Pre-germanic loans in Finnish?

[HinGambleGoth]

There are, as some of you know, plenty of early Germanic loans in Finnish and Sámi, for instance the schoolbook example kuningas

But some of them seem to show consonants that are pre-germanic

pelto (field), showing a /p/, where one would expect /f/,

kana (hen), /k/, where you would expect /h/

there are some more, but either these are very early loans (bronze age?) or some kind of Finnish substitution of Germanic fricatives.

http://www.sgr.fi/susa/91/aikio.pdf

this paper shows many similar reflexes in Sami dialects.


And, I am wondering, what happened first? Grimm's or Verners law? does it matter?

And is it that farfetched to believe that the voicing caused by Verner's is one of main reasons for the loss of mobile accent in Germ? if we imagine that voicing became phonemic, the loss of the mobile accent is not that farfetched, since rounded front vowels became phonemic and carried meaning when the i-umlaut causing i/j vowel was dropped later in Germanic, so similar things have happened.

Maybe some of you more knowledgeable can give me a basic outline of what the pre-Germanic language was like? basicly the Language that early Finnish/Sami was in contact with in the Baltic during lets say 500BC?

Would appreciate good answers

[sangi39]

From what I can gather from Wikipedia, the exact dating of Verner's Law in relation to Grimm's Law, i.e. which one came first, seems to be up for debate with some linguists saying Verner's Law came first, others saying Grimm's Law came first and others still saying that the two changes happened at the same time. The exact nature of these two "laws" also seems to be dependent on which reconstruction of PIE the linguist in question subscribed to, e.g. whether they follow the "traditional" reconstruction or the glottalic reconstruction, etc. and also whether or not they agree or disagree with the presence of Kluge's Law.

The form of Pre-Proto-Germanic is also somewhat controversial, again depending on which reconstruction of PIE a given linguist agrees with, but it was certainly much more like PIE that PG. Some suggest that it was basically the same as traditional PIE but the voiceless plosive developed aspiration before Verner's Law and then Grimm's Law took place while others believe that the traditional voiceless plosive remained plain in Pre-Proto-Germanic before Grimm's Law and then Verner's Law took place. Some followers of the Glottalic Hypothesis similarly believe that the voiceless plosives were plain in PPG while others believe they were aspirated, and so on and so on.

[HinGambleGoth]

But I guess these early loanwords wont help much with the reconstruction of pre-Germanic? since they were filtered through the Finnish pronunciation system,.

I cant help but Think that the modern Greek consonant system resembles that of old Germanic, when we compare it the classical Greek one. Ancient greek /pʰ/ turned into modern greek /f/, and /tʰ/ became /θ/
Did Greek undergo a shift similar to grimm's law?, if we assume that the fricatives developed out of aspirated plosives?

Spanish also reminds me of Germanic, particularly the intervocalic voiced fricatives, heck it almost sounds similar to Icelandic sometimes.

[Xonen]

There are, as some of you know, plenty of early Germanic loans in Finnish and Sámi, for instance the schoolbook example kuningas

But some of them seem to show consonants that are pre-germanic

pelto (field), showing a /p/, where one would expect /f/,

kana (hen), /k/, where you would expect /h/

there are some more, but either these are very early loans (bronze age?) or some kind of Finnish substitution of Germanic fricatives.

Well, Finnic substitution, strictly speaking, but yes; I'm fairly sure that is in fact the generally accepted theory here. Early Finnic lacked unvoiced non-sibilant fricatives, so these were substituted with the corresponding stops in loanwords - effectively "reversing" Grimm's law for these sounds.

I cant help but Think that the modern Greek consonant system resembles that of old Germanic, when we compare it the classical Greek one. Ancient greek /pʰ/ turned into modern greek /f/, and /tʰ/ became /θ/
Did Greek undergo a shift similar to grimm's law?, if we assume that the fricatives developed out of aspirated plosives?

Well, not really, no. It's possible, and perhaps even likely, that unvoiced plosives became aspirated in Germanic before turning into fricatives - in which case this particular change would in fact be identical to what has occurred in Greek (and several other languages). However, as far as I know, no actual evidence for the existence of such an intermediate stage in Germanic exists, making this pure speculation. Furthermore, Grimm's law refers to the particular set of sound changes that affected all sets of PIE plosives in Germanic; voiced and unaspirated voiceless stops in Greek have behaved rather differently.

[HinGambleGoth]

There are, as some of you know, plenty of early Germanic loans in Finnish and Sámi, for instance the schoolbook example kuningas

But some of them seem to show consonants that are pre-germanic

pelto (field), showing a /p/, where one would expect /f/,

kana (hen), /k/, where you would expect /h/

there are some more, but either these are very early loans (bronze age?) or some kind of Finnish substitution of Germanic fricatives.

Well, Finnic substitution, strictly speaking, but yes; I'm fairly sure that is in fact the generally accepted theory here. Early Finnic lacked unvoiced non-sibilant fricatives, so these were substituted with the corresponding stops in loanwords - effectively "reversing" Grimm's law for these sounds.

So you cant really say if these were borrowed Before or after grimm's law?

[Xonen]

There are, as some of you know, plenty of early Germanic loans in Finnish and Sámi, for instance the schoolbook example kuningas

But some of them seem to show consonants that are pre-germanic

pelto (field), showing a /p/, where one would expect /f/,

kana (hen), /k/, where you would expect /h/

there are some more, but either these are very early loans (bronze age?) or some kind of Finnish substitution of Germanic fricatives.

Well, Finnic substitution, strictly speaking, but yes; I'm fairly sure that is in fact the generally accepted theory here. Early Finnic lacked unvoiced non-sibilant fricatives, so these were substituted with the corresponding stops in loanwords - effectively "reversing" Grimm's law for these sounds.

So you cant really say if these were borrowed Before or after grimm's law?

At least not looking solely at the stops, I think. I don't know if there's some other evidence that could be used here.

(Also, you managed to post while I was editing my previous message, so if you're interested in my reply to your question about Greek, it's there now.)

[HinGambleGoth]

Speaking of PG loans in finish, is there any way of telling whether a sound was voiced or not at the time of borrowing?

The form of Pre-Proto-Germanic is also somewhat controversial, again depending on which reconstruction of PIE a given linguist agrees with.

I was thinking about making a conlang, bronze-age Scandinavian essentially, but I got stuck, not mostly because of my lack of knowledge, but what "data" I should be using, since nobody really seems to agree on how PIE was, and what "kind of" PIE Germanic originally was, Germanic traits are sometimes described as "archaic" and others say "innovating"

We often forget just how helpful the classical languages are, it would be impossible to reconstruct classical Latin based on the romance languages, and modern mainland Scandinavian wouldn't be enough to reconstruct Old Norse. Early Proto-Germanic most likely has features we can never find out, since the medieval languages had undergone extensive syncope and analogy, look at all the fancy stuff gothic had for instance, that is completely absent in Saxon or Norse.

my idea was to have affricatives similar to high German dialects, I got more or less bogged down, since I couldn't figure what to do with the verb system I got the idea from all those early loanwords, and thought, what would the rest of the language be like?

[atman]

I was thinking about making a conlang, bronze-age Scandinavian essentially, but I got stuck, not mostly because of my lack of knowledge, but what "data" I should be using, since nobody really seems to agree on how PIE was, and what "kind of" PIE Germanic originally was, Germanic traits are sometimes described as "archaic" and others say "innovating"

There's no shortage of self-proclaimed "experts" on the Internet who announce revolutionary historical linguistics "discoveries" to the world. PIE, needless to say, is often involved in such speculations. They fail to use proper methods, and often they simply don't know the basics of their field of "expertise". They can't tell laryngeals from laryngitis, as I say . And what they produce is basically always either totally unverifiable / unfalsifiable or plain simple gʷéws ḱókʷr̩ (bullshit).

On the other hand, there is a consensus reconstruction of PIE (details may vary between one researcher/school and another). And that is the data you should use IMO, always bearing in mind that reconstructions are like drawings made by hand from memory, not like high-definition pictures.

We often forget just how helpful the classical languages are, it would be impossible to reconstruct classical Latin based on the romance languages

That's clear. But some scholar did reconstruct Vulgar Latin from the modern Romance langs, and reconstructed it pretty accurately.

[Dormouse559]

We often forget just how helpful the classical languages are, it would be impossible to reconstruct classical Latin based on the romance languages

Considering the Romance languages are more like nieces of Classical Latin than its daughters, that is to be expected.

[HinGambleGoth]

We often forget just how helpful the classical languages are, it would be impossible to reconstruct classical Latin based on the romance languages

Considering the Romance languages are more like nieces of Classical Latin than its daughters, that is to be expected.

This is interesting, since the differences between old Norse and modern mainland Scandinavian closely parallels the differences between romance and classical Latin, yet nobody sees modern Swedish/norweigan/ Danish as a "separate" branch.

[Dormouse559]

That's not the point. Classical Latin is truly not the ancestor of the Romance languages. It was no more natural than any standardized language of today. Vulgar Latin, which the Romance languages do come from, was developing at the same time among the common people.

[HinGambleGoth]

That's not the point. Classical Latin is truly not the ancestor of the Romance languages. It was no more natural than any standardized language of today. Vulgar Latin, which the Romance languages do come from, was developing at the same time among the common people.

Ok, so I guess you could say that classical Latin was the written standard language? and vulgar the actual spoken one?
Not so strange that Latin kept on being used as a "standard" even after the roman empire fell, after all the catholic church preached in Latin since it was the roman church to begin with, and the dialects diverged after the bible translation was made. Talk about serious Diglossia after a few hundred years

[Khemehekis]

pelto (field), showing a /p/, where one would expect /f/,

I don't know if someone else has pointed this out already, but doesn't the phonology of Finnish lack a /f/?

[Shrdlu]

If you mean standard Finnish, then yes. Some very southern finnic dialects have /f/ in their phonemic inventory.

[Xonen]

pelto (field), showing a /p/, where one would expect /f/,

I don't know if someone else has pointed this out already, but doesn't the phonology of Finnish lack a /f/?

Not entirely, no; as Shrdlu points out, it does exist dialectally - and in fact, even standard Finnish does have it in more recent loanwords (e.g. filmi 'film').

However, the phonology of modern Finnish is largely irrelevant here, since we're talking about dating ancient Germanic loans. And I did already point out that early Finnic didn't have any unvoiced non-sibilant fricatives.

[HinGambleGoth]

What sound changes did Finnish undergo during the period in question?

German Wikipedia has a "reverse engineered" lords prayer in pre-Proto-Germanic.

Páter únsere eni kémenoi, wéiknaid nómun téinon, gwémoid rígion téinon, wértoid wéljô téinos kwé eni kémenoi swé anâ értâi, klóibhon únseron séndeinon ghébhe únses kíjô dhóghô, éti apléde únses, tód skúlones sîmé, swé weis aplédome skúlummis únseroimis, nékwe bhrénkois uns eni próistân, age lóusije uns apo úbheloi. Téinon esti rígjon, móktis, wúltuskwe eni áiwons.

Familiar, yet strange. (In my planned conlang I would apply more http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleOfCool though)

So, Finns , at some point met guys who spoke something resembling that.

I have always wondered if there was any connection between the Swedish name of the åland isles and the Finnish name Ahvenanmaa

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Ahvenanmaa#Finnish

Ultimately, from Proto-Norse ᚨᚺᚹᚨᛚᚨᚾᛞ (ahwaland)

aqualand?

[DrGeoffStandish]

pelto (field), showing a /p/, where one would expect /f/,

I don't know if someone else has pointed this out already, but doesn't the phonology of Finnish lack a /f/?

Indeed, Proto-Germanic and Early Proto-Norse [ɸ] (there was no [f] until at least Late Proto-Norse or even Old Norse) would pretty straightforwardly be emulated by [p] in such a language, I guess, especielly if there are no unvoiced non-sibilant fricatives available at all.

Ultimately, from Proto-Norse ᚨᚺᚹᚨᛚᚨᚾᛞ (ahwaland)

aqualand?

BTW, you also wanted to "maculate" sweet Lene back then (1997-1998?) when they were at the height of their popularity?

[HinGambleGoth]

Proto-Germanic and Early Proto-Norse [ɸ] (there was no [f] until at least Late Proto-Norse or even Old Norse) .

[ɸ] and [β] persisted in non-initial positions in East Norse well into historical times, maybe as late as the 14th century in central Swedish. An interesting thing, is that the older Swedish orthography differed between /w/ written "v" , / ʍ/ "hv" and /v/ "fv", why would you have a diagraph for a simple sound ?. :elf: had bilabial [β] as late as the 19th century. I have actually pointed out in another thread that /h/ and [ɣ] were spelt as allophones in early old , not to mention on many runestones, initial [x] as late as the middle ages? why not? we know almost for sure that hr/hl/hn had /x/ + consonant.

BTW, you also wanted to "maculate" sweet Lene back then (1997-1998?) when they were at the height of their popularity?

I was but a Child .

[Prinsessa]

I believe that's the sort of creepy info one should keep to oneself.

[HinGambleGoth]

Negau helmet

harikastiteiva

*teiwaz ? with *ei ?

Reistad

ik wakraz unnam wraita

*wraita, with final -a ?

Finnish

rengas not *hringaz (no e >=> i)



Do we need to "push up" the boundary for proto-germanic? was proto-germanic, as reconstructed spoken as late as 0:AD ? I mean, the defining differences between north and west Germanic, like WG dropping of final z, and North Germanic loss of initial j, seem to happen quite late.

And for instance

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4YJMh0v2gk

beyond the Proto-Germanic period

So, Germanic, as spoken lets say 500 BC, maybe still had mobile accent in some paradigms (with allophonic voicing)?

Seems like Germanic underwent rapid changes during the iron age, eventually breaking up into different languages starting in the migration period, prior to that, maybe they spoke some kind of half-shifted "generic" Indo-European in the north?

Linguistic change is normal, but is unfair when Greeks can pick out a lot from a classical text, while swedes struggle with stuff from the middle ages, "Swedish" spoken during classical antiquity would be nigh unrecognizable.