Comments on: Ship and the rings it leaves in etymological waters (Part 1) http://blog.oup.com/2011/09/ship/ Academic insights for the thinking world. Thu, 23 May 2013 12:47:31 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4.2 By: OUPblog » Blog Archive » Ship and the rings it leaves in etymological waters (Part 2) http://blog.oup.com/2011/09/ship/#comment-230065 OUPblog » Blog Archive » Ship and the rings it leaves in etymological waters (Part 2) Wed, 14 Sep 2011 12:33:24 +0000 http://blog.oup.com/?p=18248#comment-230065 [...] comments on the previous post (the ethnogenesis of the “Germans” and the native origin of the word ship, as opposed to the [...] [...] comments on the previous post (the ethnogenesis of the “Germans” and the native origin of the word ship, as opposed to the [...]

]]> By: John Cowan http://blog.oup.com/2011/09/ship/#comment-229032 John Cowan Wed, 07 Sep 2011 18:10:28 +0000 http://blog.oup.com/?p=18248#comment-229032 There are two good pieces of evidence that the Germanic-speakers came from southeastern Europe: one very old, the other very new. The oldest bit of Old Norse we have (a poem preserved in the saga "King Heidrek the Wise") tells us that Heidrek was killed under Harvath-fells, this being the result of applying the first Germanic sound-shift to "Karpathes", the Carpathians. And the phylogenetic comparative work of Don Ringe's group at the University of Pennsylvania (which, unlike other such efforts, begins with and depends on the conclusions of the comparative method) shows that Germanic began as a satem language and remains so in its morphology, but moved west and underwent partial lexical replacement from Proto-Italic (though probably not in Italy) before the final changes typical of the satem group. There are two good pieces of evidence that the Germanic-speakers came from southeastern Europe: one very old, the other very new. The oldest bit of Old Norse we have (a poem preserved in the saga “King Heidrek the Wise”) tells us that Heidrek was killed under Harvath-fells, this being the result of applying the first Germanic sound-shift to “Karpathes”, the Carpathians. And the phylogenetic comparative work of Don Ringe’s group at the University of Pennsylvania (which, unlike other such efforts, begins with and depends on the conclusions of the comparative method) shows that Germanic began as a satem language and remains so in its morphology, but moved west and underwent partial lexical replacement from Proto-Italic (though probably not in Italy) before the final changes typical of the satem group.

]]> By: Roland Schuhmann http://blog.oup.com/2011/09/ship/#comment-229019 Roland Schuhmann Wed, 07 Sep 2011 14:53:19 +0000 http://blog.oup.com/?p=18248#comment-229019 There is no problem connecting the word for 'ship' to the root pie. *skeh2i-b- (cp. latv. šķibīt 'to cut', an extension with *-b- to pie. *skeh2i- 'to cut, to divide'), so pgerm. *skipa- < pie. *skh2i-b-o- (for the root cp. Rasmussen, Morphophonematik, p. 61f. [different, but with a bad *-kh-, LIV]). So the ablaut and the semantic side are quite unproblematic. This etymology is even in the new dutch etymological dictionary (http://www.etymologiebank.nl/trefwoord/schip), which normally is very fond of substrate words. For the word 'sail' a Celtic origin is very probable as stated by Katrin Thier (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-968X.2011.01273.x/pdf). There is no problem connecting the word for ‘ship’ to the root pie. *skeh2i-b- (cp. latv. šķibīt ‘to cut’, an extension with *-b- to pie. *skeh2i- ‘to cut, to divide’), so pgerm. *skipa- < pie. *skh2i-b-o- (for the root cp. Rasmussen, Morphophonematik, p. 61f. [different, but with a bad *-kh-, LIV]). So the ablaut and the semantic side are quite unproblematic. This etymology is even in the new dutch etymological dictionary (http://www.etymologiebank.nl/trefwoord/schip), which normally is very fond of substrate words.

For the word 'sail' a Celtic origin is very probable as stated by Katrin Thier (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-968X.2011.01273.x/pdf).

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