Germanic lineage arrived from the east?

[Jaska]

1. Indo-European 'stone' > Slavic with consonant metathesis --> Germanic 'stone, hammer' --> Finnic *hamara

Slavic consonant metathesis is quite young phenomenon. Likely late 1 M AD.
From wiki
"The liquid metathesis occurred in the Common Slavic era. It took place after or was still productive until the end of the 8th century. The name of Charlemagne, who died in 814, underwent the change:

Old High German Karl[note 1] > PSl. *karl′u[note 2] > Common Slavic *korl′ь > Russian koról′, Polish król, Slovak kráľ, Serbo-Croatian krȃlj
On the other hand, the change had already been completed in the earliest Old Church Slavonic documents. That implies that the change was completed, at least in the dialects of Bulgaria and of Macedonia, in no later than the 9th century, when the documents were written. There are, however, some attested unmetathised words in OCS such as ал(ъ)дии, a doublet of the metathised ладии."

That is a well-known post-Proto-Slavic phenomenon, and it can be recognized because it only concerns part of the Slavic languages. But I did not speak about that. The metathesis seen in the word 'stone' (*akm- > *kam-) is much earlier (all Slavic languages participated in it) and purely irregular development without any further examples.

[Kaltmeister]

@Jaska

Many of your contributions focus on the question, if genetic changes result in linguistic changes - my opinion in this affair is that layering processes between two different populations will probably change the language constellation if both populations speak different languages. This language shift can take all positions on the scale: "Total domination of language 1" to "total enforcement of language 2". Both extremes on that scale would mean no language change at all for one of those peoples. I am sending this in advance, because this is not what I want to discuss.

My question is: Do you consider it possible that palaeo-Germanic just came into existence about 4.000 years ago, when the "East-Scandinavians" from Willerslevs new study moved into Denmark and layered a Bell-Beaker-population, forming the "South-Scandinavian" cluster? That here the first characteristic phonetic changes happened (Grimmsches Gesetz), bringing the Germanic language into live? That further expansion into northern Germany resulted in further layering processes, initiating the later phonetic changes (Vernersches Gesetz)? That the assumed backmigration into the north after the Iron Age - or maybe earlier - brought this Germanic language also to northern Scandinavia?

In that case, the original "East-Scandinavian" cluster population from this study, mirroring Allentofts Scandinavia_4000BP_3000BP cluster, would have spoken an older Indoeuropean language. An alternative would be, of course, that Germanic emerged when an EHG-rich population moved to eastern Sweden and layered the local people.

[Jaska]

@Jaska

Many of your contributions focus on the question, if genetic changes result in linguistic changes - my opinion in this affair is that layering processes between two different populations will probably change the language constellation if both populations speak different languages. This language shift can take all positions on the scale: "Total domination of language 1" to "total enforcement of language 2". Both extremes on that scale would mean no language change at all for one of those peoples. I am sending this in advance, because this is not what I want to discuss.

My question is: Do you consider it possible that palaeo-Germanic just came into existence about 4.000 years ago, when the "East-Scandinavians" from Willerslevs new study moved into Denmark and layered a Bell-Beaker-population, forming the "South-Scandinavian" cluster? That here the first characteristic phonetic changes happened (Grimmsches Gesetz), bringing the Germanic language into live? That further expansion into northern Germany resulted in further layering processes, initiating the later phonetic changes (Vernersches Gesetz)? That the assumed backmigration into the north after the Iron Age - or maybe earlier - brought this Germanic language also to northern Scandinavia?

In that case, the original "East-Scandinavian" cluster population from this study, mirroring Allentofts Scandinavia_4000BP_3000BP cluster, would have spoken an older Indoeuropean language. An alternative would be, of course, that Germanic emerged when an EHG-rich population moved to eastern Sweden and layered the local people.

Pre-Proto-Germanic is the usual name for the earliest phase of Germanic lineage, since ca. 3000 BCE to ca. 1000 BCE. After that, Paleo-Germanic precedes Proto-Germanic (and Grimm's Law), but it already shows some Germanic-specific developments. I do not see it possible that Germanic would have emerged only secondarily from other IE branches (if this is what you mean), because 
1. there are some archaic features in Germanic not preserved in Balto-Slavic or Italo-Celtic;
2. Germanic does not share all of the earliest changes of any other IE branch but only randomly here and there.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/ind...9C1C4BDE3E

The role of the East Scandinavian IBD cluster in the Germanic development is so far uncertain. Germanic could have arrived in Scandinavia already during the Corded Ware expansion, or later at some point from some direction. We can be quite confident only about that the Scandinavian Bronze Culture since 1600 BCE was already associated with the Germanic lineage.

[Kaltmeister]

Pre-Proto-Germanic is the usual name for the earliest phase of Germanic lineage, since ca. 3000 BCE to ca. 1000 BCE. After that, Paleo-Germanic precedes Proto-Germanic (and Grimm's Law), but it already shows some Germanic-specific developments. I do not see it possible that Germanic would have emerged only secondarily from other IE branches (if this is what you mean), because 
1. there are some archaic features in Germanic not preserved in Balto-Slavic or Italo-Celtic;
2. Germanic does not share all of the earliest changes of any other IE branch but only randomly here and there.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/ind...9C1C4BDE3E

The role of the East Scandinavian IBD cluster in the Germanic development is so far uncertain. Germanic could have arrived in Scandinavia already during the Corded Ware expansion, or later at some point from some direction. We can be quite confident only about that the Scandinavian Bronze Culture since 1600 BCE was already associated with the Germanic lineage.

No, that is not what I mean - at least I am not focussed on a secondary emergence. My question aims on a general emergence from an older version, be it primary or secondary. It aims on the question if "South-Scandinavians" and "East-Scandinavians" might have spoken different languages and, for that, considered themselves to be two different ethnicities. [edit] When those "East-Scandinavians" moved to Denmark and layered Bell Beaker people, becoming "South-Scandinavians", it is in my opinion very likely that this process resulted in a language shift.
How comes you are so sure that the members of the "East-Scandinavian" cluster already spoke German in the Nordic Bronze Age? Because of the common features between Germanic and Uralic languages?

[Kaltmeister]

I would like to add another thought: Gemanic people in different times and different locations show a characteristic combination of I1- and R1b-U106 Y-haplogroups. Those early "East-Scandinavians", on the other hand, appear to have close to 100% I1- lines and no R1b at all. How would these U106-lines enter their population? To me it looks like "East-Scandinavians" and "South-Scandinavians" were two different peoples, ethnicities - and It is not unlikely that they also spoke different languages.

[Jaska]

Kaltmeister:

No, that is not what I mean - at least I am not focussed on a secondary emergence. My question aims on a general emergence from an older version, be it primary or secondary. It aims on the question if "South-Scandinavians" and "East-Scandinavians" might have spoken different languages and, for that, considered themselves to be two different ethnicities. [edit] When those "East-Scandinavians" moved to Denmark and layered Bell Beaker people, becoming "South-Scandinavians", it is in my opinion very likely that this process resulted in a language shift.

How comes you are so sure that the members of the "East-Scandinavian" cluster already spoke German in the Nordic Bronze Age? Because of the common features between Germanic and Uralic languages?

Thanks for clarifying.
It is very probable that originally all different populations spoke different languages. During the time the Indo-European dialects spread to Northern Europe, there must have already been several local languages, possibly from several language families (distant “macrogroups” like WHG, EHG, and EEF at least spoke originally different language families). In some regions the older languages might have prevailed, in some regions the newcomer languages replaced them. There might have been several IE dialects which have not survived to the historical era. We must recognize the mosaic of ancient linguistic diversity and not to stare only at the languages which have survived until today.

Even if all these Scandinavian IBD clusters mainly continue the CWC ancestry, there are several options: (1) they might have represented the same IE language, (2) or different IE sister languages, (3) or some of them had preserved the earlier local language, (4) or some of them represented a language which spread from the outside only later. Based on genetic results, there is no method which could help us to determine which answer is true, because languages can spread without major genetic turnover.

Language shift is always a possibility, when two populations admix, but it is also possible without clear genetic admixture. Cultural contacts and endogamy are enough to enable an infiltration of a new language to the region, and how it fares after that is a matter of chance and luck. But the stronger the genetic influence, the more probable it is that the newcomer language replaces the earlier language.

Therefore, it is well possible that a new language spread with the East Scandinavian ancestry. The problem is that we have no certainty about which language was spoken by those East Scandinavians and which language by those South Scandinavians. But as the East Scandinavian ancestry spread to Norway toward 1600 BCE and to Denmark toward 1400 BCE, these are already associated with the Scandinavian Bronze Culture. During this era the Germanic lineage already appears to have been in Southern Scandinavia (widely spoken: including Den, SNor, SSwe), but it was not necessarily the only language present there. But as the expansion of the East Scandinavian ancestry is the last possible expansion there which could have spread the Germanic language, it perhaps did just that.

The Celtic influence to Germanic began during the last centuries of the 2nd millennium BCE at least in Southern Sweden (John Koch 2020), and the Paleo-Germanic influence to Saami and Finnic began around the same time, when these branches arrived in the coastal regions of Finland and Estonia respectively, where the Scandinavian Bronze Culture was already present. Therefore, it would be very difficult to claim that during this time Germanic was not yet in Scandinavia. But how early exactly it was there and where it arrived from, that we cannot say at the moment.

[Anglesqueville]

Whatever the possible questions, it will always remain an unavoidable fact. There is not the slightest trace of a non-Germanic Indo-European language in Scandinavian toponymy. In particular, Scandinavian hydronymy covers all periods of Germanic phylogeny, up to and including the oldest. For this see the work of Thorsten Andersson, Eva Nyman and Svante Strandberg.

edit: I mean in peninsular Scandinavian toponymy.

[Kaltmeister]

Therefore, it is well possible that a new language spread with the East Scandinavian ancestry. [...]
During this era the Germanic lineage already appears to have been in Southern Scandinavia (widely spoken: including Den, SNor, SSwe), but it was not necessarily the only language present there. But as the expansion of the East Scandinavian ancestry is the last possible expansion there which could have spread the Germanic language, it perhaps did just that.

Thanks for your detailed answer. Well, I have read the actual study a third time now, and this your argument appears to be quite convincing. The general direction of expansion is north to south, at least until the end of the migration period, when the Danes start heading north. But that point in time would be too late for an initiation of the Germanic language from south to north. 2000 years ago the runestones tell us that NW-Germanic was spoken all over Scandinavia, and at about the same time the Wielbark Goths with East-Scandinavian genes speak (East)-Germanic.

 "During the Late Iron Age, Northwest Germanic was spoken by both Southern, Eastern and Northern Scandinavians, as demonstrated by runic inscriptions from across Scandinavia, despite persistent genetic boundaries between these populations."

So it makes sense to assume that the earliest East-Scandinavians, when they first appear 4000 years ago, already speak an early version of Germanic.

[Quint]

No Q-L804 and N-L550 has been found so far before the Iron Age in Scandinavia. The appearance of any of these haplogroups, which are fairly common now, could be associated with a new linguistic group and language shift.

The more easterly L22 branch of I1 also seems to be rare or absent in Bronze Age Scandinavia at the locations investigated. Might be one expanation for my skepticism.

I think I had confused their "Middle/Late Neolithic" for "Middle/Late Bronze Age" so it's correct that the East Scandinavian Cluster probably appeared earlier. 

But it also looks to me like there were multiple distinct lineages - each with individual founder effects - involved in these westward migrations, well into to the Iron Age.

[Jaska]

No Q-L804 and N-L550 has been found so far before the Iron Age in Scandinavia. The appearance of any of these haplogroups, which are fairly common now, could be associated with a new linguistic group and language shift.

The more easterly L22 branch of I1 also seems to be rare or absent in Bronze Age Scandinavia at the locations investigated. Might be one expanation for my skepticism.

That Q is interesting. Apparently it must have been there early, because seems that it cannot have come from anywhere else. Q-L804 is dated to 5550 BCE in Discover. Its father was Q-CTS11969 (13000 BCE).
EDIT: One Mesolithic Onega Q-man is declared as Q-L804 in FTDNA Discover. Other Q-men represent different lineages. So it apparently came from the east, after all.

After Q-BY1771 (1100 BCE) it already splits to the Swedish Q-A14043 and the Norwegian Q-JN14. Perhaps these people were very marginal (rarity is supported by mutations occurring very, very seldom in this lineage) or lived in the northern inland from where we do not have so many samples. 

N-L550 appears in Estonia only during the latest Bronze Age. Only easternmost Sweden and Gotland seem to have both more frequency in this lineage and archaeologically visible contacts to the east. Perhaps after this there were no longer expansions within Scandinavia from the east to the west.

[Ebizur]

No Q-L804 and N-L550 has been found so far before the Iron Age in Scandinavia. The appearance of any of these haplogroups, which are fairly common now, could be associated with a new linguistic group and language shift.

The more easterly L22 branch of I1 also seems to be rare or absent in Bronze Age Scandinavia at the locations investigated. Might be one expanation for my skepticism.

That Q is interesting. Apparently it must have been there early, because seems that it cannot have come from anywhere else. Q-L804 is dated to 5550 BCE in Discover. Its father was Q-CTS11969 (13000 BCE), which apparently came to Scandinavia from the west, as this lineage is seen in Greenland and America but not in Siberia or Russia.

Q-L804 is the nearest known outgroup to Amerindian Q-M3 (TMRCA 12,833 [95% CI 14,797 - 11,129] ybp according to FTDNA). The MRCA of Northern European Q-L804 plus Amerindian Q-M3 is Q-CTS11969 (TMRCA 14,951 [95% CI 17,196 - 12,997] ybp according to FTDNA). It is most likely that both Q-M3 and Q-L804 descend from a "proto-Amerindian" population; note that the nearest known outgroup of Q-CTS11969 is the second major Amerindian clade of Y-DNA, Q-Z780 (TMRCA 13,527 [95% CI 15,699 - 11,654] ybp according to FTDNA), an early member of which is the Anzick-1 boy associated with artifacts of the Clovis culture in the American state of Montana, and the MRCA of Q-CTS11969 plus Q-Z780 is Q-CTS3814 (TMRCA 15,527 [95% CI 17,835 - 13,517] ybp according to FTDNA).

Some archaeological specimens of hunter-gatherers from European Russia have been assigned to Q-L804; cf. Yuzhnyy 33, Sakhtish 185, and Berendeyevo 1 on the current phylogenetic tree at FTDNA Discover.

[Rodoorn]

Was in LBA, the NBA cultural horizon already speaking a from of proto-Germanic? So unto the Elbe Havel and Lüneburg group?

[Jaska]

Rodoorn:

Was in LBA, the NBA cultural horizon already speaking a from of proto-Germanic? So unto the Elbe Havel and Lüneburg group?

It seems that the Germanic lineage was present within the Scandinavian Bronze Culture ("Nordic" seems to me too tied to the modern Nordic languages). But we cannot claim that it was the only language within that cultural sphere, or that there were no Para-Germanic languages in there or in some other regions.

Here I pick again this part from the study of McColl et al (Supplementary notes 2-7):
"S6.7.4 Norway
As discussed in Supplementary Note S6.2.2 and shown in Figure S6.2.2.1A, from the Bronze Age the expansions of Eastern Scandinavians had a large impact on the population structure of Norway. Despite only a few % of local Bronze Age Norwegian ancestry being present in Iron Age in Norway, we see the majority of Norwegian individuals from the Bronze Age, Iron Age and Viking Period clustering within the deep 0_1_6 Corded Ware (North) sub-cluster. This appears to result from some admixed late Bronze Age individuals within this cluster who are modelled with ~50% local Bronze Age ancestry, and who themselves model 50% of the Iron Age Ancestry (Figure S6.2.2.1A). The remaining 50% is Eastern Scandinavian BA ancestry, suggesting multiple waves or constant migration from the east to the west by the Iron Age. From the Iron Age onwards, there seems to be genetic continuity through the Viking period. Unlike further south in Scandinavia, the Vikings in Norway appear to descend from the local Iron Age individuals."

So, already toward 1600 BCE the first admixture occurred, leaving the West Scandinavian population in Southern Norway as a 50-50 mix of West and East Scandinavian ancestry. And in later phases still more admixture events with East Scandinavian ancestry carriers occurred. Could this distinctly Norwegian ancestry represent a correlate to an extraordinary development pointed out by Ante Aikio?
https://www.academia.edu/51152551/How_di...e_Iron_Age

First, I must clarify that the vowel changes toward Late Proto-Saami occurred ca. 100-200 CE, and they allow us to judge which loanwords were necessarily borrowed into Late Proto-Saami. The origin of the LPSa vowel combinations (first syllable--second syllable):

1. *ā-ē < *ä-a
2. *ea-ē < *e-a
3. *ie-e̮ < *ä-i, *e-i
4. *ā-ō < *ä-o
5. *ea-ō < *e-o
6. *ā-e̮ = must be secondary: appeared only after the vowel changes.
7. *ea-e̮ = must be secondary: appeared only after the vowel changes.
8. *ie-ē = must be secondary: appeared only after the vowel changes.
9. *ie-ō = must be secondary: appeared only after the vowel changes.

So, the last four vowel combinations cannot come from any Middle Proto-Saami vowel combinations, but they must always represent later borrowings into (or innovations in) Late Proto-Saami (or later stages). Now, Aikio shows intriguing cases in which these secondary Saami vowel combinations appear in Germanic loanwords together with phonological features, which are more archaic than expected in “normal” Proto-Scandinavian loanwords. Such features include:

1. Preserved *ē instead of Northwest-Germanic *ā
2. Preserved *en instead of Common Germanic *in
3. Preserved rounded velar nasal+stop *ŋwgw

These features seem to require a branching off from already around Late Proto-Germanic (although the first feature could represent East Germanic branch, but the others could not). Even more strange is an innovation, which is not shared with any known Germanic language – this might be true Para-Germanic sound changes:

4. *Cj > *Cć (or *Cč) [C = any consonant]; this even seems to precede Sievers’s Law in Germanic, so it must be early. (There are also many “normal” loanwords showing *Cj in Saami from “normal” Proto-Scandinavian *Cj.)
 
The Saami placename of Veggefjorden in the coast of Northern Norway was borrowed from this language: Vávžavuotna < LPSa *vāvće̮ ← Para-Germanic/Nordic *wagća- < PG *wagja-. Therefore, this language should be associated with the population in the west coast of Norway. Only later, 500–800 AD, this coastal language would have been replaced by the Dǫnsk tunga (Old Norse koine, according to Östen Dahl), spreading from Southern Scandinavia.

[Rodoorn]

Rodoorn:

Was in LBA, the NBA cultural horizon already speaking a from of proto-Germanic? So unto the Elbe Havel and Lüneburg group?

It seems that the Germanic lineage was present within the Scandinavian Bronze Culture ("Nordic" seems to me too tied to the modern Nordic languages). But we cannot claim that it was the only language within that cultural sphere, or that there were no Para-Germanic languages in there or in some other regions.

Why can't we claim that? What withholds us that with a kind of NBA cultural expansion the language wasn't expanded also? Is it total coincidence that the Elbe-Havel group usually seen as the ancestry of the Suebi, with the Semnones tribe at it's core (at least when we have to believe Tacitus in this respect). Why we must have such a restrain? What is the need and necessity of such a restrain.

[Jaska]

Rodoorn:

Was in LBA, the NBA cultural horizon already speaking a from of proto-Germanic? So unto the Elbe Havel and Lüneburg group?

It seems that the Germanic lineage was present within the Scandinavian Bronze Culture ("Nordic" seems to me too tied to the modern Nordic languages). But we cannot claim that it was the only language within that cultural sphere, or that there were no Para-Germanic languages in there or in some other regions.

Why can't we claim that? What withholds us that with a kind of NBA cultural expansion the language wasn't expanded also? Is it total coincidence that the Elbe-Havel group usually seen as the ancestry of the Suebi, with the Semnones tribe at it's core (at least when we have to believe Tacitus in this respect). Why we must have such a restrain? What is the need and necessity of such a restrain.

Well, naturally you can claim whatever you want to claim. But claims are futile when there is no way to verify or falsify them - then it is better to remain agnostic. Language still cannot be seen from cultural or genetic similarity or continuity, and it never will be. We should only make claims about things for which we have supporting or dismissive linguistic evidence.