part of the matrix and not carved on the coin. This means that it is the oldest known runic coin, as it should be dated to 271–332, whereas other runic coins or gold Scandinavian bracteates are dated no earlier than to the fi fth century AD. The authenticity of the specimen has been confirmed by microscopic examination, comparative analysis of other imitations, numismatic objects produced in an analogical method or style and metal analyses. Attempts to trace the provenance of the specimen failed. The meaning of the inscription cannot be ascertained. The discovery of runic signs on the coin has serious implications for our knowledge of ancient East Germanic peoples. It means that we have to
date the beginnings of Germanic coinage at least two  centuries earlier than has been accepted until recently. We must also accept that the links between the Baltic and Black Sea regions were very close.

(Updated Feb. 15, 2021) The first in-depth survey of English language translations of the Poetic Edda of its kind, intended for seasoned researchers, future translators, and enthusiasts searching for an 'ideal' translation to consult. This PDF edition is based on an ongoing web-based resource, a part of the Mimisbrunnr.info project. Readers can find it at the following URL: https://www.mimisbrunnr.info/eddic-to-english-introduction

W pamiętniku Cezara „O wojnie galijskiej”  (łac. Commentarii de bello Gallico), opisującym 9 lat wojen galijskich (58-50 p.n.e.), czytamy o wielu nazwach i ugrupowaniach plemiennych oraz o informacjach geograficznych, które wykorzystywano do rekonstrukcji obrazu antycznej Galii i Germanii. Problem w tym, że łacińskie transliteracje lokalnych nazw pozostawiają wiele do życzenia, a językoznawcy głowią się nad ich pochodzeniem. Niestety w tych zabiegach pomijają oni w ogóle możliwość ich wendyjskiej (prasłowiańskiej) etymologii, gdyż przyjmują bezmyślnie fałszywy paradygmat naukowy, że Wędów / Wendów (Prasłowian) wówczas nie było na tych terenach. Zapominają też przy tym o obecności Wenetów w Armoryce i Brytanii, którzy bezsprzecznie byli związanie z Wendami.

W tym krótkim opracowaniu staram się przekazać najważniejsze informacje z pamiętników Cezara o wojnie z Galami, Brytami, jak i Germanami, którzy często angażowali się w lokalne potyczki za lewym brzegiem Renu, stając po różnych stronach konfliktu. Bacznie przyglądam się też możliwym źródłosłowom poszczególnych nazw własnych i miejscowych podawanym przez Cezara. Dostrzegam w nich wendyjskie korzenie, co może wydać się szokujące po pierwszym czytaniu. Mam nadzieję, jednak, że po bliższym zapoznaniu się z faktami i przedstawioną przeze mnie argumentacją, niektóre propozycje etymologii wydadzą się przekonujące.

Old English is in many respects a typical Indo-European language. This is particularly true of its morphological categories and its complex inflectional systems. It is mainly due to this complexity that this article cannot treat all aspects of OE morphology in full detail. It therefore focuses on the most important inflectional systems of Old English. Morphological word-formation patterns are necessarily treated only marginally (Kastovksy, this volume). Moreover, there is a considerable degree of dialectal variation in Old English which is also manifested in the morphological paradigms. This variation cannot be covered here comprehensively. This article therefore has a strong bias towards the later stages of the West Saxon variety-the dialect and period from which the greatest share of our extant sources is transmitted. For more comprehensive accounts, including the details of the diachronic and diatopic variation, I refer the reader to the relevant sections in Hogg/Fulk (2011) as well as to the older, but still valuable works by .

Some recent studies concerning early medieval Europe have suggested that Scandinavia and Francia represented two ideological poles with which other populations within the Germanic world might have intended to align themselves. While such a view sometimes may be useful, it may also over-simplify a more complex situation. Scandinavians must have recognised cultural distinctions between themselves and Christian Europeans, but may not have viewed these distinctions necessarily as emblems of opposition unless faced by a direct political or military threat. Indeed, ideological contrasts concerning the way society was structured and power was wielded may have cut across apparent ethnic boundaries.

Roman influences on early Germanic society may have assisted in the creation of a ‘Germanic’ identity. Roman pressure also may have affected the development of Germanic governmental structures, encouraging king-centred governmental ideologies that contrasted with possibly older, assembly-centred systems. Scandinavia, never threatened by Roman domination, may have retained assembly-centred structures longer than other Germanic societies. Southern Scandinavia’s ‘central places’ of the Early Germanic Iron Age, such as Gudme, may have had functions comparable with those of the later Old Saxon Assembly and Icelandic Alþingi. Such sites may have provided a focus for an emergent Scandinavian identity. This assembly-centred system may have been disrupted as chieftains struggled to attain the kind of power enjoyed by their counterparts in king-centred societies (much as happened in medieval Iceland), perhaps explaining the poverty of archaeological finds in the region from the Late Germanic Iron Age.
The growing Frankish threat to Scandinavia in the eighth century may have both spurred further consolidation of power in the hands of the élite and, initially, provoked an ideological reaction against Christian Europe. Yet while wary of domination by Christian European kingdoms, the Viking-Age Scandinavian élite may have envied their powerful model of lordship and had an interest in accessing elements of their culture. Such a situation may be reflected in historical legends, particularly the Scylding-Skjöldung cycle, which perhaps developed during the Viking Age. These legends might represent not source material for historical glimpses of early northern Europe (as is often assumed) but rather Scandinavian attempts at self-definition in relation to the burgeoning and powerful cultures of Christian Europe. Scandinavia’s eventual adoption of Christianity and Christian lordship in the course of the Viking Age largely resolved the ideological contrasts that had existed both within Scandinavian society and between Scandinavia and Christian Europe.

The paper deals with two Germanic sound changes which are traditionally believed to postdate the disintegration of the Proto-Germanic parent language. The lengthening in several monosyllables, attested in West Germanic languages, is usually believed to be an innovation of this branch. The so-called Gothic breaking is similarly thought of as belonging exclusively to East Germanic. The paper shows that there is evidence suggesting a Proto-Germanic age for parts of both sound changes, in particular for a lengthening in monosyllabic words ending in PGmc *-r and for a lowering of PGmc *i if followed by *r.
Proto-Germanic possessed at least three pronoun-based place adverbs formed with PGmc *-r, cf. Goth ƕar ‘where’ from ƕa- ‘what’, þar ‘there’ from þa- ‘that’ and hēr ‘here’ from hi- ‘this here’. The vocalism of these adverbs did not match that of the corresponding pronouns in two points. First, the vowels of the adverbs were probably long. Second, the close PGmc * (Goth ē, OHG ia) of ‘here’ did not match PGmc *i in the corresponding pronoun. The paper assumes that the long vowels of the place adverbs emerged by a lengthening of etymologically short vowels in monosyllablic words ending in PGmc *-r. The timbre difference between PGmc * in ‘here’ and PGmc *i in the corresponding pronoun for ‘this here’ is accounted for by a lowering of PGmc *i before *r. Both postulated developments must have been operating already in Proto-Germanic times but the lowering must have chronologically preceded the lengthening. The paper introduces the data supporting the assumptions made and discusses the apparent counterevidence.

This paper deals with one of the oldest and most controversial problems in the historical morphology of the Germanic branch of Indo-European: the origin and historical development of the so-called ‘weak preterite’. In Germanic, the weak preterite is the only means of forming the preterite tense of a derived verb. In spite of two hundred years of research into the weak preterite and a large number of hypotheses concerning its origin, it is not even securely established how the inflectional endings of this formation should be reconstructed for the common prehistory of the attested Germanic languages. Traditionally the inflectional endings of the weak preterite are conceived of as reflecting free inflectional forms of the verb “do”, only recently having been grammaticalized as inflectional morphology for derived verbs. But it has never been possible to identify the inflectional forms in question satisfactorily within the paradigm of “do”. This paper reconsiders the evidence of the Germanic daughter languages by taking into account West Germanic irregularities previously neglected or viewed as irrelevant. It is shown that the West Germanic evidence provides a key to understanding the origin and the later developments of the weak preterite inflectional endings.

The Germanic word family of Gothic þagkjan 'think' has been connected to a PIE root meaning 'to pull' via an intermediate meaning 'to weigh' attested for derivatives of this root. However, there is a phonological obstacle for this semantically plausible connection: the root must be reconstructed as *tengʱ-with a final aspirate which should yield Germanic *ng and not *nk, whence the rejection of this etymology in recent dictionaries. A similar situation is found in the case of Old Frisian diunk, ON døkkr, OHG tunchal 'dark' , obviously related to Hittite dankui-'dark' for which Kloekhorst (2008: 829) reconstructs PIE *dʰengʷ-(with final media); however, Middle Welsh deweint 'night' < Proto-Celtic *dangwantī-can also be compared and clearly presupposes *dʰn̥ gʷʱ-with an aspirate which would allow further connections including Germanic words with *ng. In both cases we find a voiceless stop after a nasal instead of an expected voiced stop and inner-Germanic variation. Variation of stops after nasals is in fact rather widespread in Germanic and calls for an explanation. Since previous explanations are only partly helpful, a new approach is proposed according to which stops after nasals first merged in *T which was then voiced except when immediately preceding the accent. This scenario would account for the variation and enable us to accept some attractive etymologies .

Rezensionsaufsatz zu:
Mažiulis, Vytautas. Prūsų kalbos etimologijos žodynas. Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų centras. 2013.
Derksen, Rick. Etymological Dictionary of the Baltic Inherited Lexicon. Leiden–Boston: Brill. 2015.
Kroonen, Guus. Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic. Leiden–Boston: Brill. 2013

The aim of the paper is to demonstrate that language contact is a major factor in shaping inflectional morphology of closely related languages such as the Indo-European languages of Europe. It investigates the explanatory potential of two particularly promising mechanisms of copying inflectional patterns from one language into another. The first mechanism is the contact-induced reanalysis of inflectional forms with subsequent rearrangement of morphological units in the recipient language. The second mechanism is the contact-induced grammaticalisation of syntactic patterns. Contact-induced reanalysis and contact-induced grammaticalisation might be responsible for a substancial part of non-inherited similarities in the inflection of the Indo-European languages of Europe. At the same time, these mechanisms also have the potential of explaining why inherited features in their inflection may be partly replaced or modified in the way we observe. 1

With the application of the Contrastive Hierarchy Theory, the contrastive features of preliterary Scandinavian vowels are here inferred from the interaction between targets and triggers for metaphonic fronting, rounding and breaking. One Proto-Scandinavian feature hierarchy is reconstructed for prominent syllables and another for non-prominent ones. The former hierarchy sustained contrasts that differed from the latter, including contrast for rounding and a preserved distinction between Pre-Germanic */i/ and */e/. A prominence system is reconstructed that predicts both the outcome of syncope and the distribution of the two vowel systems between syllables. The analysis neatly accounts for many notorious cruxes of umlaut and breaking that correlate with the prosodic position of the trigger, including the frequent absence of i-umlaut in light syllables.

To date, no analysis has adequately accounted for the attested distribution of front umlaut in Old Scandinavian. In this study attention is paid to unexpected outcomes that defy the generally accepted rules. In particular, the complications posed by ir-umlaut are refined into an acid test against which existing hypotheses fail. A genuinely novel proposal is developed, based on the assumption that in prominent syllables contrast well into the umlaut period was upheld between descendants of Pre-Germanic (PreGmc) */e/ and */i/ respectively, even upon the Pre-Scandinavian raising of *e. Upon such raising the descendants of PreGmc */e/ had in all oral contexts evolved into a markedly fronted coronal vowel, whereas in prominent syllables descendants of PreGmc */i/ had by default, with few exceptions, in a chain shift evolved into a non-umlauting dorsal vowel. Given the assumption that a light second syllable within a main stressed bisyllabic foot was prominent,
the two vowels, active and inert as triggers for front umlaut respectively,
could both have occurred in this position.

Das Wort Zahl steht in einem kuriosen Verhältnis zu seinen Ableitungen zählen und erzählen. 1 Im Gegenwartsdeutschen gehören die morphologisch eng verwandten Wörter zwei unterschiedlichen Assoziationsbereichen an: numerisch-exakte, messender und rechnender Welterfassung auf der einen, diskursiven und narrativen Formen der Weltaneignung auf der anderen Seite. Diese semantische Ausdifferenzierung von zählen und erzählen ist nicht nur als systematisches Faktum greifbar, sondern auch als historischer Prozess. Die Wörter zeugen von den diachronen Veränderungen der semantischen Determination ihrer Basis Zahl. Diese Veränderungen, das ist die These des Beitrags, beruhen auf der Einbindung der Zahl in die jeweils maßgeblichen Techniken medialer Codierung. Die Zahl als kulturtechnische Größe ist in einen diachronen Prozess eingebunden, in dem sich die Zeichensysteme von Bild, Schrift und Ziffer funktional zueinander ins Verhältnis setzen.

The doctoral dissertation, accepted to be defended on 11 September 2018, contains five papers published on different forums. Some of the main findings, notably those concerning umlaut and the history of preserved contrast in the vowel system, have implications for Germanic historical phonology beyond the study of Scandinavian. In this respect the scrutiny has, during the research process, grown beyond the original scope of the research plan. The topics of the five papers are diverse, but they all relate to preliterary eastern Scandinavian sound systems during the millennium between the third and the thirteenth century CE. They all critically examine methodological issues involved in using diverse and imperfect evidence to verify etymologies or to pursue improved phonological reconstruction and analysis. The papers also all address, albeit to a quite varying degree and in different ways, sound substitutions in borrowings between Finnic and eastern Scandinavian vernacular.

1) «Sonderbar setzt die germanische Sprache blos die Zahlen 11 und 12 mit -lif zusammen, die weiteren aber mit -zehun; es koennte eben so gut: dreilif (13), vierlif (14) u. s. w. oder auch: einzehn (11) zweizehn (12) wie im Lateinischen heißen. Jenes Abbrechen mit Zwoelf und das Anheben einer neuen Ordnung mit Dreizehn scheint mir daher eine Spur der alten Duodecimalrechnung. Das lif bedeutet seiner Wurzel nach ueber, uebrig; einlif sagt folglich eins über zehn […]»

This paper addressed the origins of the use of the seven-day week (ultimately perhaps of Hebrew origin) and associated astrological day names (ultimately of perhaps Babylonian origin) in Scandinavia. The likely immediate source of these systems was Roman, or Romanized Christian, Europe—where they had become widely established by the fourth century AD—though it remains unclear just how and when their use became established in Scandinavia (where there is little clear evidence for their use before the thirteenth century AD). West Germanic speech communities seem to have acquired the seven-day week and associated day names as early as the fourth century AD, but it is often assumed that Scandinavians acquired them much later—perhaps in the Viking Age or in the course of Christianization—and  from West Germanic sources (either Old English, Low German, or both). Nevertheless, an examination of archaeological evidence as well as philological examination of particular early Latin loanwords in North Germanic, confirm the existence of significant connections between Scandinavia and the Roman world (perhaps mediated especially via eastern trade routes, through Gothic-speaking regions to the Baltic) from the later first century BC through the late fourth century AD. Given the evidence for the nature of the Roman world’s impact on Scandinavian culture—both material and intangible—during this period, it is concluded that, even though the forms in which the Scandinavian day names are recorded could have been influenced by West Germanic in the early medieval period, the distinct possibility that Scandinavians had already adopted the seven-day week and associated day names at roughly the same time (fourth century AD) and for the same reasons that West Germanic speakers evidently did cannot be ruled out.

Persistent and fundamental dissent continues to afflict research on preliterary Scandinavian regressive remote vowel assimilation known as " umlaut " and "breaking". To date, no analysis proposed has adequately accounted for the attested distribution of fronting, rounding nor vowel-induced breaking in the Old Scandinavian lexicon. It has been far from clear how (or even whether) these different kinds of assimilation are interrelated, causally or chronologically. The predicaments extend to the very basics of phonological analysis, such as the pivotal conditions, the mechanism(s) for change and the sequential chronologies, as well as to whether the changes were phonologically metaphonic in the first place – realised to improve perception – or rather driven by phonetic coarticulation (i.e. by easening of an articulatory effort). As a starting point chosen for two articles to appear in 2017, I have not deemed it to be adequate to address the theoretical issues, as has often been done, before examining the defective description of how front umlaut came to be distributed in the attested lexicon.

Cet article défend l’idée d’un rapprochement des formes vieil-anglaises sēlra « meilleur », sēlest « le meilleur » et latines sōlistimus / sollistimus « très favorable ». Cela suppose d’admettre que le terme latin (qui, associé au substantif tripudium, s’applique à l’augure tiré de ce que les poulets sacrés laissaient tomber des grains à terre en mangeant, et doit donc avoir le sens de « le plus favorable, très favorable ») ne soit pas, comme on le pense traditionnellement, le superlatif de l’adjectif sollus « entier, intact », mais qu’il s’agisse du produit de la réfection en -imus (d’après sinistimus « le plus loin sur la gauche », c’est à dire « le plus favorable » dans la langue des augures) d’un ancien superlatif primaire ayant conservé, comme un autre terme du vocabulaire religieux, iouiste (= védique yáviṣṭha- « le plus jeune »), le suffixe *-isto- des superlatifs primaires indo-européens. Le superlatif latin, issu de *sōlistos, serait le correspondant exact de v. angl. sēlest : il s’agirait d’une vieille forme héritée, issue d’une racine du vocabulaire religieux indo-européen (*selh2- « chercher à se rendre favorable ; être favorable », cf. grec ἱλάσκομαι « se rendre favorable, apaiser » et arménien աղաչեմ ałačʿem « prier »), et préservée, comme iouiste, du remplacement de *-isto- par *-is°mo- en raison de son caractère figé dans le vocabulaire religieux.

Abstract, errata and corrigenda to article: With the application of the Contrastive Hierarchy Theory, the contrastive features of preliterary Scandinavian vowels are here inferred from the interaction between targets and triggers for metaphonic fronting, rounding and breaking. One Proto-Scandinavian feature hierarchy is reconstructed for prominent syllables and another for non-prominent ones. The former hierarchy sustained contrasts that differed from the latter, including contrast for rounding and a preserved distinction between Pre-Germanic */i/ and */e/. A prominence system is reconstructed that predicts both the outcome of syncope and the distribution of the two vowel systems between syllables. The analysis neatly accounts for many notorious cruxes of umlaut and breaking that correlate with the prosodic position of the trigger, including the frequent absence of i-umlaut in light syllables. (see link,  has appeared in Nowele 70:2, September 2017)

USQUE AD RADICES. Indo-European studies in honour of Birgit Anette Olsen. Edited by Bjarne Simmelkjær Sandgaard Hansen, Adam Hyllested, Anders Richardt Jørgensen, Guus Kroonen, Jenny Helena Larsson, Benedicte Nielsen Whitehead, Thomas Olander & Tobias Mosbæk Søborg. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press. 2017. Pp. 261-278.

West Germanic languages originally possessed two present tense stems encoding the concept ‘to be’. In Old English, the stem with a 3sg. is meant ‘to be’ regarding the current speech situation while the stem with a 3sg. bið meant ‘to be’ in a habitual sense. On the continent, the two paradigms must have merged prior to the advent of written records in continental West Germanic, thus creating a mixed paradigm in which the 1 and 2sg. continued the inherited habitual present of ‘to be’, the 3sg. its non-habitual opposite. The continental counter-part of Old English bið is believed to be lost in continental West Germanic. The present paper argues that this supposedly lost form might be preserved in German and Dutch dialects as the preposition bit ‘with’. The question of how a finite verb form turned into a preposition is answered by reference to asyndetic relative clauses which are attested in Old High German and might be postulated also for its prehistory.