Steppe Ancestry in western Eurasia and the spread of the Germanic Languages

[Rodoorn]

Rodoorn:

Was there an Italo-Celtic branche, according to the compu linguist Don Ringe (2002) for sure it was, even with more coherence than Germanic....

They do not claim that, so why do you?
https://www.cs.rice.edu/~nakhleh/CPHL/RWT02.pdf

This is what they literally claim:

[alanarchae]

One thing I did read a linguist state and likely agrees with the archaeology and anciebt DNA is that the Celto-Italic node was a brief one immediately after late IE and contact was largely lost within a few centuries of that node. There is virtually no borrowing from Italic in proto Celtic and the borrowings in the other direction are few and late. They seem to have geographically parted in the beaker era and didn’t come back into contact until the iron age. In general there is an extraordinary lack of borrowings into Celtic from any known IE language other than the Celtic-Germanic vocab. To explain that then either the date of proto Celtic is considerably older than the LBA or you have to conclude it was somewhat on the periphery of the busier areas of Central Europe and maybe surrounded on all sides (except north-east) by v similar para Celtic dialects. Or both.

[Rodoorn]

One thing I did read a linguist state and  likely agrees with the archaeology and anciebt DNA is that the Celto-Italic node was a brief one immediately after late IE and contact was largely lost within a few centuries of that node. There is virtually no borrowing from Italic in proto Celtic and the borrowings in the other direction are few and late.  They seem to have geographically parted in the beaker era and didn’t come back into contact until the iron age. In general there is an extraordinary lack of borrowings into Celtic from any known IE language other than the Celtic-Germanic vocab. To explain that then either the date of proto Celtic is considerably older than the LBA or you have to conclude it was somewhat on the periphery of the busier areas of Central Europe and maybe surrounded on all sides (except north-east) by v similar para Celtic dialects. Or both.

Interesting I try to grasp what the consequences would be for the NW Block.

Initial these area contained the nodus of the BB of NW Europe and spread all over the place. So let's assume they spoke Italo-Celtic.

Do you have any idea when the BB network collapsed and the Italo-Celtic dialect began to diversify?

How reasonable is it to assume that out of NW block the North Sea Celtic of Schrijver emerged in IA?

[alanarchae]

Rodoorn:

Was there an Italo-Celtic branche, according to the compu linguist Don Ringe (2002) for sure it was, even with more coherence than Germanic....

They do not claim that, so why do you?
https://www.cs.rice.edu/~nakhleh/CPHL/RWT02.pdf

This is what they literally claim:

Italo-Celtic does have an extraordinary correlation with the populations that retained their bell beaker geveratic right until the light of history shone. My own view is that that whole  zone was likely covered in a myriad of Celto-Italic, para Celtic and para Italic dialects and it was relatively easy for them at elite level to also use a lingua Franca unified ‘high register’ dialect across vast areas as the importance of networking and power of the elites gradually increased through the bronze age.

[alanarchae]

One thing I did read a linguist state and  likely agrees with the archaeology and anciebt DNA is that the Celto-Italic node was a brief one immediately after late IE and contact was largely lost within a few centuries of that node. There is virtually no borrowing from Italic in proto Celtic and the borrowings in the other direction are few and late.  They seem to have geographically parted in the beaker era and didn’t come back into contact until the iron age. In general there is an extraordinary lack of borrowings into Celtic from any known IE language other than the Celtic-Germanic vocab. To explain that then either the date of proto Celtic is considerably older than the LBA or you have to conclude it was somewhat on the periphery of the busier areas of Central Europe and maybe surrounded on all sides (except north-east) by v similar para Celtic dialects. Or both.

Interesting I try to grasp what the consequences would be for the NW Block.

Initial these area contained the nodus of the BB of NW Europe and spread all over the place. So let's assume they spoke Italo-Celtic.

Do ypu have any idea when the BB network collapsed and the Italo-Celtic dialect began to diversify?

How reasonable is it to assume that out of NW block the North Sea Celtic of Schrijver emerged in IA?

I’ve always thought by c.2200BC the fragmention and I suppose stretching of contact to breaking point had been reached. While interestingly also coincides  with the 4.2 kiloyear  climate event and the appearance of a number of non beaker lineages with the rise of Unetice in the area from central Germany and eastwards. Also ot course broadly coincides with the chalcolithic- Early Bronze Age interface. My belief is pre proto Italic was already partly in Italy in 2200BC and also likely had still some hold in the area between the upper Danube and Alps for some time in the early to mid Bronze Age. Celtic or rather pre-proto Celtic is hard to pin down. Personally I think it was further north than normally thought. I’d say it was on the west bank of the mid to upper Rhine and spread through the northern half of France. 

NW Block imo might have done its own thing largely because it wasn’t a powerful core of a major network but instead lay on the periphery of the Atlantic, Nordic and C European networks who's powerhouses were elsewhere. That might imo why they didn’t shift to one of the big neywork  lingua francas. But they were still likely under some influence from various directions and you can imagine vocab borrowings. It wouldn’t not have been a fossil frozen in time at 2200BC. It would have likely drifted and also been influenced by neighbouring groups in all directions. I kind of imagine it as a celto-Italic dialect with aerial influence.

[alanarchae]

One thing I did read a linguist state and  likely agrees with the archaeology and anciebt DNA is that the Celto-Italic node was a brief one immediately after late IE and contact was largely lost within a few centuries of that node. There is virtually no borrowing from Italic in proto Celtic and the borrowings in the other direction are few and late.  They seem to have geographically parted in the beaker era and didn’t come back into contact until the iron age. In general there is an extraordinary lack of borrowings into Celtic from any known IE language other than the Celtic-Germanic vocab. To explain that then either the date of proto Celtic is considerably older than the LBA or you have to conclude it was somewhat on the periphery of the busier areas of Central Europe and maybe surrounded on all sides (except north-east) by v similar para Celtic dialects. Or both.

Interesting I try to grasp what the consequences would be for the NW Block.

Initial these area contained the nodus of the BB of NW Europe and spread all over the place. So let's assume they spoke Italo-Celtic.

Do you have any idea when the BB network collapsed and the Italo-Celtic dialect began to diversify?

How reasonable is it to assume that out of NW block the North Sea Celtic of Schrijver emerged in IA?

maybe you could outline the bronze and iron age in the ‘eastern north sea’ zone for us as you seem knowledgable. It started with Rhenish type beaker (briefly) spreading as far as Denmark. Then you had barbed wire? Then Elp? Then Harpstedt?? Think i’m missing a lot of detail

[Bollox79]

Among the two camps that Brinno destroyed was that of the Third Gallic cavalry unit at Praetorium Agrippinae (modern Valkenburg near Leiden), where archaeologists have discovered the burning layer.

The archaeological paper I linked previously -albeit not a very recent one- mentions that the dead at Valkenburg didn't show signs of violent death and they were buried randomly amidst the more numerous cremation burials (so doesn't seem like a mass grave either). It speculates that they could have been prisoners, labourers or outcasts of some kind, maybe something like a penal unit of the Roman legion stationed there. The good news is that (per the supplementals) there's going to be a separate paper about the site so I'm sure these questions are going to be tackled there

Yeah the isotope paper said: "In previous researches several explanations have been raised to what the adult inhumations could represent. Some expressed explanations are supported or refuted by
the outcomes of the Sr analysis. For instance:
 The presence of both locals and non-locals in combination with the large spread in
the ratios among the non-locals suggest that it is not likely to consider the inhumated
non-locals as one cultural group or family. Sr ratios do however not exclude that
some non-locals originate from Gallia Lugdunensis or Thracia and that they as such
are somehow related to soldiers of the crew of the castellum Valkenburg;
 The tallness of the non-locals, together with the strontium ratios could indicate a
North European descend, supporting the suggestions of prisoner of war from the
Germanic Chauk-territory (De Bruin, personal communication 2009) or poor
immigrant workers from somewhere in the Netherlands (Lonnée and Maat 1998) for
some of them.
Form the comparison of the strontium ratios to mapped strontium data in Europe can be
concluded that strontium analysis alone is not decisive enough to determine where the
non-locals originally came from. They do, on the other hand, provide a solid basis for
further provenance research.
Strontium analysis on the Valkenburg skeletons moreover shows that it is possible to
perform useful scientific research on material that has been stored for more than 20 years." 

Maybe this is the future report as it's on the Valkenburg site: A report called :21-EPN-FT1-028 – Integrated aDNA, Sr-O-C isotope data and 14C dates to link human individuals to Roman military units"

Certainly a difference to 6Driffield where the bodies were buried with some care and a lot of sharp blade trauma. All the more interesting for the period they were buried at Valkenburg... could have been rebellious locals..  that west med guy is interesting... And the DF98 guy as well being I think local via isotopes, but SouthScan per this paper...

Actually a question what exactly is the genetic cluster labelled WMed in this paper as 3drif26 falls in that cluster and one Valkenburg I think... Hard to check I'm on my phone!

[Dewsloth]

One thing I did read a linguist state and  likely agrees with the archaeology and anciebt DNA is that the Celto-Italic node was a brief one immediately after late IE and contact was largely lost within a few centuries of that node. There is virtually no borrowing from Italic in proto Celtic and the borrowings in the other direction are few and late.  They seem to have geographically parted in the beaker era and didn’t come back into contact until the iron age. In general there is an extraordinary lack of borrowings into Celtic from any known IE language other than the Celtic-Germanic vocab. To explain that then either the date of proto Celtic is considerably older than the LBA or you have to conclude it was somewhat on the periphery of the busier areas of Central Europe and maybe surrounded on all sides (except north-east) by v similar para Celtic dialects. Or both.

Interesting I try to grasp what the consequences would be for the NW Block.

Initial these area contained the nodus of the BB of NW Europe and spread all over the place. So let's assume they spoke Italo-Celtic.

Do you have any idea when the BB network collapsed and the Italo-Celtic dialect began to diversify?

How reasonable is it to assume that out of NW block the North Sea Celtic of Schrijver emerged in IA?

maybe you could outline the bronze and iron age in the ‘eastern north sea’ zone for us as you seem knowledgable. It started with Rhenish type beaker (briefly) spreading as far as Denmark. Then you had barbed wire? Then Elp? Then Harpstedt?? Think i’m missing a lot of detail

PMFBI, but there's this:

https://studenttheses.universiteitleiden...07844/view

The two burials of Zwaagdijk are very similar to the burials of Thy [Denmark]. Both burials contain
swords and golden bracelet, this combination of bracelets and swords is frequently
encountered in the burials of Thy. The burials of Gammelby, Norre-Hedegard II, Orum,
Nors Havreland, Foldbjerg, Langvad 2, Voruporvej 2 and Torup 2 in Thy hold the exact
same grave goods. These similarities indicate that the burials of Zwaagdijk are part of
the Nordic Bronze Age deposition tradition.
***
 Holland is a very interesting place in Bronze Age Europe. It is here that the influences of Nordic tradition of the North and the Atlantic tradition of the south meet (Fokkens and Fontijn 2013, 551). This is exemplified by several metal deposits. Firstly, the grave goods found in the burial mounds of in Zwaagdijk, correspond with the grave goods found in burial mounds in Denmark. Secondly, the hoard of Voorhout and various single finds of palstaves correspond with the Atlantic deposition tradition.
***
8.3.3.2 Sector 2
The second concentration, in West-Frisia, is quite dense (Figure 33.sector 2). It combines
single finds with burials, among which is the largest metal deposition in a burial context
in Holland: Zwaagdijk. Additionally, these metal deposits are found in a part of WestFrisia where excavations have uncovered numerous house-plans, the date of which
suggests that several longhouses were contemporary. This indicates that the region was
densely populated (Roessingh in prep, 388)
***
The metalwork of these larger deposits is quite diverse. The Voorhout hoard holds
imported axes from the Atlantic Bronze Age tradition and burials such as the Zwaagdijk
burial containing assemblages that are very reminiscent of the Nordic Bronze Age
tradition (Fontijn 2009, 135). This indicates that the people of Holland partook in long
distance exchange during the Bronze Age.

[alanarchae]

One thing I did read a linguist state and  likely agrees with the archaeology and anciebt DNA is that the Celto-Italic node was a brief one immediately after late IE and contact was largely lost within a few centuries of that node. There is virtually no borrowing from Italic in proto Celtic and the borrowings in the other direction are few and late.  They seem to have geographically parted in the beaker era and didn’t come back into contact until the iron age. In general there is an extraordinary lack of borrowings into Celtic from any known IE language other than the Celtic-Germanic vocab. To explain that then either the date of proto Celtic is considerably older than the LBA or you have to conclude it was somewhat on the periphery of the busier areas of Central Europe and maybe surrounded on all sides (except north-east) by v similar para Celtic dialects. Or both.

Interesting I try to grasp what the consequences would be for the NW Block.

Initial these area contained the nodus of the BB of NW Europe and spread all over the place. So let's assume they spoke Italo-Celtic.

Do you have any idea when the BB network collapsed and the Italo-Celtic dialect began to diversify?

How reasonable is it to assume that out of NW block the North Sea Celtic of Schrijver emerged in IA?

maybe you could outline the bronze and iron age in the ‘eastern north sea’ zone for us as you seem knowledgable. It started with Rhenish type beaker (briefly) spreading as far as Denmark. Then you had barbed wire? Then Elp? Then Harpstedt?? Think i’m missing a lot of detail

PMFBI, but there's this:

https://studenttheses.universiteitleiden...07844/view

The two burials of Zwaagdijk are very similar to the burials of Thy [Denmark]. Both burials contain
swords and golden bracelet, this combination of bracelets and swords is frequently
encountered in the burials of Thy. The burials of Gammelby, Norre-Hedegard II, Orum,
Nors Havreland, Foldbjerg, Langvad 2, Voruporvej 2 and Torup 2 in Thy hold the exact
same grave goods. These similarities indicate that the burials of Zwaagdijk are part of
the Nordic Bronze Age deposition tradition.
***
 Holland is a very interesting place in Bronze Age Europe. It is here that the influences of Nordic tradition of the North and the Atlantic tradition of the south meet (Fokkens and Fontijn 2013, 551). This is exemplified by several metal deposits. Firstly, the grave goods found in the burial mounds of in Zwaagdijk, correspond with the grave goods found in burial mounds in Denmark. Secondly, the hoard of Voorhout and various single finds of palstaves correspond with the Atlantic deposition tradition.
***
8.3.3.2 Sector 2
The second concentration, in West-Frisia, is quite dense (Figure 33.sector 2). It combines
single finds with burials, among which is the largest metal deposition in a burial context
in Holland: Zwaagdijk. Additionally, these metal deposits are found in a part of WestFrisia where excavations have uncovered numerous house-plans, the date of which
suggests that several longhouses were contemporary. This indicates that the region was
densely populated (Roessingh in prep, 388)
***
The metalwork of these larger deposits is quite diverse. The Voorhout hoard holds
imported axes from the Atlantic Bronze Age tradition and burials such as the Zwaagdijk
burial containing assemblages that are very reminiscent of the Nordic Bronze Age
tradition (Fontijn 2009, 135). This indicates that the people of Holland partook in long
distance exchange during the Bronze Age.oBit 

I think they key thing is the area was under influence of networks centred elsewhere rather than at the heart of a network. My own feeling is it was likely an Italo Celtic group that also had a lot of persistent influence (bur not geverug inputfr) from around Denmark. Though quite what was sounds in Denmark between 2200 and 1200BC ie so is not totally clear. Presumably palaeo Germanic  by the LBA. Though given the v long genetic continuity or the east north sea group it’s v hard to believe they had shifted to Germanic. If the area had a powerful enough elite whose power lay in the control of vital imports like metals then there gouks have been a bilingual or even trilingual elite.

[Psynome]

I noticed there has not been extensive discussion yet on the historical context of the theoretical Pre-Proto-Germanic migration into Scandinavia from the Baltic ~2000BCE.

What is the archeological context of the Baltic region during this time? Are there any changes in the Baltic or a broader area that could account for such a migration, perhaps connected to emerging trade networks, new technologies or the like?

In the paper the following are given as correlates to this mysterious migration: 

However, the timing coincides with the introduction of a new, Late Neolithic sheep breed to Scandinavia. It also coincides with the spread of a new burial rite of gallery graves in south Sweden, the Danish islands and Norway, a new house type, the first durative bronze networks, as well as with the end of an east-west divide in Scandinavia between 4050 and 3650 BP

Elsewhere I have read that Scandinavian gallery graves are a type of megalithic grave typically assigned an origin further south, typically France. That conflicts with a direct introduction by Baltic migrants. See L. Kaelas (1967) "The Megalithic Tombs in South Scandinavia - Migration or Cultural Influence?" pp 306-313.


I'd like to speculate that if this migration is linked to the earliest introduction of bronzeworking and related trade networks, then in the BA the Baltic was known for one major trade good: amber. Could the exchange of amber for bronze, copper, or tin have played a role in cross Baltic mobility? Just a guess.

[Jaska]

Rodoorn, recalcitrance does not mean that Germanic is not coherent. Coherence means lack of inner structure – that is not the case with Germanic. It is a very coherent branch: all Germanic languages always group together.

What they are saying is that the station of Germanic in the family tree is unstable and uncertain, because it shares features with so many other branches. Therefore, they first made a tree without Germanic (page 90), and then put Germanic “in the middle”, so it came next to Albanian. (“…Germanic should be placed in what we are calling the core of the family – the residue after the departure of Anatolian, Tocharian and Italo-Celtic.”)

This seems to be purely arbitrary and based only on principle “not far from any branches it shares features with”, because Germanic actually does not share any features alone with Albanian. So, the family tree is actually quite misleading, as the family tree is usually understood so that the closest branches share the greatest number of features together.

P.S. About reading the tree figure for ‘hand’:
According to Mallory & Adams 2006: 180, Albanian dorë comes from PIE *gˆhés-r- ‘hand’ and is not related to Germanic word *handuz.
https://smerdaleos.files.wordpress.com/2...-adams.pdf
And indeed, the tree figure for ‘hand’ has PIE *gˆhés-r- coded as 1, showing this cognate 1 in Anatolian, Tocharian, Albanian, Armenian, and Greek. Germanic has a different word, coded as 4. They do not put Albanian next to Germanic because it would have the same word for ‘hand’, but irrespective of that it does not have the same word.

[Rodoorn]

One thing I did read a linguist state and  likely agrees with the archaeology and anciebt DNA is that the Celto-Italic node was a brief one immediately after late IE and contact was largely lost within a few centuries of that node. There is virtually no borrowing from Italic in proto Celtic and the borrowings in the other direction are few and late.  They seem to have geographically parted in the beaker era and didn’t come back into contact until the iron age. In general there is an extraordinary lack of borrowings into Celtic from any known IE language other than the Celtic-Germanic vocab. To explain that then either the date of proto Celtic is considerably older than the LBA or you have to conclude it was somewhat on the periphery of the busier areas of Central Europe and maybe surrounded on all sides (except north-east) by v similar para Celtic dialects. Or both.

Interesting I try to grasp what the consequences would be for the NW Block.

Initial these area contained the nodus of the BB of NW Europe and spread all over the place. So let's assume they spoke Italo-Celtic.

Do you have any idea when the BB network collapsed and the Italo-Celtic dialect began to diversify?

How reasonable is it to assume that out of NW block the North Sea Celtic of Schrijver emerged in IA?

maybe you could outline the bronze and iron age in the ‘eastern north sea’ zone for us as you seem knowledgable. It started with Rhenish type beaker (briefly) spreading as far as Denmark. Then you had barbed wire? Then Elp? Then Harpstedt?? Think i’m missing a lot of detail

Yes and you can add Sögel-Wohlde to the list as well as Urkeltentum used by mid 20th century German archeologist for what now is East North Sea Cluster   So among al those labels and frames where to begin?

In essence I see the eclips (group 1) as the NW block (aka Sögel Wohlde aka Elp etc etc etc etc):



And than I immediately correct you:
"NW Block imo might have done its own thing largely because it wasn’t a powerful core of a major network but instead lay on the periphery of the Atlantic, Nordic and C European networks who's powerhouses were elsewhere."

It was not a backward alley, it was the interface, so where Atlantic, Nordic and C European networks met!!!

I already showed that in these area there is from BB unto migration ages in some parts a big continuity in population, in settlements. I mentioned Eelde (just beneath the city of Groningen) in which in the deepest layer of a settlement a very rich BB grave is found and in which the settlement was just left about 400 AD, with the incoming Danish IA Germanics.

In genetic sense this area contains the core of the Bell Beakers, the ones who spread all over the place, and especially to the Isles (ggggg father alanarchae).


They were a mix of Single Grave and TRB West. See the paper which mentions high HG in the ENS cluster. Probably due to the high Ertebølle amount in TRB West (See Karsten Wentink's dissertation 2006, mentioned about 100 times   Imo ENS cluster represents the genetic continuity of these BB unto migration times!

In linguistic sense this NW Block is most probably following your own description:
"Italo-Celtic does have an extraordinary correlation with the populations that retained their bell beaker geveratic right until the light of history shone. My own view is that that whole  zone was likely covered in a myriad of Celto-Italic, para Celtic and para Italic dialects and it was relatively easy for them at elite level to also use a lingua Franca unified ‘high register’ dialect across vast areas as the importance of networking and power of the elites gradually increased through the bronze age."

And of course due to their position we can expect diverse cultural influences, from Nordic Bronze Age (that tipped probably Drenthe), from the Unetice/ Tumulus culture of Central Europe.

As archeologist as VandKilde state Sögel Wohlde (NW block) initial influenced the Valsømagle area (South Scandic). The fuze of both cultures made up in cultural sense the NBA. This NBA on his turn usurped the NE part of the NW block (unto Lüneberger heath etc). Maybe also in language development.

I guess that Schrijver (2017) has a point that the western part of the NW Block- for example the Frisii- staid in a much more Celtic groove. Until 400 AD with the influx of Danish IA ancestry:"the final take over of the whole NW Block by the Nordic Bronze Age heirs."

Except for the South of the Netherlands, see this only as indicative please:

[Rodoorn]

Rodoorn, recalcitrance does not mean that Germanic is not coherent. Coherence means lack of inner structure – that is not the case with Germanic. It is a very coherent branch: all Germanic languages always group together. 

What they are saying is that the station of Germanic in the family tree is unstable and uncertain, because it shares features with so many other branches. Therefore, they first made a tree without Germanic (page 90), and then put Germanic “in the middle”, so it came next to Albanian. (“…Germanic should be placed in what we are calling the core of the family – the residue after the departure of Anatolian, Tocharian and Italo-Celtic.”)

This seems to be purely arbitrary and based only on principle “not far from any branches it shares features with”, because Germanic actually does not share any features alone with Albanian. So, the family tree is actually quite misleading, as the family tree is usually understood so that the closest branches share the greatest number of features together.

P.S. About reading the tree figure for ‘hand’:
According to Mallory & Adams 2006: 180, Albanian dorë comes from PIE *gˆhés-r- ‘hand’ and is not related to Germanic word *handuz.
https://smerdaleos.files.wordpress.com/2...-adams.pdf
And indeed, the tree figure for ‘hand’ has PIE *gˆhés-r- coded as 1, showing this cognate 1 in Anatolian, Tocharian, Albanian, Armenian, and Greek. Germanic has a different word, coded as 4. They do not put Albanian next to Germanic because it would have the same word for ‘hand’, but irrespective of that it does not have the same word.

You are right with the coherence and recalcitrant are different. Slip of the tongue. Germanic recalcitrancy suits me better anyway

[Anglesqueville]

This post is in no way a response to anyone in particular, just some thoughts, a little out of order about this whole story of proximity to the Italo-Celtic. By the way, since I am thinking of Rothaer and what he wrote about the authors' ignorance regarding linguistics, I think that everyone has seen that the second author in the list of signatories is Gus Kroonen, pardon! GUS KROONEN. Need I say more? Well, I'll be brief, because all this has already been detailed thousands of times here and on the predecessors of this forum, and this study only provides genetic support for linguistic facts that have been recognized for a long time.
1) If the Germanic language family had been cooked in the same pot as the Italic and Celtic families (roughly the Bell Beaker pot) it would be logical that Proto-Germanic would share some specific innovations with them. However, it is not. I don't know what Koch means by "repositioning in the direction of Italo-Celtic", and it seems to me that on the contrary nothing, neither in morphology nor in phonology, suggests any proximity beyond the common Indo-European heritage.
2) There is not the slightest trace in Swedish-Norwegian toponymy of a non-Germanic Indo-European language. On the contrary, the most recent work of Scandinavian specialists (I am thinking in particular of that of Eva Nyman) proves that Scandinavian hydronymy goes back to the most ancient strata of Germanic phylogeny. See in particular: Eva Nyman, "Nordiska ortnamn på -und (Studier till en svensk ortnamns atlas utg. av Thorsten Andersson 16. Acta Academiae Regiae Gustavi Adolphi LXX), Uppsala 2000".
3) It definitely seems to me once again that we overestimate the importance of the Celtic lexical influx. In particular, we pass a little quickly over the fact that Koch recognizes that only a very small number of his "Celto-Germanisms" can certainly be recognized as loanwords. I myself have counted around ten at most on the old thread, all easily explainable by commercial contacts. One more word on Koch (I am not going to bring up the question of the Tartessian again). One of the pillars of his argument is the idea of a mutual Celto-Germanic intelligibility which would have lasted until the first proto-Germanic consonant shifts, therefore roughly until the middle of the first millennium. I would be curious what professional Indo-Europeanists like Kroonen think of this. For the amateur that I am, this idea has always seemed fanciful.

[Rodoorn]

This post is in no way a response to anyone in particular, just some thoughts, a little out of order about this whole story of proximity to the Italo-Celtic. By the way, since I am thinking of Rothaer and what he wrote about the authors' ignorance regarding linguistics, I think that everyone has seen that the second author in the list of signatories is Gus Kroonen, pardon! GUS KROONEN. Need I say more? Well, I'll be brief, because all this has already been detailed thousands of times here and on the predecessors of this forum, and this study only provides genetic support for linguistic facts that have been recognized for a long time.
1) If the Germanic language family had been cooked in the same pot as the Italic and Celtic families (roughly the Bell Beaker pot) it would be logical that Proto-Germanic would share some specific innovations with them. However, it is not. I don't know what Koch means by "repositioning in the direction of Italo-Celtic", and it seems to me that on the contrary nothing, neither in morphology nor in phonology, suggests any proximity beyond the common Indo-European heritage.
2) There is not the slightest trace in Swedish-Norwegian toponymy of a non-Germanic Indo-European language. On the contrary, the most recent work of Scandinavian specialists (I am thinking in particular of that of Eva Nyman) proves that Scandinavian hydronymy goes back to the most ancient strata of Germanic phylogeny. See in particular: Eva Nyman, "Nordiska ortnamn på -und (Studier till en svensk ortnamns atlas utg. av Thorsten Andersson 16. Acta Academiae Regiae Gustavi Adolphi LXX), Uppsala 2000".
3) It definitely seems to me once again that we overestimate the importance of the Celtic lexical influx. In particular, we pass a little quickly over the fact that Koch recognizes that only a very small number of his "Celto-Germanisms" can certainly be recognized as loanwords. I myself have counted around ten at most on the old thread, all easily explainable by commercial contacts. One more word on Koch (I am not going to bring up the question of the Tartessian again). One of the pillars of his argument is the idea of a mutual Celto-Germanic intelligibility which would have lasted until the first proto-Germanic consonant shifts, therefore roughly until the middle of the first millennium. I would be curious what professional Indo-Europeanists like Kroonen think of this. For the amateur that I am, this idea has always seemed fanciful.

Before it leads to miscommunication: I don't see Germanic as part of the BB pot.

On the contrary! Because this also leads to this:

I guess many reason: the Romans labeled the people above the Rhine as Germanic, so they were all speaking Germanic (as developed in the Scandic room).

NO, the people of the NW block (ESN in the paper terms) were part of the BB pot, in genetic as in language sense.