Linguistics discussion (split from new factions thread)

[Elmetiacos]

And what language would you like us to use? Dacian and Thracian is unknown beyond a few non-military terms. Greek is the closest we can get, unfortunately.

Actually there probably are enough Dacian and Thracian words to name units with simple names like "horse men" "sword men" and so on, but the real problem is a total lack of knowledge of how you put these words together grammatically. Not a single coherent sentence of Dacian survives and it's on a dead branch of Indo-European, with no descedants like Celtic or Germanic to help with reconstruction. That said, the EB team did manage to make some Lusitanian names based on three inscriptions about sheep and pigs...

Edit by bovi: This is in response to this post by Foot in the new factions thread, concerning another somewhat off-topic discussion about the language the Getai speak and which units they have.

[Sarcasm]

And bulls. Let's not forget bulls.

Couldn't help yourself for long could you?

[Foot]

Actually there probably are enough Dacian and Thracian words to name units with simple names like "horse men" "sword men" and so on, but the real problem is a total lack of knowledge of how you put these words together grammatically. Not a single coherent sentence of Dacian survives and it's on a dead branch of Indo-European, with no descedants like Celtic or Germanic to help with reconstruction. That said, the EB team did manage to make some Lusitanian names based on three inscriptions about sheep and pigs...

And an entire germanic voicemod and name list based on ... nothing at all. Both the germanic and lusitanian language stuff were based on reconstructions from languages we do know about and were related. We cannot do the same for the Thracian/Dacian as, as you said, it is a dead branch of indo-european.

Foot

[Elmetiacos]

And an entire germanic voicemod and name list based on ... nothing at all. Both the germanic and lusitanian language stuff were based on reconstructions from languages we do know about and were related. We cannot do the same for the Thracian/Dacian as, as you said, it is a dead branch of indo-european.

Germanic is an order of magnitude easier to reconstruct because we have all its descendants; there may not be significant epigraphic remains as there are for Gaulish and Celtiberian, but it's a whole lot more than 'nothing'. Even the few words of Lusitanian will get linguists talking - the word Porcom, for instance, tells us that Lusitanian isn't Celtic, and belongs to the Centum rather than the Satem branch of Indo-European. Although there's more Daco-Thracian vocabulary than Lusitanian, we're even more in the dark about the grammar... I'd hazard a guess that it suffixed the definite article, but I could be talking crap there.

[lobf]

I'm no linguist, so there's probably a sensible answer to this, but how do you make such large assumptions about a language based on one word? I mean, English is chock-full of Latin words, but we're no Latin language. So could you enlighten me?

[Elmetiacos]

I'm no linguist, so there's probably a sensible answer to this, but how do you make such large assumptions about a language based on one word? I mean, English is chock-full of Latin words, but we're no Latin language. So could you enlighten me?

It's actually only assumptions about the word, but based on the fact that it would extremely weird for people to borrow someone else's word for something as familiar as a pig. Without wanting to take this thread too far in another direction, Celtic lost the proto-Indo-European P, so to take two modern examples Welsh llawr is cognate with English floor and Irish lán is cognate with French plein. That doesn't mean there are no Ps in Celtic, only that an original PIE P wouldn't be there. PORCOM obviously has one. All languages lost PIE k' but the Centum (Italic, Celtic, Germanic) turned it into a K sound while the Satem (Slavonic, Persian, Indic) turned it into an S sound. So because PIE *pork'o has become porcom not *porsom we can tell this.

EDIT - that's "Centum" not "Centrum" - they didn't name a branch of Indo-European after vitamin supplements...

[Viking_Wårlord]

It's actually only assumptions about the word, but based on the fact that it would extremely weird for people to borrow someone else's word for something as familiar as a pig. Without wanting to take this thread too far in another direction, Celtic lost the proto-Indo-European P, so to take two modern examples Welsh llawr is cognate with English floor and Irish lán is cognate with French plein. That doesn't mean there are no Ps in Celtic, only that an original PIE P wouldn't be there. PORCOM obviously has one. All languages lost PIE k' but the Centum (Italic, Celtic, Germanic) turned it into a K sound while the Satem (Slavonic, Persian, Indic) turned it into an S sound. So because PIE *pork'o has become porcom not *porsom we can tell this.

EDIT - that's "Centum" not "Centrum" - they didn't name a branch of Indo-European after vitamin supplements...

English is a Germanic language, you can even get an example on wikipedia...
compare this http://ang.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C4%A...isc_spr%C7%A3c to german and you'll be surprised how similar that is to german!

[bovi]

It's actually only assumptions about the word, but based on the fact that it would extremely weird for people to borrow someone else's word for something as familiar as a pig.

This is not inconceivable. For instance the English word bag was taken into the language from Norse. This is also a very familiar thing.

You can see the etymology on http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bag.

[Viking_Wårlord]

And an entire germanic voicemod and name list based on ... nothing at all. Both the germanic and lusitanian language stuff were based on reconstructions from languages we do know about and were related. We cannot do the same for the Thracian/Dacian as, as you said, it is a dead branch of indo-european.

Foot

The germanic words aren't based on 'nothing at all', you based it on the swabian and Frisian dialects wich are both part of the western and northern branches of Germanic languages.

[blitzkrieg80]

The germanic words aren't based on 'nothing at all', you based it on the swabian and Frisian dialects wich are both part of the western and northern branches of Germanic languages.

This is wrong is so many ways. You simply don't know what you're talking about... or do you care to name the title of the pieces you're talking about... what manuscript? where is 'Frisian' coming from in reference to EB, anyways? Tellos and Tank are the closest thing to Frisian we've been using as resources [no offense guys, i mean Friesland as a whole not any particular modern geography]

Pre-Germanic Indo-European [timeline at EB start] has nothing to do with Old Frisian [400-1200CE] or Old High German [400-830CE] dialects other than being related through Germanic (like English), both being part of the Northwest [200-400CE], then West Germanic dialect family... quite a bit different than 270BCE!

Elmetiacos, you also do not know what you're talking about. My reconstructions are in no way 'easy' or based on derivations alone or artificial constructions as implied, as a IE translation of a fable would be, but are in-fact based on true terminology in most all instances, with actual usage historically and contextually consistent across all major dialects of Germanic and cross-IE cognates.

[Megas Methuselah]

Elmetiacos, you also do not know what you're talking about. My reconstructions are in no way 'easy' or based on derivations alone or artificial constructions as implied, as a IE translation of a fable would be, but are in-fact based on true terminology in most all instances, with actual usage historically and contextually consistent across all major dialects of Germanic and cross-IE cognates.

Which is one reason as to why EB is so great. It's spectacular effort on linguistic details never ceases to amaze me.

[Viking_Wårlord]

This is wrong is so many ways. You simply don't know what you're talking about... or do you care to name the title of the pieces you're talking about... what manuscript? where is 'Frisian' coming from in reference to EB, anyways? Tellos and Tank are the closest thing to Frisian we've been using as resources [no offense guys, i mean Friesland as a whole not any particular modern geography]

Pre-Germanic Indo-European [timeline at EB start] has nothing to do with Old Frisian [400-1200CE] or Old High German [400-830CE] dialects other than being related through Germanic (like English), both being part of the Northwest [200-400CE], then West Germanic dialect family... quite a bit different than 270BCE!

Elmetiacos, you also do not know what you're talking about. My reconstructions are in no way 'easy' or based on derivations alone or artificial constructions as implied, as a IE translation of a fable would be, but are in-fact based on true terminology in most all instances, with actual usage historically and contextually consistent across all major dialects of Germanic and cross-IE cognates.

False once more,
I'm talking about Pre Roman Frisian,that can gave birth to Swabian,Jutish,Saxon and of course old frisian dialects.
Pre Roman Frisian has been studied as one of the oldest indo-european languages with lithuanian...
I know co's I've been working on it lately!

Old frisian evoluated as New migrations of eastern Germanic tribes entered the Netherlandic area...
These eastern tribes entered in contact with early to wich they gave words such as Флагa(Flaga=flag)
or братство(Brastvo=brotherhood)...

[blitzkrieg80]

Which is one reason as to why EB is so great. It's spectacular effort on linguistic details never ceases to amaze me.

we appreciate the comment. of course there are so many gifted members in non-Germanic specialties that I am likewise amazed all the time
__________________

Viking_Warlord, care to offer any evidence other than the fantastic claims made just now with no reference, which isn't even listed anywhere in the field of study, nonetheless on the unsolicited OT links you posted from Wikipedia? you still haven't supplied a single scrap of evidence of what you're talking about other than some speculation on Dutch having retention of ancient Germanic elements... which end up being IE elements... I agree that Dutch is a very interesting language and so are its parent familial dialects, for the same reasons.

Just to be clear, you're suggesting 'Frisian' existed as the master-language of Lowland Germany / Netherlands (neglecting the standardized designation of 'West Germanic') but even so, earlier than Late Antiquity and during Classical times?

Are you referring to 'Old Franconian' or postulated term 'Ingaevonic' aka Anglo-Frisian? Again, what is your point and what is your evidence?

False once more,

what do you mean by 'false once more' - care to explain this? you imply an occasion beyond the recent post.

FYI - I am hardly 'false' when I know where I got my material. do you honestly think you know what sources I used better than I? If you want to prove this wrong, give us some literary evidence that I unknowingly used information from an Old Franconian or Old Frisian manuscript... that would be helpful in making such a point.

[Elmetiacos]

Elmetiacos, you also do not know what you're talking about. My reconstructions are in no way 'easy' or based on derivations alone or artificial constructions as implied, as a IE translation of a fable would be, but are in-fact based on true terminology in most all instances, with actual usage historically and contextually consistent across all major dialects of Germanic and cross-IE cognates.

Huh? What? I never said it was easy, so lose the quotation marks - all I said was that reconstruction of a Germanic language for the Suebi is easier than one for the Lusitani or for Daco-Thracian, because those are languages with no living descendants!