Finns with Mongoloid features?
David Ladley
someone told me that a certain percentage of Finns have slight but
distinctly Mongoloid facial features. I've seen a few pictures that seem to
back that up, at least the eyes. Though most Finns I've seen in photographs
look pretty much like other northern European peoples, (tall, fair skin,
fair hair, high noses) sometimes their eyes will remind me a little bit of
peoples farther east...
About what percentage of Finns show these slight Mongoloid features? Do
they tend to live in certain areas of Finland?
David Ladley
lad...@middlebury.edu
Jarmo Niemi
>
>About what percentage of Finns show these slight Mongoloid features? Do
>they tend to live in certain areas of Finland?
>
are opening here, due to historical reasons Finns do not
at all like speculation about their presumed Mongoloid roots...
What would the "Mongoloid features" be ? The "Mongoloid fold",
a skin fold in the eye, is not observed in Finns. Hair color
varies from blonde to dark brown. No Finns have yellow skin.
And what, if any, would be the point in detecting these
features in Finns? There are better ways to trace the ancestry
of peoples nowadays.
--
Jarmo Niemi, jar...@utu.fi, http://www.utu.fi/~jarnie/
"Rommel, you old fox, I_read_your_book_!"
-Patton
Erik A. Mattila
is the point.' Anything that I may write following your caveate is pure
entertainment.
I have a good friend, Jamul Wright, who is a member of the Hammawi band of
the Ajumawi Tribe from Northeastern California. At one point in Jamul's
life, he moved to the state of Missouri to stay with a relative, for a
year. While he was residing there, he was required to obtain a Missouri
driver's license. When he applied, a racial disclaimer was requred, and
Jamul had three choices. 1) Caucasian, 2) Negro, and 3) Mongoloid. Since
none of these corresponded with his sef-conception, Jamul returned to the
end of the line, and eventually it was his turn to ask what he shoud do.
The clerk explained to him that if he is not Causacian, and not Negro, he
must check the box that said "Mongoloid."
Jamul thought this was very funny. He showed me his Missouri Drivers
License, and sure enough, he is a Mongoloid.
On the other hand I remember sitting at the back of the Finnish Hall in
Berkeley, CA, as a child, and seeing that most of the people there had very
high cheekbones. Ha, ha, ha. But what's the use of conjecture? The
history of race is being entirely re-written with the tools modern
technology. Why don't we say that many Asians exhibit Fingaloid
characteristics, eh?
Cheers,
Erik Mattila
Phillip Helbig
"David Ladley" <lad...@middlebury.edu> writes:
> I've never been to Finland, and have met few Finnish people in my time, but
> someone told me that a certain percentage of Finns have slight but
> distinctly Mongoloid facial features.
It is well-known that the Finnish people (like the Hungarians) migrated
from Asia to Finland in relatively recent times. Yes, there does seem
to be a statistical difference between Finns and Scandinavians (and
there are also statistical differences between Danes and Swedes etc) and
it does appear to relate to the eyes, although it shows up in skin
colour is well, with the percentage of fair skin/whatever hair people to
blonde hair/dark (after a suntan) skin higher in Finland than, say,
Sweden. (Whether this has anything to do with an Asian heritage I don't
know.)
Of course, in Finland, Norway and Sweden there are also the Lapps (Sami)
who are much more Asian-looking, but that is more or less a different
matter.
Ari Joro
> This is an amusing topic, Jarmo.
> and not Negro, he must check the box that said "Mongoloid."
> Jamul thought this was very funny. He showed me his Missouri Drivers
> License, and sure enough, he is a Mongoloid.
> and seeing that most of the people there had very high cheekbones.
> characteristics, eh?
> > David Ladley (lad...@middlebury.edu) wrote:
> > >About what percentage of Finns show these slight Mongoloid features? Do
> > >they tend to live in certain areas of Finland?
> > a skin fold in the eye, is not observed in Finns. Hair color
> > varies from blonde to dark brown. No Finns have yellow skin.
Hard to find any:
http://www.rapal.fi/ari/ollila.jpg
http://www.rapal.fi/ari/lukio.jpg
but they are welcome:
http://www.rapal.fi/ari/candy.jpg
--
A.J.
Eugene Holman
> I've never been to Finland, and have met few Finnish people in my time, but
> someone told me that a certain percentage of Finns have slight but
> distinctly Mongoloid facial features. I've seen a few pictures that seem to
> back that up, at least the eyes. Though most Finns I've seen in photographs
> look pretty much like other northern European peoples, (tall, fair skin,
> fair hair, high noses) sometimes their eyes will remind me a little bit of
> peoples farther east...
>
> About what percentage of Finns show these slight Mongoloid features? Do
> they tend to live in certain areas of Finland?
>
What you've heard is essentially correct, but hardly surprising. The word
'Mongoloid' is not PC nowadays, let's use the term northern Eurasian.
The 'races' of mankind are not discrete, but rather clusterings along a
continuum. Reducing things to their essentials, eastern and northern
Finland are part of a continuum of human diversity that continues into
Russia and stretches across northern Eurasia to the Pacific. Moving
eastwards, from Finland and adjacent Karelia, one notices that cheekbones
gradually become higher, faces flatter and rounder, noses less prominent, hair
straighter with less blond and light brown, mor red, brown, and black,
skin color darker, dominant eye colors moving from gray and blue to dark
brown, eye shape becoming more almond shape, skulls rounder, body shapes
become first stouter and more short limbed, then thinner and more long
limbed.
Cutting Finland in half is a cultural line extending from Kokkola to
Hamina. To the west of this line we see people becoming gradually taller,
lighter in complexion and hair color, gray and blue eyes dominate, bodies
are lankier, with longer limbs and heavier trunks.
Geneticists tell us that if we take the Finnish population as a whole, 80
per cent of the genes are held in common with west Europeans, while 20 per
cent are held in common with the northern Eurasions that gradually blend
into traditionally Asian racial types as we go eastward.
Looked at from the standpoint of individuals, once again speaking in the
grossest of generalities, in the south-western and western-most part of
Finland the subracial type traditionally known as Nordic dominates.
Although most of the people living in this part of the country are
linguistically Finns, this is largely the result of recent (within the
past 5 generations) language shift from Swedish. In the eastern part of
the country the subracial type known as East Baltic dominates. This racial
type has a known substratum from further eastward, and their features tend
to be rounder, with higher cheeks and often a suggestion of almond shape
in the eyes. As to hair color and complexion, they tend to be as light as
the Nordics, with perhaps more 'mousy blond', reddish or reddish-brown
hair. In the north eastern and northernmost part of the country there is a
small Sami
(Lappish) population. Physically they tend to be more slightly built than
the Nordics or East-Balts, their hair tends to be much darker, and brown
eyes are more common among them than among the people to the south but
probably still a minority. Many Samis have pronouncedly almond shaped eyes
and high cheekbones. Once again, most people of predominantly Sami
ethnicity nowadays have Finnish as their native language, this being the
result of recent language shift which has also resulted in many people
whase grandparants might have been Samis now regarding themselves as
Finns.
All of this has to be taken with a grain of salt, because the three
strains have been intermixing for thousands of years, and they have, at
different times and to diffrent degrees, received admixtures from the
Baltic region, from Russia, from Western Europe,particularly Sweden and
northern Germany, from India (Gypsies), and during the past two
generations with more immigration, tourism, and living souvenirs thereof,
from just about everywhere on the planet.
It should also be mentioned in this connection that Finland took in abouty
1,000 Chinese and Vietnamese 'boat people' during the mid 1970s. Their
often Finnish-born and Finnish-raised offspring typically have Finnish as
their native language, and many of them have already reached the age of
maturity and started to have their own families. It is common for them to
marry Finns or other Finnish-speaking Asians.
For more detailed information consult L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza et al. *The
History and Geography of Human Genes*, Princeton University Press, 1994.
The genetic composition of what are called 'Finnic-speaking populations'
and their statistical genetic distances from neighboring populations are
discussed there in detail.
Regards,
Eugene Holman
Eugene Holman
> In article <01beb6dd$93ea8340$2acf...@scuttlebutt.middlebury.edu>,
> "David Ladley" <lad...@middlebury.edu> writes:
>
> > I've never been to Finland, and have met few Finnish people in my time, but
> > someone told me that a certain percentage of Finns have slight but
> > distinctly Mongoloid facial features.
>
> It is well-known that the Finnish people (like the Hungarians) migrated
> from Asia to Finland in relatively recent times.
This is totally incorrect.
What you claim holds true, with many qualifications, *only* for the set of
people who provided the nucleus for the Hungarians. They are known to have
settled in the former Roman of Pannonia, cutting the Romanians off from
their Romance-speaking linguistic relatives in what is now northern
Yugoslavia but then was Romance-speaking Dalmatia, at the end of the ninth
century A.D. Their language is a clear import from the east, although the
present set of people who regard themselves as Hungarians consists mostly
of groups genetically close to the neighboring Slavic, Romanian, and
Germanic populations with a noticeable admixture of Gypsy.
Finnish, on the other hand, derives from speech which spread to
north-eastern Europe - the present Belarussia, the Baltics, much of
north-western Russia, eastern and northern Scandinavia - much earlier and
which was used there long *before* the introduction of Indo-European
speech.
According to present research, the first wave of settlers actually derived
from Western Europe, and they followed the Norwegian coast as the
continental glacier was receeding more than 10,000 years ago. They
established a culture (Komsa) along the Arctic coast, and are the nucleus
of the people that became the Samis (Lapps). The Lapps show clear genetic
and linguistic links to the Uralic peoples of the rim of northern Eurasia,
such as the Komis, Maris, and Samoyeds, although the degree to which this
is a substratum as opposed to an adstratum is unclear (see
http://www.vn.fi/vn/um/finfo/english/saameng.html). In any case, the Samis,
who were hunters and gatherers, inhabited most of Finland when another
Uralic language, Baltic-Finnic, began to be introduced to Finland from what
are now Estonia and Ingermanland across the Gulf of Finland and the
Isthnmus of Karelia, respectively, starting some time around 2000 BC and
continuing in several waves.
At about the same time, Indo-European agriculturalists, probably speaking
an early form of Germanic with East Germanic (Gothic) features, were
starting to expand into the Finnish Åland Islands. They evidently
established a presence, but not necessarily permanent settlements, on the
offshore islands of Finland along the western and southern coast, and might
have had some settlements along the shores of continental Finland as well.
The country was large and the different groups, small in population, could
go about their business without interfering with one another. The Germanic
speakers practiced agriculture, the Baltic-Finnic speakers had recently
learned agriculture which they practiced along side the older hunting and
gathering, and the Lapps were dedicated hunters and gatherers.
It is out of these three demographic elements: Germanic-speaking
agriculturalists in the south-west, Baltic-Finnic neo-agriculturalists from
Estonia and Ingermanland speaking various dialects of Baltic-Finnic fanning
out and expanding northward, and the indigenous, nomadic Sami population,
sparsely represented all over the country, that the Finns arose, with the
Germanic-speakers providing the largest and the Sami-speakers providing the
smallest genetic input.
The languages spoken by these three peoples also interacted to form
Finnish, but here the dynamic of the interaction was different. The
Baltic-Finnic speech imported from Estonia and Ingermanland provided the
basic grammatical structures and the nucleus of the vocabulary. The
Germanic speech provided a phonological filter which gave Finnish a sound
structure quite similar to that of neighboring Gothic > Scandinavian, and
quite different from that of older Proto-Finnic or Sami. Sami contributed
virtually nothing in the way of linguistics, but the older Sami language
itself seems to have undergone radical restructuring as a result of contact
with 'Germanicized' proto-Finnic. Sami has given standard Finnish only a
handful of loanwords, but the Finnish dialects spoken in the northern part
of the country contain many loanwords from that source.
Subsequently there has been a population dynamic in Finland which, until
the middle of the last century, saw the three communities develop
relatively separately, with the proviso that Scandinavian > Swedish,
although a minority language, attracted speakers of the other two
languages. Finnish, the largest language, attracted speakers of the other
two languages by virtue of its utlity, while Sami has been constantly
yielding speakers to the larger language groups, so much so that it is only
spoken today by about 6,500 people.
So, even if the basic structures and vocabulary of Finnish evidently
derives from languages once spoken somewhere in northern Eurasia, it most
immediately derives from the Baltic-Finnic speech imported to Finland by
waves of settlers who began to enter the country approximately 4,000 years
ago, and which was subsequently modified by contact with the speech of
Germanic-speaking agriculturalists. As it spread through the territory of
Finland it was acquired by many Samis and some of the Germanic speakers,
and it underwent normal dialectal differentiation as populations speaking
it were united and separated by rivers, valleys, and other natural
phenomena.
The starting point for studying these problems is L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza et
al. *The History and Geography of Human Genes*, Princeton University Press,
1994. Lauri Hakulinen's *Suomen kielen rakenne ja kehitys* ['The Structure
and Development opf the Finnish Language'], 4th expanded ed. 1979 is the
standard source on the development of Finnish, while Seppo Koskinen (ed.)
*Suomen väestö* ['The population of Finland'], 1994, is the place to go for
information about the evolution of the people who today regard themselves
as Finns.
> Yes, there does seem
> to be a statistical difference between Finns and Scandinavians (and
> there are also statistical differences between Danes and Swedes etc) and
> it does appear to relate to the eyes, although it shows up in skin
> colour is well, with the percentage of fair skin/whatever hair people to
> blonde hair/dark (after a suntan) skin higher in Finland than, say,
> Sweden. (Whether this has anything to do with an Asian heritage I don't
> know.)
>
> Of course, in Finland, Norway and Sweden there are also the Lapps (Sami)
> who are much more Asian-looking, but that is more or less a different
> matter.
True, but the Sami (Lapps) and Finns have been intermarrying for millennia,
with a strong tendency on the part of Sami to assimilate into the Finns.
--
Regards,
Eugene Holman
HWM
> distinctly Mongoloid facial features.
And a Guru too! http://www.softavenue.fi/u/henry.w/kuru.htm
Cheers, | The conformity of purpose will be achieved |
HWM | through the mutual satisfaction of requirements.|
==> hen...@GNWmail.com & http://www.softavenue.fi/u/henry.w
Eugene Holman
> In article <01beb6dd$93ea8340$2acf...@scuttlebutt.middlebury.edu>,
> "David Ladley" <lad...@middlebury.edu> writes:
>
> > I've never been to Finland, and have met few Finnish people in my time, but
> > someone told me that a certain percentage of Finns have slight but
> > distinctly Mongoloid facial features.
>
> It is well-known that the Finnish people (like the Hungarians) migrated
> from Asia to Finland in relatively recent times.
[Reposted, with additions]
This is totally incorrect.
What you claim holds true, with many qualifications, *only* for the set of
people who provided the nucleus for the Hungarians. They are known to have
settled in the former Roman of Pannonia, cutting the Romanians off from
their Romance-speaking linguistic relatives in what is now northern
Yugoslavia but then was Romance-speaking Dalmatia, at the end of the ninth
century A.D. Their language is a clear import from the east, although the
present set of people who regard themselves as Hungarians consists mostly
of groups genetically close to the neighboring Slavic, Romanian, and
Germanic populations with a noticeable admixture of Gypsy.
Finnish, on the other hand, derives from speech which spread to
north-eastern Europe - the present Belarussia, the Baltics, much of
north-western Russia, eastern and northern Scandinavia - much earlier and
which was used there long *before* the introduction of Indo-European
speech.
According to present research, the first wave of evidently Uralic-speaking
The ethnogenesis of the Finns bears some parallels to the ethnogenesis of
the English. In both cases groups of people speaking related but distinct
languages entered an area already inhabited by a people speaking other
languages. Whether the languages of the inhabitants of the country were
related or not is a question that interests academics, but was hardly of
any interest to the people involved. The Proto-Sami of the people
inhabiting Finland was just another foreign language as far as the various
speakers of Late Proto-Germanic - Early Gothic and Baltic-Finnic were
concerned, just as the Latin and various Celtic lanuguages were also just
other languages from the standpoint of the invading Angles, Saxons, Jutes,
and Frisians.
In neither case was there some Ur-John Bull or Ur-Pekka Lehtinen who, one
fateful morn, said to his already existing English or Finnish people:
"Come! Let us migrate to that land across the sea!".
The difference is that in Finland the Germanic population seized the
population dynamic, but the Baltic-Finnic population seized the linguistic
dynamic. Germanic speakers abandoned their lanuage for Baltic-Finnic, with
the indigenous Samis being left to accommodate themselves to the new
situation however they chose. In England the Germanic population seized
both the population and the linguistic dynamics by slaughtering the Roman
colonists and marginalizing the indigenous Celts, although allowing them to
retain their languages and, eventually gradually assimilate into the newly
formed English ethnos which was essentially Germanic in both language and
ethnic history.
Phillip Helbig
hol...@elo.helsinki.fi (Eugene Holman) writes:
> > It is well-known that the Finnish people (like the Hungarians) migrated
> > from Asia to Finland in relatively recent times.
>
> Finnish, on the other hand, derives from speech which spread to
> north-eastern Europe - the present Belarussia, the Baltics, much of
> north-western Russia, eastern and northern Scandinavia - much earlier and
> which was used there long *before* the introduction of Indo-European
> speech.
Sorry, by `relatively recent' I meant more recent than the fact that the
ancestors of present-day Europeans came from Africa etc, i.e. not so
long ago that genetic and linguistic connections are no longer apparent;
that doesn't necessarily mean more recent than Indo-Europeans.
Alo Merilo
> In article <holman-ya02408000...@news.helsinki.fi>,
> hol...@elo.helsinki.fi (Eugene Holman) writes:
>
> > > It is well-known that the Finnish people (like the Hungarians) migrated
> > > from Asia to Finland in relatively recent times.
> >
> > Finnish, on the other hand, derives from speech which spread to
> > north-eastern Europe - the present Belarussia, the Baltics, much of
> > north-western Russia, eastern and northern Scandinavia - much earlier and
> > which was used there long *before* the introduction of Indo-European
> > speech.
>
> Sorry, by `relatively recent' I meant more recent than the fact that the
> ancestors of present-day Europeans came from Africa etc, i.e. not so
> long ago that genetic and linguistic connections are no longer apparent;
> that doesn't necessarily mean more recent than Indo-Europeans.
Genetic and linguistic connections are all nice and dandy, but one
ought not to assume that the two are the same. For example, the Finnish
language is related to Hungarian and Handi (spoken in Siberia), just
like English is related to Hindi and Nepali. The former does not
automatically mean that Finns have migrated to Europe from Siberia,
nor should one conclude from the latter that the Anglo-Saxons
originally came from the Himalayas.
Going back 1 generation each of us has two ancestors (mom, dad);
2 generations - 4 ancestors, 3 generations - 8 ancestors, etc.
However, going back already a millennium which is about 40 human
generations or so each one of us has an astronomical 2^40 - X
(X = coefficient of inbreeding) ancestors, and it is pretty naive
to assume that they all spoke the same language (or migrated
collectively from one place to another). Thus for example, while
it may make some sense to discuss where the Finnic languages
might have "come from", the question "where did the Finns come
from" can be answered only -- from all over the place. As far
as the genetic mixture ("what portion came from where") of the
ancestors is concerned, the Finns are most closely related (share
the closest mixture of ancestors) with the neighbouring peoples
like Estonians, Swedes and Latvians. It just so happens that the
language of modern Finns and Estonians originates from the
language spoken by one part while the language of Swedes or
Latvians was spoken by other parts of the their otherwise pretty
closely overlapping "mix of ancestors".
Best regards,
Alo Merilo
Panu Mäkinen
> Of course, in Finland, Norway and Sweden there are also the Lapps (Sami)
> who are much more Asian-looking,
Really? The only difference seems to be that the hair color is darker.
See the picture of the pupils of the Nuorgam/Njuorggán School in
Utsjoki/Ohcejohka http://www.utsjoki.fi/~vinha/img/nuorgama.jpg .
It's the northernmost School in the EU and most of its pupils are
Samis.
-pm
--
*** Where do you want to go today? ***
*** http://www.jyu.fi/~pamakine/yht/aikataulut.html ***
Alo Merilo
> The big question about the language and genetic inheritance among Finns
> are: why IE genetics and FU language?
"Indo-European" and "Finno-Ugric" are, strictly speaking, linguistic
terms only. Using the term "Indo-European" in the genetic sense
(Indo-European race?) only adds to the confusion. While one can
pretty well define what languages are IE, and which ones are FU, in
terms of genetics it is pretty fuzzy. Are Hindus, Bengalis and
Persians who speak IE also genetically IE?
> If there ever had been so large a
> group of these Goths Holman puts in Finland, the language would be IE
> (Gothic in this case). However, that is not the case. The IE inheritance
> can be much better explained by a long and gradual immigration of IE
> people (from Baltic countries and southern Scandinavia) who merged to
> the majority, who always spoke FU language.
I certainly buy your argument of gradual immigration. However,
"IE inheritance" is not the best way to put it. Something like
"ancestry/genetics shared with neighbouring European peoples"
would be a bit closer to the truth.
Best regards,
Alo Merilo
Captain
Eugene Holman wrote:
> The Lapps show clear genetic
> and linguistic links to the Uralic peoples of the rim of northern Eurasia,
> such as the Komis, Maris, and Samoyeds, although the degree to which this
> is a substratum as opposed to an adstratum is unclear (see
> http://www.vn.fi/vn/um/finfo/english/saameng.html). In any case, the Samis,
> who were hunters and gatherers, inhabited most of Finland when another
> Uralic language, Baltic-Finnic, began to be introduced to Finland from what
> are now Estonia and Ingermanland across the Gulf of Finland and the
> Isthnmus of Karelia, respectively, starting some time around 2000 BC and
> continuing in several waves.
The Lapps do not show genetic link to Uralic peoples in northern
Eurasia, or anywhere else. The Lapps and Samojeds are two cases that
don't seem to have close genetic links to any other peoples, Finno-Ugric
or anything else. They also are quite different from each others. This
has lead into suggestion Samojeds represent an isolated eastern pocket
of ancient European people, and Lapps represent a western one.
You have put earlier this claim that Estonia is the home of Baltic
Finnic people. As far as I know, neither linguistic nor archeologic data
support it. Finnish has about as many indoeuropean (including Germanic)
loans that do not appear in Estonian, as Estonian has that do not appear
in Finnish. No-one has showed yet, according to my knowledge, Finland
would have got a major immigrant wave from Estonia 2000 BC or later. The
wave that we GOT from there, was 2500 BC the battle axe (corded ware)
culture that gave Finnish the baltic loans, not germanic.
> At about the same time, Indo-European agriculturalists, probably speaking
> an early form of Germanic with East Germanic (Gothic) features, were
> starting to expand into the Finnish Åland Islands. They evidently
> established a presence, but not necessarily permanent settlements, on the
> offshore islands of Finland along the western and southern coast, and might
> have had some settlements along the shores of continental Finland as well.
Pure speculation. No proves of this anywhere (maybe Åland I don't know,
but not in Finnish coasts). However, this early Germanic population is
thought to have gone a language shift with the arrival of agriculture
and animal husbandry. They could as well have been Finno-Ugric speaking
for what we know.
> It is out of these three demographic elements: Germanic-speaking
> agriculturalists in the south-west, Baltic-Finnic neo-agriculturalists from
> Estonia and Ingermanland speaking various dialects of Baltic-Finnic fanning
> out and expanding northward, and the indigenous, nomadic Sami population,
> sparsely represented all over the country, that the Finns arose, with the
> Germanic-speakers providing the largest and the Sami-speakers providing the
> smallest genetic input.
Holman's own idea. The Germanic inheritance among Finns have most likely
grown very slowly, starting with bronze age contacts to southern
Scandinavia, and continuing ever since. This is backed up by the fact,
there is not a single settlement in Finland that would show Germanic
features, but what ever germanic people arrived in Finland, they always
merged to the majority. No Germanic wawes shown, nor initial germanic
inhabitants.
The common consensus is that Finns are descendants of people who
inhabited the land ever since the land was revealed under the ice.
> The difference is that in Finland the Germanic population seized the
> population dynamic, but the Baltic-Finnic population seized the linguistic
> dynamic.
The big question about the language and genetic inheritance among Finns
are: why IE genetics and FU language? If there ever had been so large a
group of these Goths Holman puts in Finland, the language would be IE
(Gothic in this case). However, that is not the case. The IE inheritance
can be much better explained by a long and gradual immigration of IE
people (from Baltic countries and southern Scandinavia) who merged to
the majority, who always spoke FU language.
Let me point here once more. There is no proves of this Gothic people
ever existed in Finland.
------------
Mika
David Ladley
Alo Merilo <am...@columbia.edu> wrote in article
<Pine.GSO.4.10.990615...@bonjour.cc.columbia.edu>...
> Thus for example, while
> it may make some sense to discuss where the Finnic languages
> might have "come from", the question "where did the Finns come
> from" can be answered only -- from all over the place.
That's about the most sensible statement I've encountered here. I read a
similar thing about Ireland once, and how it's very hard to pin down a
specific genotype that's specifically "Irish". There are people on that
island with hair and eyes and skin of every variation you can imagine. The
article concluded with the statement, similar to yours, that "basically
before a certain point, anyone who settled in Ireland and followed the
norms of Irish culture WAS Irish."
I'd say the same goes for just about any tribe or nation, including
Finland, and even some of the ones that harp endlessly on how "homogeneous"
they are, like Korea and Japan. Just substitute the name of the people for
"Ireland" in my quote above.
There seems to be a cycle I've observed by which distinct peoples form. I
came up with this myself -- I've read very little on anthropology, so if
this theory has major flaws, correct me, but be merciful :)
1. A number of families in a larger people realize that their language,
customs, and other aspects of culture differ appreciably from other members
of this large people.
2. Those who feel an affinity to this smaller group band together and
gradually lay down cultural norms. They develop an identity as a separate
people.
3. Their values and customs clash with those of the larger people which
spawned them, as well as with other neighboring peoples undergoing the same
process. They have a falling out, often a violent one, with the larger
people who claim sovreignty over them, as well as with other newly forming
peoples over territorial and resource issues.
4. They are either a) exterminated, b) reassimilated by force into the
larger people, or c) successful in establishing their own territorial
boundries and become a full-fledged independent tribe.
5. The tribe expands by receiving immigrants who have a liking for the
tribe's culture and/or by enveloping existing peoples in areas of
settlement, until it develops a solid pool of natural resources and a
thriving economic system.
6. Greedy for keeping the pool of natural and human resources intact, the
tribe eventually closes its doors to immigrants, and develops an us/them
mentality. After this point, one can only be born an insider to this tribe
-- one can never fully become "one of them".
7. Seeking a greater pool of natural resources for a growing population,
the tribe expands and conquers new territory, spilling out into larger and
larger areas of land and displacing, assimilating, or exterminating
indigenous peoples of that land.
8. Having spread its population over too wide an area, the tribe's number
of represented opinions and ideologies varies enormously (regionalism is
one example of this). The tribe's central identity wears thin, and the
cycle repeats at this point.
This cycle does not repeat infinitely, as this planet has very limited
resources, have and is already too full of people. Since the population
explosion and various technological revolutions began about a century ago,
I'd guess that this cycle has been halted in most cases, with various
peoples stuck at various points along it (e.g. the Kurds at #3, the
Mexicans at #5, the Japanese at #6, the Americans at #8).
Anyway, the point is that in just about every people's history, there was
an era in which any newcomers who were willing to adapt to the
topographical circumstances, adhere to the cultural norms, and contribute
to the well being of the tribe were welcome to join it. In the case of
Europe, this meant that just about every people, before closing itself off,
received newcomers from a broad gamut of outward physical characteristics.
Dave Ladley
Jorma Kypp|
> >they tend to live in certain areas of Finland?
> are opening here, due to historical reasons Finns do not
> at all like speculation about their presumed Mongoloid roots...
It depends. Some can see it also as positive. What is the
problem to have also Mongol roots?
> What would the "Mongoloid features" be ? The "Mongoloid fold",
> a skin fold in the eye, is not observed in Finns. Hair color
> varies from blonde to dark brown. No Finns have yellow skin.
Actually many foreigners have told me what DL said. Especially
eyes and cheeks give a mongol impression even though Finns
are more blond than eg. Germans what comes to hair and skin.
Jorma Kyppö
Laukaa
Finland
Ari Joro
> David Ladley wrote:
> > distinctly Mongoloid facial features.
> And a Guru too! http://www.softavenue.fi/u/henry.w/kuru.htm
Maybe Jari Litmanen fits
http://www.mantta.fi/~tekaek/Jarikuvat/Jari4.html
--
A.J.
Hiski Haapoja
: About what percentage of Finns show these slight Mongoloid features? Do
: they tend to live in certain areas of Finland?
I'd start looking in the Oulu province, genetically found more "Asiatic"
than the South or most of Lapland (excluding the Samis). In the East
(former Kymi province and North Karelia) you see a lot of round-faced,
narrow-eyed people too. Really blonde, blue-eyed people are often
Swedish-speakers from the coast.
Inner Finland, particularly Häme, is quite racially mixed due to the
Karelian refugees of WW II. In some Häme municipalities one third of
the postwar population were Karelians.
Hiski
# Mustasukkaisuus on sairaus, joka pitaa parantaa ryhmaseksilla. # (Sanctius)
Jarmo Niemi
>Jarmo Niemi (jar...@utu.fi) wrote:
>> David Ladley (lad...@middlebury.edu) wrote:
>> >About what percentage of Finns show these slight Mongoloid features? Do
>> >they tend to live in certain areas of Finland?
>> Well, first I have to say that it is a real can of worms you
>> are opening here, due to historical reasons Finns do not
>> at all like speculation about their presumed Mongoloid roots...
>It depends. Some can see it also as positive. What is the
>problem to have also Mongol roots?
History, Jorma. It isn't so terribly long ago that women were
sterilized for having "distinct Mongol features" in Sweden.
Neither is it terribly long ago that Western anthropologists
casually dismissed Finns as a primitive tribe incapable of
civilization, because of these high cheek bones and a strange
language...
--
Jarmo Niemi jar...@utu.fi http://www.utu.fi/~jarnie/
Erik A. Mattila
look thinner, or to hide your high cheekbones?
By the way, next time you're meditating, how about coming up with some
wining Lottery numbers. I could use a break.
Erik Mattila
HWM wrote:
> David Ladley wrote:
>
> > distinctly Mongoloid facial features.
>
> And a Guru too! http://www.softavenue.fi/u/henry.w/kuru.htm
>
Eugene Holman
> Eugene Holman wrote:
> > The Lapps show clear genetic
> > and linguistic links to the Uralic peoples of the rim of northern Eurasia,
> > such as the Komis, Maris, and Samoyeds, although the degree to which this
> > is a substratum as opposed to an adstratum is unclear (see
> > http://www.vn.fi/vn/um/finfo/english/saameng.html). In any case, the Samis,
> > who were hunters and gatherers, inhabited most of Finland when another
> > Uralic language, Baltic-Finnic, began to be introduced to Finland from what
> > are now Estonia and Ingermanland across the Gulf of Finland and the
> > Isthnmus of Karelia, respectively, starting some time around 2000 BC and
> > continuing in several waves.
>
> The Lapps do not show genetic link to Uralic peoples in northern
> Eurasia, or anywhere else.
See Cavalli-Sforza et al. *The History and Geography of Human Genes*, 1994,
pg. 227, Finnish, Norwegian, and Swedish Lapps show clear genetic links to
the Samoyed peoples of the Arctic rim. They are, on the other hand,
genetically quite distinct from the other peoples of northern and central
Europe (page 268 ff.). The historical study of the Lappish languages also
reveals the existence of a period of intense contact with the speakers of
Samoyed and Ob-Ugric languages:
Source: G. M. Kert, "Saamskij jazyk" [The Sami Language], in *Osnovy
finno-ugorskogo jazykoznanija. Pribaltijsko-finnskie, saamskie i mordovskie
jazyki* [Fundamentals of Finno-Ugric Linguistics. The Baltic-Finnic, Sami,
and Mordvin languages]. Moscow, 1975.
[BEGIN QUOTE]
The most ancient stratum of the Sami lexicon is of substrate origin, and in
the opinion of T. Itkonen [MSFUo XCVIII] it comprises 30% of the entire
lexical stock. This stratum not only lacks cognates to any Finno-Ugric
languages. but it lacks them to Samoyed languages as well. Arguments in
favor of this being the oldest substratum are presented by the fact that
these words express concepts of essential importance to the Samis.
We present some of these substrat words in the Kilden dialect: jemmn'
'earth', vuntas 'sand', lavvn' 'turf', n'årrg 'mouse', ve3 'snow'm pinggk
'wind', k'eddk 'stone',.... etc. These words are characteristic for all the
Sami dialects of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and the USSR.
There is no doubt that the bulk of the lexicon is of Finno-Ugric origin.
Nevertheless, Y. Toivonen calls attention to 50 words which have parallels
in at least one of the Samoyed languages or in one of the Ugric languages
(Khanty, mansi) [Y. H. Toivonen. Zum Problem des Protolappischen,
Sitzungsberichte der finnischen Akademis der Wissenschaften, 1949.
Helsinki, 1950], which he regards as having been borrowed by the Samis from
the languages in question, since they are not found in the other
Finno-Ugric languages. T. Itkonen presents 11 more lexical correspondences
between the Saami and Khanty languages [T. Itkonen MSFou, XCVIII].
Obviously, the existence of SDami-Ob-Ugric-Samoyed parallels serves to
demonstrate that the Samis could have had direct contact with the Ob-Ugric
and Somoyed peoples.
In the process of their historical development, the Sami come into contact
with the baltic-Finns, from whom they also acquired Finno-Ugric lexicon.
The most recent additions to the Sami languages came in the form of loans
from other non-related languages. One of the oldest layers if loans is the
Baltic loans which the Sami language acquired through the intermediary of
Proto-Baltic-Finnic. Sami dialects have up to twenty Baltic loans [Kalima
Itäm; Itkonen Suomi 101.]
After the Baltic loans the Sami lanuage acquired loans from teh Germanic
languages. The Germanic influcne on Sami was considerable. In Sami dialects
about 3,000 Germanic loans are to be found, of them the most ancient ones
occur in all Sami dialects. [Itkonen, Suomin116. On the Germanic loans in
Baltic-Finnic and Sami se: G. M. Kert Prib. jazn, vyp., 5, pg. 66 - 69
and also R. A. Niskanen. The Germanic Loans in the Baltic-Finnic and Sami
Lanuages, A Bibliography. - Prib, jazn vyp, pg. 70 - 95.]
With the establishment of state boundaries borrowings from the Scandinavian
(Swedish and Norwegian), Finnish, and Russian languages began to exert a
massive influence on sami. On the recent Finnish loanwords into the Sami
dialect of Jukkasjärvi see the monograph by N. Hansegård [N. Hansegård.
Recent Finnish loanwords in Jukkasjärvi Lappish. Uppsala, 1967].
[END QUOTE]
> The Lapps and Samojeds are two cases that
> don't seem to have close genetic links to any other peoples, Finno-Ugric
> or anything else. They also are quite different from each others. This
> has lead into suggestion Samojeds represent an isolated eastern pocket
> of ancient European people, and Lapps represent a western one.
The distant but clear genetic links that they *do* show support this viewpoint.
>
> You have put earlier this claim that Estonia is the home of Baltic
> Finnic people. As far as I know, neither linguistic nor archeologic data
> support it. Finnish has about as many indoeuropean (including Germanic)
> loans that do not appear in Estonian, as Estonian has that do not appear
> in Finnish. No-one has showed yet, according to my knowledge, Finland
> would have got a major immigrant wave from Estonia 2000 BC or later. The
> wave that we GOT from there, was 2500 BC the battle axe (corded ware)
> culture that gave Finnish the baltic loans, not germanic.
All the Finnish pre-history I have ever studied supports the view of
Baltic-Finnic peoples who were in a transitional stage between hunting and
gathering, entering a Finland which already had a small Sami population and
some type of Germanic settlement on the Åland Islands and offshore Islands,
this being a continuation of Germanic settlements on the western shores of
Estonian offshore islands.
Finland, Estonia, Ingermanland and northern Latvia, down to the Daugava
River, have to be looked at as a single area. Around the year 2000 BC area
has three populations and three ways of life:
1. Continental Finland, inhabited by a small, hunting and Sami-speaking
population
2. The Åland Islands and offshore Finnish and Estonian islands, inhabited
by a Germanic speaking agriculturalist population originating in Gotland.
The language spoken by this group gradually evolves, both by its own
dynamics and as a result of continued input from Gotland and central
Sweden, from Eastern
Proto-Germanic to 'Gothic' to Old Gutnish, to Old Norse, to Old Swedish.
3. Estonia major, including Ingermanland, the Neva River Valley, and
northern Latvia, but not necessarily the western shores of offshore islands
facing the baltic Sea. The Baltic-Finnic dialects spoken by this population
were
heavily balticized in conjunction with the interaction with their southern
neighbors, who had settled in formerly Finno-Ugric populated area, which
resulted in their learning agriculture from the neighboring Balts to the
south. To the east of this speech communty were other, now extinct
Finno-Ugric languages such as Merya and Muromon which served as a link
between Baltic-Finnic and Mordvin. To the west, at least on the western
shores of Saaremaa and
Hiiumaa, there are Germanic speaking agriculturalist communities which also
derive from Gotland and Central Sweden.
€ A slow but steady stream of migrants from Estonia Major begins to enter
Finland over the Gulf of Finland and the isthmus of Karelia. The Lapps in
southern Finland are assimilated or pushed back by this migrants, those
that retain their Lappish identity have their language profoundly influence
by that of the newcomers.
€ The Germanic settlements in the extreme hwest also begin to expand in both
Finland and Estonia. The Germanic speakers teach agricultural and other
techniques, but introduce the Baltic-Finnic speakers to such concepts as
land ownership, taxation, and tribute. They form an elite that regards
itself as superior to, and rules over, the Baltic-Finnic speakers with which
it comes in contact. In the long term they are unable to maintain their
high-status position and many of them eventually abandon their language and
are absorbed into the Baltic-Finnic speakers (cf. the parallel history of
the Normans in Medieval England).
€ The 'Gothicness' of at least some of the oldest layer of these speakers
is demonstrated by the presence in Finnish and Estonian of loanwords of
Germanic origin with specific Gothic features. The Finnish words miekka
'(short) sword', mitta 'measure', ja 'and', leipä 'bread', and äiti 'mother
(of a legitimized child)', are well-known examples of Germanic loanwords
with unquestionable East Germanic ('Gothic') traits. Ancient chronicles
such as the Gotlandssaga also tell of some of Gotlands surplus population
having left
the island and colonized lands to the north east.
>
> > At about the same time, Indo-European agriculturalists, probably speaking
> > an early form of Germanic with East Germanic (Gothic) features, were
> > starting to expand into the Finnish Åland Islands. They evidently
> > established a presence, but not necessarily permanent settlements, on the
> > offshore islands of Finland along the western and southern coast, and might
> > have had some settlements along the shores of continental Finland as well.
>
> Pure speculation. No proves of this anywhere (maybe Åland I don't know,
> but not in Finnish coasts). However, this early Germanic population is
> thought to have gone a language shift with the arrival of agriculture
> and animal husbandry. They could as well have been Finno-Ugric speaking
> for what we know.
>
>
> > It is out of these three demographic elements: Germanic-speaking
> > agriculturalists in the south-west, Baltic-Finnic neo-agriculturalists from
> > Estonia and Ingermanland speaking various dialects of Baltic-Finnic fanning
> > out and expanding northward, and the indigenous, nomadic Sami population,
> > sparsely represented all over the country, that the Finns arose, with the
> > Germanic-speakers providing the largest and the Sami-speakers providing the
> > smallest genetic input.
>
> Holman's own idea. The Germanic inheritance among Finns have most likely
> grown very slowly, starting with bronze age contacts to southern
> Scandinavia, and continuing ever since. This is backed up by the fact,
> there is not a single settlement in Finland that would show Germanic
> features,
How can a settlement show 'Germanic' features?
> but what ever germanic people arrived in Finland, they always
> merged to the majority. No Germanic wawes shown, nor initial germanic
> inhabitants.
The Åland Islands were a focal point for Germanic colonization, which
eventually took root along the offshore islands on both sides of the Gulf
of Finland down to the Neva River valley. This became part of the regular
route the Goths and then the Vikings were taking to Novgorod and points
further south during the first millennium AD.
It is most extraordinary that the oldest layer of Germanic loanwors in
Finnish is concentrated in four areas:
€ administration and domination: hallita 'rule', mitata ' measure' ,vero
'tax', kuningas 'king', rengas 'ring', ruhtinas 'prince', herttua 'duke',
kihla 'hostage, pawn', miekka 'sword', valta 'power', murha 'murder'
€ everyday words: ja 'and', ainut 'only', sama 'same', äiti 'mother [of a
legitimazed child]'
€ agriculture and related technologies: kana 'chicken', lammas 'sheep',
tanhua 'enclosure', patja 'mattress', rauta 'iron', neula 'needle'
€ synonyms for already existing concepts: äiti 'mother', cf. emä, emo,
neula 'needle', cf. äimä, kari 'offshore island', cf. luoto, aalto 'wave',
cf. laine, leipä 'bread', cf. kyrsä.
This is the type of situation we expect after a situation in which two
cultures at different levels of development have been interacting. The
minority, more prestigious culture (patja, leipä, kana) establishes itself
at the top of
the heap and produces the structures needed to maintain its position
(kuningas, miekka, vero, mitta, tanhua, kihla, valta). Unable to maintain
its position in the longer term, it gradually intermaaries with the lower
culture (äiti), becomes bilingual (ja, ainut, sama; valta, kari, aalto),
and assimilates into it leaving behind loanwords attesting to its former
privileged status, more developed culture, and intermarriage with
accompanying bilingualism.
I claim that many different kinds of evidence speak in favor of a scenario
of the above type having taken place in pre-historic Finland between the
period between about 2000 BC and 1000 AD.
> The common consensus is that Finns are descendants of people who
> inhabited the land ever since the land was revealed under the ice.
>
>
> > The difference is that in Finland the Germanic population seized the
> > population dynamic, but the Baltic-Finnic population seized the linguistic
> > dynamic.
>
> The big question about the language and genetic inheritance among Finns
> are: why IE genetics and FU language? If there ever had been so large a
> group of these Goths Holman puts in Finland, the language would be IE
> (Gothic in this case).
I haven't claimed that there were a lot of 'Goths'. I have claimed that
what Goths there were succeeded in establishing themselves in a position of
unchallenged power, much like the Normans in Medieval England or the
Afrikaaners in South Africa. The Normans never amounted to over 10% of the
population of Medieval England, but they had absolute and total control
over the cities, administration, church, and other mechanisms of power.
They eventually assimilated ethnically and linguistically into the English
nation, leaving the language with thousands of Medieval French loanwords,
primarily for the levers of power (royal, elite, loyal), cultural
innovations (chair, robe, vest, fashion), everyday words (air, change,
receive, please), and $5 synonyms for already existing concepts (famished,
cf. hungry, fatigued, cf. tired, large, cf. great, adroit, cf. nimble,
replenish, cf. refill, desire, cf. want). Their Gothic identity was also
diluted by a constant stream of Germanic colonists from the
scandinavicized, formerly Gothic territories such as Gotland.
> However, that is not the case. The IE inheritance
> can be much better explained by a long and gradual immigration of IE
> people (from Baltic countries and southern Scandinavia) who merged to
> the majority, who always spoke FU language.
>
> Let me point here once more. There is no proves of this Gothic people
> ever existed in Finland.
€ Why is the Finnish word for 'mother' äiti, cf. Gothic aithei?
€ Why does Finnish have so many Germanic loanwords that have known parallels
in Gothic, but not in other Germanic languages (äiti 'mother', ja 'and',
lammas '"ovis", not "agnus"')?
€ Why did proto-Finnic go through a 'Sprachbund filter' which resulted in
its losing all of the sounds it formerly had not held in common with
Gothic?
€ Why is it that Finnish, and Estonian to a lesser extent, have an
inventory of sounds essentially the same as that found in the North and
East Germanic languages, while otherwise close relatives such as Sami and
Mordvin have much more typically Finno-Ugric sound inventories?
--
Regards,
Eugene Holman
Jarmo Ryyti
>
> In article <01beb6dd$93ea8340$2acf...@scuttlebutt.middlebury.edu>,
> "David Ladley" <lad...@middlebury.edu> writes:
> > I've never been to Finland, and have met few Finnish people in my time, but
> > someone told me that a certain percentage of Finns have slight but
> > distinctly Mongoloid facial features.
>
> from Asia to Finland in relatively recent times.
It is a fairy-tale even if it is nothing wrong if you are from Asia,
rather the opposite in ourdays.
Unfortunatelly the FU-people are from Europe,natives of Northern-Europe.
> Yes, there does seem
> to be a statistical difference between Finns and Scandinavians
FU-Scandinavians are natives whereas Germanic Scandinavians are
immigrants in Scandinavian
Peninsula.
> (and
> there are also statistical differences between Danes and Swedes etc) and
> it does appear to relate to the eyes, although it shows up in skin
> colour is well, with the percentage of fair skin/whatever hair people to
> blonde hair/dark (after a suntan) skin higher in Finland than, say,
> Sweden. (Whether this has anything to do with an Asian heritage I don't
> know.)
> Of course, in Finland, Norway and Sweden there are also the Lapps (Sami)
> who are much more Asian-looking, but that is more or less a different
> matter.
jami
Jarmo Ryyti
> In article <01beb6dd$93ea8340$2acf...@scuttlebutt.middlebury.edu>, "David
> Ladley" <lad...@middlebury.edu> wrote:
cut shorter...
> > About what percentage of Finns show these slight Mongoloid features? Do
> > they tend to live in certain areas of Finland?
> What you've heard is essentially correct, but hardly surprising. The word
> 'Mongoloid' is not PC nowadays, let's use the term northern Eurasian.
Correct. "Mongoloid" genes are a result of mixture and co-existence of
Samis and what we today
call Finns...
cut shorter
> Geneticists tell us that if we take the Finnish population as a whole, 80
> per cent of the genes are held in common with west Europeans, while 20 per
> cent are held in common with the northern Eurasions that gradually blend
> into traditionally Asian racial types as we go eastward.
Sami-Finnish co-existence is the reason.
> Looked at from the standpoint of individuals, once again speaking in the
> grossest of generalities, in the south-western and western-most part of
> Finland the subracial type traditionally known as Nordic dominates.
> Although most of the people living in this part of the country are
> linguistically Finns, this is largely the result of recent (within the
> past 5 generations) language shift from Swedish.
Sorry Eugen. The language shift does not cause racial differences:-)
You admit directly that the reason is Swedish IMMIGRATION to Finland.
The Swedish speaking Finlanders claim not being immigrants.
In Scandinavia 5th generation immigrants are IMMIGRANTS officially even
today:
Look at:
http://www.kveeniland.com
So my proposal -let us become more Scandinavian in our thinking because
our cultures
(Finnish and Scandinavian) should become closer -so we understand better
each others and cooperation is smoothier.
> In the eastern part of
> In the north eastern and northernmost part of the country there is a
> small Sami (Lappish) population.
> Physically they tend to be more slightly built than
> the Nordics or East-Balts, their hair tends to be much darker, and brown
> eyes are more common among them than among the people to the south but
> probably still a minority. Many Samis have pronouncedly almond shaped eyes
> and high cheekbones. Once again, most people of predominantly Sami
> ethnicity nowadays have Finnish as their native language, this being the
> result of recent language shift which has also resulted in many people
> whase grandparants might have been Samis now regarding themselves as
> Finns.
>
> All of this has to be taken with a grain of salt, because the three
> strains have been intermixing for thousands of years, and they have, at
> different times and to diffrent degrees, received admixtures from the
> Baltic region, from Russia, from Western Europe,particularly Sweden
jami
Jarmo Ryyti
> Erik A. Mattila wrote:
> > This is an amusing topic, Jarmo.
> > The clerk explained to him that if he is not Causacian,
> > and not Negro, he must check the box that said "Mongoloid."
> > Jamul thought this was very funny. He showed me his Missouri Drivers
> > License, and sure enough, he is a Mongoloid.
> > back of the Finnish Hall in Berkeley, CA, as a child,
> > and seeing that most of the people there had very high cheekbones.
> > Why don't we say that many Asians exhibit Fingaloid
> > characteristics, eh?
It is because of Sami blood. And the Samis are no Asians but FU natives
like the Finns of Northern-Europe.
> > Jarmo Niemi wrote:
> > > David Ladley (lad...@middlebury.edu) wrote:
> > > >About what percentage of Finns show these slight Mongoloid features? Do
> > > >they tend to live in certain areas of Finland?
> > > What would the "Mongoloid features" be ? The "Mongoloid fold",
> > > a skin fold in the eye, is not observed in Finns. Hair color
> > > varies from blonde to dark brown. No Finns have yellow skin.
>
Jari Lehtinen
>someone told me that a certain percentage of Finns have slight but
>back that up, at least the eyes. Though most Finns I've seen in photographs
>look pretty much like other northern European peoples, (tall, fair skin,
>fair hair, high noses) sometimes their eyes will remind me a little bit of
>peoples farther east...
GREAT! Another butthole who has read racist Swedish schoolbooks of 1930s!
To disqualify Nurmi wasn't enough - Aryan science from Uppsala lives long
after the dust of that ugly decade has settled.
>I've never been to Finland, and have met few Finnish people in my time
That may be forgiven.
Tekno-Kekko
Lahti
--
-----------------------------------------------------------
Paetkaa Saunalahden Serverista niin nopeasti kuin paasette!
-----------------------------------------------------------
Alexander R.
> rather the opposite in ourdays.
> Unfortunatelly the FU-people are from Europe,natives of Northern-Europe.
> FU-Scandinavians are natives whereas Germanic Scandinavians are
> immigrants in Scandinavian Peninsula.
Jarmo, why are you repeating this thesis when you know it is not true? No
scientist in Finland woul'd agree.
Eugene Holman
> Eugene Holman wrote:
>
>
> > Looked at from the standpoint of individuals, once again speaking in the
> > grossest of generalities, in the south-western and western-most part of
> > Finland the subracial type traditionally known as Nordic dominates.
> > Although most of the people living in this part of the country are
> > linguistically Finns, this is largely the result of recent (within the
> > past 5 generations) language shift from Swedish.
>
> Sorry Eugen. The language shift does not cause racial differences:-)
That is not what I stated, Jarmo.
> You admit directly that the reason is Swedish IMMIGRATION to Finland.
> The Swedish speaking Finlanders claim not being immigrants.
> In Scandinavia 5th generation immigrants are IMMIGRANTS officially even
> today:
> Look at:
> http://www.kveeniland.com
That is not what I was claiming. Swedish-speaking communities in Swedish
Ostrobothnia and south-western Finland have existed since the Middle Ages,
with some settlements in Åland and offshore islands dating back several
millennia.
My claim was that recently, specifically since Finnish was able to
consolidate itself as a polyfunctional language capable of providing all
the expresive resources needed by a modern, urbanized and industrialized
society, this being around 1870, there has been a steady and noticeable
language shift to Finnish among the part of the population of Finland which
has traditionally spoken Swedish.
Please don't read words between the lines that aren't there. Pyrin
ilmaisemaan ajatukseni selkeästi ja yksiselitteisesti. Mikäli et ymmärrä
niitä, kysy minulta, äläkä rupea sepittelemään sontaa.
>
> So my proposal -let us become more Scandinavian in our thinking because
> our cultures
> (Finnish and Scandinavian) should become closer -so we understand better
> each others and cooperation is smoothier.
>
> > In the eastern part of
> > In the north eastern and northernmost part of the country there is a
> > small Sami (Lappish) population.
>
> > Physically they tend to be more slightly built than
> > the Nordics or East-Balts, their hair tends to be much darker, and brown
> > eyes are more common among them than among the people to the south but
> > probably still a minority. Many Samis have pronouncedly almond shaped eyes
> > and high cheekbones. Once again, most people of predominantly Sami
> > ethnicity nowadays have Finnish as their native language, this being the
> > result of recent language shift which has also resulted in many people
> > whase grandparants might have been Samis now regarding themselves as
> > Finns.
> >
> > All of this has to be taken with a grain of salt, because the three
> > strains have been intermixing for thousands of years, and they have, at
> > different times and to diffrent degrees, received admixtures from the
> > Baltic region, from Russia, from Western Europe,particularly Sweden
>
> jami
--
Regards,
Eugene Holman
HWM
>
> Come on, Henry. Did you squeeze that photo from the sides to make you
> look thinner, or to hide your high cheekbones?
Actually I weigh 105 theseadiase and the photo was taken when I was 82,
but no, I do not squeeze photos.
> By the way, next time you're meditating, how about coming up with some
> wining Lottery numbers. I could use a break.
I could use any bloody win - not only did the damned datsun drop the
exhaust, it is also rotten in the bottom, and if the clutch won't bust
it'll be the drive axles... 276 000km... for sale cheap...
Captain
Eugene Holman wrote:
>
> In article <3766D466...@sci.fi>, Captain <Ca...@sci.fi> wrote:
>
> > Eugene Holman wrote:
> > > The Lapps show clear genetic
> > > and linguistic links to the Uralic peoples of the rim of northern Eurasia,
> > > such as the Komis, Maris, and Samoyeds, although the degree to which this
> > > is a substratum as opposed to an adstratum is unclear (see
> >
> > The Lapps do not show genetic link to Uralic peoples in northern
> > Eurasia, or anywhere else.
>
> See Cavalli-Sforza et al. *The History and Geography of Human Genes*, 1994,
> pg. 227, Finnish, Norwegian, and Swedish Lapps show clear genetic links to
> the Samoyed peoples of the Arctic rim. They are, on the other hand,
> genetically quite distinct from the other peoples of northern and central
> Europe (page 268 ff.)
Hmmm. I don't have the book. But I have a reference to Cavalli-Sforza,
which says entirely different thing. Perhaps you can check if this is in
the book or not: Cavalli-Sforza map which shows genetic distances
between different peoples. The smaller the number, the closer relatives
the peoples are genetically.
Sami - Samoyed 555 (Totally different. Very distant peoples
genetically)
Sami - Germans 167
Sami - Volga area FU 149
Sami - Swedes 142
Sami - Finns 126 (Finns are the closest people to Sami genetically, if
still not very close)
Finns - Samoyed 496
Finns - Volga area FU 71
Finns - Germans 50
Finns - Swedes 41 (Swedes are the closest people to Finns genetically).
If those readings are from Cavalli-Sforza, as I believe they are, it
totally contradicts Sami-Samoyed close relations.
And the same time it shows Finns are the closest people related to Sami.
> > You have put earlier this claim that Estonia is the home of Baltic
> > Finnic people. As far as I know, neither linguistic nor archeologic data
> > support it. Finnish has about as many indoeuropean (including Germanic)
> > loans that do not appear in Estonian, as Estonian has that do not appear
> > in Finnish. No-one has showed yet, according to my knowledge, Finland
> > would have got a major immigrant wave from Estonia 2000 BC or later. The
> > wave that we GOT from there, was 2500 BC the battle axe (corded ware)
> > culture that gave Finnish the baltic loans, not germanic.
>
> All the Finnish pre-history I have ever studied supports the view of
> Baltic-Finnic peoples who were in a transitional stage between hunting and
> gathering, entering a Finland which already had a small Sami population and
> some type of Germanic settlement on the Åland Islands and offshore Islands,
> this being a continuation of Germanic settlements on the western shores of
> Estonian offshore islands.
This was the old idea, about 10-20 years ago, which based almost solely
on linguistic science. The archaeolocical new material as well as new
linguistic theories and genetic studies have changed this radically.
Archaeolocical continuation from Suomusjärvi culture 8000 BC all the way
to the comb ceramic culture (and beyond that) suggests the same people
have formed the major body of inhabitants in Finland. The people of comb
ceramic culture are commonly accepted being FU speaking people, and the
latest point when FU language was present in Finland, although it most
likely was also the language of Suomusjärvi culture. This people are the
ancestors of both Sami and Finns, making them proto-Samic-Finnic people.
The separation of Samic and Finnic languages is supposed to happen no
later than 1500 BC.
In previous posts you agreed that Sami and Finns were the same people.
When I asked you how do you explain agreeing this, and still make
Estonia and Ingermanland the home of Baltic-Finnic people 2000 BC, you
didn’t answer. Well, at least I don't get it.
>
> Finland, Estonia, Ingermanland and northern Latvia, down to the Daugava
> River, have to be looked at as a single area. Around the year 2000 BC area
> has three populations and three ways of life:
> 1. Continental Finland, inhabited by a small, hunting and Sami-speaking
> population
And, by the way, Finland is no more considered being almost empty.
> 3. Estonia major, including Ingermanland, the Neva River Valley, and
> northern Latvia, but not necessarily the western shores of offshore islands
> facing the baltic Sea. The Baltic-Finnic dialects spoken by this population
> were
> heavily balticized in conjunction with the interaction with their southern
> neighbors, who had settled in formerly Finno-Ugric populated area, which
> resulted in their learning agriculture from the neighboring Balts to the
> south. To the east of this speech communty were other, now extinct
> Finno-Ugric languages such as Merya and Muromon which served as a link
> between Baltic-Finnic and Mordvin. To the west, at least on the western
> shores of Saaremaa and
> Hiiumaa, there are Germanic speaking agriculturalist communities which also
> derive from Gotland and Central Sweden.
There never was a break with connection fron FU-people in Finland and
the FU-people of Volga-Kama area. Trade routes existed more than 4000
BC, and brought eg ceramics, flint stone, sembra pine and later bronze
items all the way from Ural into Finland. That is, into Finland, not to
Estonia by FU people who lived next to Estonia. What comes to
agriculture, that arrived Finland with the corded ware culture (battle
axe culture). They definately practiced it, and they definately came all
the way to Finland.
>
> € A slow but steady stream of migrants from Estonia Major begins to enter
> Finland over the Gulf of Finland and the isthmus of Karelia. The Lapps in
> southern Finland are assimilated or pushed back by this migrants, those
> that retain their Lappish identity have their language profoundly influence
> by that of the newcomers.
There is no need of migrant flow from Estonia into Finland to explain
FU-people in Finland. If Finland had got FU speaking immigrants, it
obviously would have got them already 2000 years earlier with the
arrival of the comb ceramic culture. But, this too is without proof.
Certainly there has been immigrants, but no evidence of waves which
profoundly changed the population in the country after 2000 BC, from
Estonia or Volga-Kama regions. (Interestingly, just today I read from
“Muinaistutkija”, earliest comb ceramics in Finland appear even before
it did in Volga-Kama region, and might even be an independent
invention).
As I put in the earlier posts, it has been shown one cannot assume the
daughter languages in the top of the language family tree separated
last, and the languages closest to trunk separated first from the common
proto language; the previously mentioned lateral theory, and
reconstruction attempts of proto Uralic which greatly reminds Finnish.
There is even no proof there ever was a common proto language (Ago
Künnap in his article “Radical renewing in Uralistics” refers to Wiik
and Pusztay) but instead a group of languages that interacted with each
others, and other outside languages, making them thus more or less
different at intervals. As a result of this, looking only linguistic
data will get you nowhere but lost. If you intend to say where Finns
originated, you need to look a wider picture.
> > Holman's own idea. The Germanic inheritance among Finns have most likely
> > grown very slowly, starting with bronze age contacts to southern
> > Scandinavia, and continuing ever since. This is backed up by the fact,
> > there is not a single settlement in Finland that would show Germanic
> > features,
>
> How can a settlement show 'Germanic' features?
>
> > but what ever germanic people arrived in Finland, they always
> > merged to the majority. No Germanic wawes shown, nor initial germanic
> > inhabitants.
>
> The Åland Islands were a focal point for Germanic colonization, which
> eventually took root along the offshore islands on both sides of the Gulf
> of Finland down to the Neva River valley. This became part of the regular
> route the Goths and then the Vikings were taking to Novgorod and points
> further south during the first millennium AD.
With the archaeologic founds, of course. So far you are the only one I
have ever seen proposing that there were Germanic (Gothic as you put it)
settlements in coastal Finland. I have always said, there were germanic
immigrants in Finland, and trade with southern Scandinavia, especially
during Bronze Age was lively, but still no one stretches Germanic/Gothic
influence like you do, in Finland. Or, if they do, there’s no evidence
found yet. Another thing is, as you put, that Gothic kings ruled over
Finns and taxed them...I’ll get to that in a moment.
Åland is not coastal Finland, and Åland alone cannot influence all
Finland to change it’s languaage from some sort of proto-Uralic into
Baltic-Finnic...I’ll get to that later, too)
> This is the type of situation we expect after a situation in which two
> cultures at different levels of development have been interacting. The
> minority, more prestigious culture (patja, leipä, kana) establishes itself
> at the top of
> the heap and produces the structures needed to maintain its position
> (kuningas, miekka, vero, mitta, tanhua, kihla, valta). Unable to maintain
> its position in the longer term, it gradually intermaaries with the lower
> culture (äiti), becomes bilingual (ja, ainut, sama; valta, kari, aalto),
> and assimilates into it leaving behind loanwords attesting to its former
> privileged status, more developed culture, and intermarriage with
> accompanying bilingualism.
>
> I claim that many different kinds of evidence speak in favor of a scenario
> of the above type having taken place in pre-historic Finland between the
> period between about 2000 BC and 1000 AD.
And I’ll show you are erraneous (or at least that your deduction has
alternatives) and blinded by being linguist and dismissing archaeologic
data.
First of all, the earliest Germanic loan words in Finnish are quite
generally dated to 1500 BC (eg. Jorma Koivulehto). Archaelogicwise this
fits nicely with the Bronze Age culture in southern Scandinavia, that
did deal a lot of trade with Finland. The Germanic loan words continue
to be adopted up to about 500 AD, and many of them do deal with
innovations related to metal like rengas (ring), miekka (sword), rauta
(iron), ruoste (rust). These definately don’t date from 2000 BC, where
you put the Gothic influence into Finnish.
You probably are familiar with that most indoeuropeanists agree that the
Germanic sub-branch of Indo-European shows many features which could
best be explained with a substratum. Wiik made it a topic in here
Finland, that this language giving the subratum would be Uralic,
although that has previously been suggested by several linguists. Well,
I’m not getting in that more, but mentioning that there are a great deal
of linguists who believe Finno-Ugric languages were widely spoken in
northern Europe south from Ice Age ice sheet.
Norbert Strade has a nice article (1998 I think) “An Interdisciplinary
Approach to the Role of Uralic Hunters and Gatherers in the Ethnohistory
of the Early Germanic Area”. In there he suggests that southern
Scandinavia was first FU speaking, then Proto-IE and IE were adopted
from Middle Europe, which developped into proto-Germanic and eventually
Germanic.
See my point? FU-people of Finland didn’t have to move from areas
neighbouring Ukraine, or from Baltic peninsula to have contacts with IE,
or proto-IE or proto-German. Since archaeologic evidence shows
continuity in Finland, no evidence of mass immigrations, and
proto-Samic-Finnic people lived in Scandinavia, that makes it the most
likeliest site of interaction! If Ertebølle culture was FU, like Strade
suggests (among with those people who think FU-was spoken was more
widely spoken than it is today) it coexisted long with Funnel Beaker
culture, and got influence from Linear Ware Culture, which is believed
to be IE.
This makes at least as plausible theory, as your suggestion of Gothic
kings ruling in Finland. Since in southern Scandinavia (and elsewhere in
Europe) the coexistance might really have taken place with Uralic and IE
people. And even if no southern Scandinavian peoples ever changed it's
language from FU to Germanic, the proto-Samic-Finnic people lived there
millenias right next to these proto-Germanic people!
“Recently J. Koivulehto presented a strong case of a whole new set of
Uralic etymologies with IE parallels, centred around Baltic Finnic,
which show that there had been language contact between the North
European Uralic language area and speakers of Indo-European much earlier
(than Battle Axe culture 2400 BC).”
Here’s a snip from Strade’s article:
-------------------- SNIP ----------------------------
Phase I - Coexistence:
Agriculture extends to the southern rim of the Ertebølle area and the
diffusion of some agricultural techniques begins. The language of the
agricultural area (Linear Band Ware) is Proto-IE. The Ertebølle area
population speaks Proto-Uralic or a closely related language. Time
frame: about 5.000 - 4.000 BCE. During this period the earliest loan
contacts between the two languages/language families happen.
Phase II - Change of subsistence economy:
The people in the Ertebølle area switch to agriculture/animal husbandry
as the main subsistence. Contacts with the agricultural area become very
close, possibly including immigration of small groups of
agriculturalists. Agriculture spreads to the Limes Norrlandicus, and the
resulting material culture is of the Funnel Beaker type. The IE language
of the agriculturalists achieves high-status and is dominating. Time
frame for the beginning of the agricultural period 4.200 - 4.000 BCE.
Phase III - Language coexistence in the same area / bilingualism
A long phase of linguistic coexistence and bilingualism is necessary in
order to explain the strong substratum influence on IE by Uralic. It is
difficult to give a time estimate - I propose a period of about 1.000
years. At the end of this period the Uralic substratum language has
disappeared and the IE language has developed into Early Proto-Germanic.
Time frame about 4.000 - 3.000 BCE. The Pre-Germanic loans happen during
this period.
Phase IV - Stabilization of the Germanic linguistic and cultural area
Begins with the start of the Middle Neolithic period (Middle Neolithic
Funnel Beaker) and continues with the emergence of theSingle
Grave/Battle Axe culture (Corded Ware). It ends with the Late Neolithic
culture. Time frame: 2.800 - 1.800 BCE. - By the end of this period
Proto-Germanic is fully developed.
Phase V - Germanic expansion
During Bronze Age, the Germanic area begins to expand north and east (to
the south only much later, during Iron Age). Time frame 1.800 - 500 BCE.
- Strong Germanic influence on Proto-Sami-Finnic, which results in the
emergence of Baltic Finnic as a separate group. The expansion of
Germanic leads to the development of sub-branches like
Proto-Scandinavian and Proto-East Germanic.
------------------ END OF SNIP ------------------------------
> I haven't claimed that there were a lot of 'Goths'. I have claimed that
> what Goths there were succeeded in establishing themselves in a position of
> unchallenged power, much like the Normans in Medieval England or the
> Afrikaaners in South Africa. The Normans never amounted to over 10% of the
> population of Medieval England, but they had absolute and total control
> over the cities, administration, church, and other mechanisms of power.
Ago Künnap:
“As far as Estonia and Finland are concerned it may mean that even if
numerous Indo-European agriculturalists did arrive here once, in our
severe climate their fairly primitive land cultivation obviously
developed so slowly at the outset that the subsistence of our ancestral
fishers-hunters was more prestigeous and so the agriculturalists adopted
Estonian and Finnish as more prestigeous languages.”
In short: You assume a lot. Germanic/Gothic loan words even if dealing
with swords and taxes, may well represent new cultural innovations.
Swords definately, since loan words related to metals do originate from
Germanic languages, with whom the Finns traded. Åland definately
couldn’t be responsible of development of Baltic-Finnic, and the idea of
Gothic kings ruling over Finns in Finland is all speculation.
---------------
Mika
lus...@rocketmail.com
POI...@PUPPU.fi wrote:
> GREAT! Another butthole who has read racist Swedish schoolbooks of
1930s! To disqualify Nurmi wasn't enough - Aryan science from Uppsala
lives long after the dust of that ugly decade has settled.
Well, the fact that Finns were put in a different, non-Aryan racial
category had the beneficial effect that there were less bona fide
Fascists/Nazis in Finland than in Sweden - and Swedish speakers were
hugely overrepresented among them.
(I“m not of course referring to the _fascistoid_ ultra-national
movements in Finland - there we did quite well.)
But it“s an amusing fact that the more long-faced Europeans and their
North American descendants often find the Finns“ faces..."elflike" was
the word used by John Updike.
I“ve also met a gentleman from India who was most disappointed that
Finns didn“t look at all like Mongols, not even in Lapland:-)
Lustig
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
Eugene Holman
<ravens...@altavista.net> wrote:
Jarmo is essentially correct, even if he is trying to use these facts to
draw some strange conclusions.
The first evidence of human habitation in Scandinavia after the last ice
age is the Komsa culture, the bearers of which arrived from Western Europe
along the coast of Norway, eventually settling in what is now northern
Norway along the Arctic shore. Many prehistorians consider this people,
about which little is known, to have formed the nucleus of the Proto-Sami
people.
Later waves of inhabitation entered the country from the south east,
bringing with them the so-called comb-ceramic culture which was widespread
in what is now northwestern Russia. One or several of these waves is
assumed to have brought with it Uralic speech, and the people concerned are
assumed to have assimilated with the Proto-Samis already living in Finland.
These people lived a nomadic life by hunting and gathering. Their
'territory' comprised all of 'continental' Finland, as well as a
substantial part of northern and central Norway and Sweden. They form the
nucleus of the Sami ethnic group, and they were once widespread, but
numerically few, throughout northern Fenno-Scandia. Swedish place names
containing the element 'lapp' are found as far south as northern part of
Götaland. This is eviently the population Jarmo has in mind.
Germanic is a highly divergent form of Indo-European. The massive phonetic
changes and grammatical restructurings that differentiate Germanic from
other Indo-European dialects are consistent with the hypothesis that it is
the result of Indo-European being rapidly imposed on a population which
spoke a non-Indo-European language. Although it cannot be demonstrated that
this substratum population was Uralic, it is noteworthy that the features
differentiating Germanic from other Indo-European - increasing the phonetic
distance between obstruents, simplifying the number of places of
articulation, replacing a mobile, pitch accent with a fixed, word or root
initial dynamic one, radical simplification of the tense system to a simple
past/non-past opposition, radical simplification of the case system,
radical reduction in morphological irregularity - are all consistent with
the type of changes we would expect as a result of interference from a
language having Uralic-like structural features. Germanic has a substratum
of words such as sea, ship, keel, boat, sail, rudder, mast, storm, steer,
north, shield, knight, thing, etc. which are not found in other
Indo-European languages and appear to be of non-Indo-European origin. It
has not been possible to connect these items with any known Uralic
language, but such a connection is not beyond the realm of possibility.
In any case, Indo-European in the form of a speech form undergoing the
transition from late Indo-European to early Germanic and thus beginning to
show Germanic features entered a Scandinavia, the northern part of which
was sparsely inhabited by Uralic-speaking hunters and gatherers starting
some 4500 years ago, from the south. The language of this first wave of
early Germanic speakers made contact with Baltic-Finnic, perhaps on the
western shores of Saaremaa and Hiiumaa. Significant is the fact that the
words borrowed into Baltic-Finnic at the time show recognizable Germanic
features in their morphological structure and semantics, but not fully in
their phonology, cf. the Finnish words pelto 'field', kallio 'boulder',
kana 'chicken' with initial p- and k- for proto-Germanic *f- < PIE *p- and
*x- < PIE *k-, and -o for proto-Germanic *-a < PIE *-o.
The bearers of this earliest Germanic language were a people in the final
stages of the transition from an economy based on hunting and gathering to
one based on agriculture, as, indeed, is suggested by the three early
Germanic loans discussed above. With more efficient food production and a
culture which recognized land ownership, the first Germanic speakers were
able to sustain a greater population density, forcing the Uralic-speaking
hunters and gatherers to abandon their traditional lands and content
themselves with the land less suitable for agriculture further to the north
and east.
So, in this sense the Uralic-speaking population of Scandinavia represents
an Urbevölkerung, while the Scandinavians are the descendants of a
Zusatzbevölkerung or Einwanderer, immigrants - immigrants who entered the
area almost 5000 years ago.
Seeking answers to these questions is interesting, but Jarmo and everybody
else should always remember that we're all a bunch of foreigners if we go
back far enough.
--
Regards,
Eugene Holman
Jarmo Ryyti
> Eugene Holman wrote:
> > In article <3766D466...@sci.fi>, Captain <Ca...@sci.fi> wrote:
> > > Eugene Holman wrote:
> > > > The Lapps show clear genetic
> > > > and linguistic links to the Uralic peoples of the rim of northern Eurasia,
Not all!
> > > > such as the Komis, Maris, and Samoyeds, although the degree to which this
> > > > is a substratum as opposed to an adstratum is unclear (see
> > > The Lapps do not show genetic link to Uralic peoples in northern
> > > Eurasia, or anywhere else.
> > See Cavalli-Sforza et al. *The History and Geography of Human Genes*, 1994,
> > pg. 227, Finnish, Norwegian, and Swedish Lapps show clear genetic links to
> > the Samoyed peoples of the Arctic rim. They are, on the other hand,
> > genetically quite distinct from the other peoples of northern and central
> > Europe (page 268 ff.)
> Hmmm. I don't have the book. But I have a reference to Cavalli-Sforza,
> which says entirely different thing. Perhaps you can check if this is in
> the book or not: Cavalli-Sforza map which shows genetic distances
> between different peoples. The smaller the number, the closer relatives
> the peoples are genetically.
Luigi Cavalli-Sforza is a good source. An American source in addition if
it is important.
Milton Nunez is an other good source. Also an American. Russian Pavel
Dolukhanov as well.
Turku group: Marja-Liisa Savontaus,Pa"ivi Lahermo and Pertti Sistonen
Helsinki and Antti Sajantila
Munich: have done research on population genetics among the
Samis,Karelians and Finns.
The Karelians are closer to the Samis than the Finns,but Germanic
Scandinavians have nothing
to do with FU-Sami-Scandinavians genetically.
When I see a Germanic Scandinavian I see an immigrant (invandrare) in my
eyes.
> Sami - Samoyed 555 (Totally different. Very distant peoples
> genetically)
> Sami - Germans 167
> Sami - Volga area FU 149
> Sami - Swedes 142
> Sami - Finns 126 (Finns are the closest people to Sami genetically, if
> still not very close)
Right. The Finns and Samis have lived together in the same region
thousands of years from White Sea
to West Sea (Athlantic) in North-West of Europe.
The high cheek-bones and "Asiatic look" among some Finns comes from the
Samis.
There is not Asia's Asian connection existing.
The FU-Samis are an ancient European race.
The Indo-Europeans have come from the South to FU-lands.
The IE people have hard to swallow the fact that FU-people are natives
in Scandinavia and North-East of
Europe. It is like in the Northern-America some were first and IE people
arrived later.
It is just a scientific fact-nothing political.
> Finns - Samoyed 496
> Finns - Volga area FU 71
> Finns - Germans 50
> Finns - Swedes 41 (Swedes are the closest people to Finns genetically).
As a result of Swedish immigration to Finland.
> If those readings are from Cavalli-Sforza, as I believe they are, it
> totally contradicts Sami-Samoyed close relations.
Right.
> And the same time it shows Finns are the closest people related to Sami.
right.
it is nice to be aboriginal for me:-)
> > 1. Continental Finland, inhabited by a small, hunting and Sami-speaking
> > population
>
> And, by the way, Finland is no more considered being almost empty.
Swedish colonists wrote the history in the typical colonial way:"the
land where we immigrated
was empty". Sounds familiar to all colonial way to write history in
Africa,Asia,in the Americas
and in Northern-Europe.
cut shorter
> > heavily balticized in conjunction with the interaction with their southern
> > neighbors, who had settled in formerly Finno-Ugric populated area, which
> > resulted in their learning agriculture from the neighboring Balts to the
> > south.
In the old maps write about a little pocket called Samland where is now
Lithuania. Still in the first millennium there lived
FU-people.
> There never was a break with connection fron FU-people in Finland and
> the FU-people of Volga-Kama area. Trade routes existed more than 4000
> BC, and brought eg ceramics, flint stone, sembra pine and later bronze
> items all the way from Ural into Finland.
Swedish history writing dominates still Finland's history. Therefore
east-west trade routes and connections
between FU-people were put aside from the history writing of
Sweden-Finland. Such history writing
served the interests of the centre that is Stockholm. In real life
"vertical" connections were lively.
On the eastern side of Lake Onega the lands are full clearly Finnish
names of geographical places
like rivers, lakes,hills,lakes,villages etc. Only the bigger towns have
got Russian names afterwards.
Salo famous for Nokia in Finland exists in the eastern shore of Lake
Onega,too.
It is only written in Russian way "Sala" in ourdays. If you take a map
of the regions east from the Lake
Onega you need not to be a linguist to notice that it is full FU-names
around everywhere.
jami
Captain
I don't know. I'm not a linguists. Better men answer that.
If I should throw a guess, Finns were once considered to get the
know-how of ceramics through marrying wives from Volga-Kama-region.
Well, Väinämöinen, Ilmarinen and Lemminkäinen always were pretty though
guys for me. Why not Finns go to expeditions into Sweden and Danmark,
rob their women (and swords and tax them, too). Hence the children would
call their mothers "äiti" which is a Germanic loan, and fathers "isä"
which is Finno-Ugric.
> € Why does Finnish have so many Germanic loanwords that have known parallels
> in Gothic, but not in other Germanic languages (äiti 'mother', ja 'and',
> lammas '"ovis", not "agnus"')?
Obviously, through contacts.
> € Why did proto-Finnic go through a 'Sprachbund filter' which resulted in
> its losing all of the sounds it formerly had not held in common with
> Gothic?
>
> € Why is it that Finnish, and Estonian to a lesser extent, have an
> inventory of sounds essentially the same as that found in the North and
> East Germanic languages, while otherwise close relatives such as Sami and
> Mordvin have much more typically Finno-Ugric sound inventories?
>
Beats me totally. I always thought Finns and Sami never were a one
people (well, maybe they were VERY long time ago, more than the
inhabitation of Scandinavia) but two who had pretty similar languages
and who coexisted, rather than the traditional view Sami language
separated Finnish. To me it would make more sense Baltic-Finnics went
throught Germanization but Samis did not, if only Finns went through the
change of livelihood from hunter-gathering into agriculture when Sami
lived areas not too suitable for this. I also think Cavalli-Sforza
readings showing Sami and Finns genetic distance, gives a way too big
number if we regard they really were one people.
So, I would suggest Baltic-Finns were more eager to accept the Germanic
influence than Samis. When did this happen? If we can give any
credibility to linguistic time table, around 1500 BC - 500 BC. Samis
might have separated Finns much earlier though (if they indeed were once
one people).
------------
Mika
Captain
>
> In article <3766D466...@sci.fi>, Captain <Ca...@sci.fi> wrote:
>
> > Eugene Holman wrote:
> > > The Lapps show clear genetic
> > > and linguistic links to the Uralic peoples of the rim of northern Eurasia,
> > > such as the Komis, Maris, and Samoyeds, although the degree to which this
> > > is a substratum as opposed to an adstratum is unclear (see
> >
> > Eurasia, or anywhere else.
>
> See Cavalli-Sforza et al. *The History and Geography of Human Genes*, 1994,
> pg. 227, Finnish, Norwegian, and Swedish Lapps show clear genetic links to
> the Samoyed peoples of the Arctic rim. They are, on the other hand,
> genetically quite distinct from the other peoples of northern and central
Hmmm. I don't have the book. But I have a reference to Cavalli-Sforza,
which says entirely different thing. Perhaps you can check if this is in
the book or not: Cavalli-Sforza map which shows genetic distances
between different peoples. The smaller the number, the closer relatives
the peoples are genetically.
Sami - Samoyed 555 (Totally different. Very distant peoples
genetically)
Sami - Germans 167
Sami - Volga area FU 149
Sami - Swedes 142
Sami - Finns 126 (Finns are the closest people to Sami genetically, if
still not very close)
Finns - Samoyed 496
Finns - Volga area FU 71
Finns - Germans 50
Finns - Swedes 41 (Swedes are the closest people to Finns genetically).
If those readings are from Cavalli-Sforza, as I believe they are, it
totally contradicts Sami-Samoyed close relations.
And the same time it shows Finns are the closest people related to Sami.
> > You have put earlier this claim that Estonia is the home of Baltic
> > Finnic people. As far as I know, neither linguistic nor archeologic data
> > support it. Finnish has about as many indoeuropean (including Germanic)
> > loans that do not appear in Estonian, as Estonian has that do not appear
> > in Finnish. No-one has showed yet, according to my knowledge, Finland
> > would have got a major immigrant wave from Estonia 2000 BC or later. The
> > wave that we GOT from there, was 2500 BC the battle axe (corded ware)
> > culture that gave Finnish the baltic loans, not germanic.
>
> All the Finnish pre-history I have ever studied supports the view of
> Baltic-Finnic peoples who were in a transitional stage between hunting and
> gathering, entering a Finland which already had a small Sami population and
> some type of Germanic settlement on the Åland Islands and offshore Islands,
> this being a continuation of Germanic settlements on the western shores of
> Estonian offshore islands.
This was the old idea, about 10-20 years ago, which based almost solely
on linguistic science. The archaeolocical new material as well as new
linguistic theories and genetic studies have changed this radically.
Archaeolocical continuation from Suomusjärvi culture 8000 BC all the way
to the comb ceramic culture (and beyond that) suggests the same people
have formed the major body of inhabitants in Finland. The people of comb
ceramic culture are commonly accepted being FU speaking people, and the
latest point when FU language was present in Finland, although it most
likely was also the language of Suomusjärvi culture. This people are the
ancestors of both Sami and Finns, making them proto-Samic-Finnic people.
The separation of Samic and Finnic languages is supposed to happen no
later than 1500 BC.
In previous posts you agreed that Sami and Finns were the same people.
When I asked you how do you explain agreeing this, and still make
Estonia and Ingermanland the home of Baltic-Finnic people 2000 BC, you
didn’t answer. Well, at least I don't get it.
>
> Finland, Estonia, Ingermanland and northern Latvia, down to the Daugava
> River, have to be looked at as a single area. Around the year 2000 BC area
> has three populations and three ways of life:
> 1. Continental Finland, inhabited by a small, hunting and Sami-speaking
> population
And, by the way, Finland is no more considered being almost empty.
> 3. Estonia major, including Ingermanland, the Neva River Valley, and
> northern Latvia, but not necessarily the western shores of offshore islands
> facing the baltic Sea. The Baltic-Finnic dialects spoken by this population
> were
> heavily balticized in conjunction with the interaction with their southern
> neighbors, who had settled in formerly Finno-Ugric populated area, which
> resulted in their learning agriculture from the neighboring Balts to the
> south. To the east of this speech communty were other, now extinct
> Finno-Ugric languages such as Merya and Muromon which served as a link
> between Baltic-Finnic and Mordvin. To the west, at least on the western
> shores of Saaremaa and
> Hiiumaa, there are Germanic speaking agriculturalist communities which also
> derive from Gotland and Central Sweden.
There never was a break with connection fron FU-people in Finland and
the FU-people of Volga-Kama area. Trade routes existed more than 4000
BC, and brought eg ceramics, flint stone, sembra pine and later bronze
items all the way from Ural into Finland. That is, into Finland, not to
Estonia by FU people who lived next to Estonia. What comes to
agriculture, that arrived Finland with the corded ware culture (battle
axe culture). They definately practiced it, and they definately came all
the way to Finland.
>
> € A slow but steady stream of migrants from Estonia Major begins to enter
> Finland over the Gulf of Finland and the isthmus of Karelia. The Lapps in
> southern Finland are assimilated or pushed back by this migrants, those
> that retain their Lappish identity have their language profoundly influence
> by that of the newcomers.
There is no need of migrant flow from Estonia into Finland to explain
FU-people in Finland. If Finland had got FU speaking immigrants, it
obviously would have got them already 2000 years earlier with the
arrival of the comb ceramic culture. But, this too is without proof.
Certainly there has been immigrants, but no evidence of waves which
profoundly changed the population in the country after 2000 BC, from
Estonia or Volga-Kama regions. (Interestingly, just today I read from
“Muinaistutkija”, earliest comb ceramics in Finland appear even before
it did in Volga-Kama region, and might even be an independent
invention).
As I put in the earlier posts, it has been shown one cannot assume the
daughter languages in the top of the language family tree separated
last, and the languages closest to trunk separated first from the common
proto language; the previously mentioned lateral theory, and
reconstruction attempts of proto Uralic which greatly reminds Finnish.
There is even no proof there ever was a common proto language (Ago
Künnap in his article “Radical renewing in Uralistics” refers to Wiik
and Pusztay) but instead a group of languages that interacted with each
others, and other outside languages, making them thus more or less
different at intervals. As a result of this, looking only linguistic
data will get you nowhere but lost. If you intend to say where Finns
originated, you need to look a wider picture.
> > Holman's own idea. The Germanic inheritance among Finns have most likely
> > grown very slowly, starting with bronze age contacts to southern
> > Scandinavia, and continuing ever since. This is backed up by the fact,
> > there is not a single settlement in Finland that would show Germanic
> > features,
>
> How can a settlement show 'Germanic' features?
>
> > but what ever germanic people arrived in Finland, they always
> > merged to the majority. No Germanic wawes shown, nor initial germanic
> > inhabitants.
>
> The Åland Islands were a focal point for Germanic colonization, which
> eventually took root along the offshore islands on both sides of the Gulf
> of Finland down to the Neva River valley. This became part of the regular
> route the Goths and then the Vikings were taking to Novgorod and points
> further south during the first millennium AD.
With the archaeologic founds, of course. So far you are the only one I
have ever seen proposing that there were Germanic (Gothic as you put it)
settlements in coastal Finland. I have always said, there were germanic
immigrants in Finland, and trade with southern Scandinavia, especially
during Bronze Age was lively, but still no one stretches Germanic/Gothic
influence like you do, in Finland. Or, if they do, there’s no evidence
found yet. Another thing is, as you put, that Gothic kings ruled over
Finns and taxed them...I’ll get to that in a moment.
Åland is not coastal Finland, and Åland alone cannot influence all
Finland to change it’s language from some sort of proto-Uralic into
Baltic-Finnic.
> This is the type of situation we expect after a situation in which two
> cultures at different levels of development have been interacting. The
> minority, more prestigious culture (patja, leipä, kana) establishes itself
> at the top of
> the heap and produces the structures needed to maintain its position
> (kuningas, miekka, vero, mitta, tanhua, kihla, valta). Unable to maintain
> its position in the longer term, it gradually intermaaries with the lower
> culture (äiti), becomes bilingual (ja, ainut, sama; valta, kari, aalto),
> and assimilates into it leaving behind loanwords attesting to its former
> privileged status, more developed culture, and intermarriage with
> accompanying bilingualism.
>
> I claim that many different kinds of evidence speak in favor of a scenario
> of the above type having taken place in pre-historic Finland between the
> period between about 2000 BC and 1000 AD.
And I’ll show you are erraneous (or at least that your deduction has
> I haven't claimed that there were a lot of 'Goths'. I have claimed that
> what Goths there were succeeded in establishing themselves in a position of
> unchallenged power, much like the Normans in Medieval England or the
> Afrikaaners in South Africa. The Normans never amounted to over 10% of the
> population of Medieval England, but they had absolute and total control
> over the cities, administration, church, and other mechanisms of power.
Ago Künnap:
“As far as Estonia and Finland are concerned it may mean that even if
numerous Indo-European agriculturalists did arrive here once, in our
severe climate their fairly primitive land cultivation obviously
developed so slowly at the outset that the subsistence of our ancestral
fishers-hunters was more prestigeous and so the agriculturalists adopted
Estonian and Finnish as more prestigeous languages.”
In short: You assume a lot. Germanic/Gothic loan words even if dealing
with swords and taxes, may well represent new cultural innovations.
Swords definately, since loan words related to metals do originate from
Germanic languages, with whom the Finns traded. Åland definately
couldn’t be responsible of development of Baltic-Finnic, and the idea of
Gothic kings ruling over Finns in Finland is all speculation.
> € Why is the Finnish word for 'mother' äiti, cf. Gothic aithei?
>
I don't know. I'm not a linguists. Better men answer that.
If I should throw a guess, Finns were once considered to get the
know-how of ceramics through marrying wives from Volga-Kama-region.
Well, Väinämöinen, Ilmarinen and Lemminkäinen always were pretty though
guys for me. Why not Finns go to expeditions into Sweden and Danmark,
rob their women (and swords and tax them, too). Hence the children would
call their mothers "äiti" which is a Germanic loan, and fathers "isä"
which is Finno-Ugric.
> € Why does Finnish have so many Germanic loanwords that have known parallels
> in Gothic, but not in other Germanic languages (äiti 'mother', ja 'and',
> lammas '"ovis", not "agnus"')?
Obviously, through contacts.
> € Why did proto-Finnic go through a 'Sprachbund filter' which resulted in
> its losing all of the sounds it formerly had not held in common with
> Gothic?
>
> € Why is it that Finnish, and Estonian to a lesser extent, have an
> inventory of sounds essentially the same as that found in the North and
> East Germanic languages, while otherwise close relatives such as Sami and
> Mordvin have much more typically Finno-Ugric sound inventories?
>
Beats me totally. I always thought Finns and Sami never were a one
Captain
Alo Merilo wrote:
>
> On Wed, 16 Jun 1999, Captain wrote:
>
> > The big question about the language and genetic inheritance among Finns
> > are: why IE genetics and FU language?
>
> "Indo-European" and "Finno-Ugric" are, strictly speaking, linguistic
> terms only. Using the term "Indo-European" in the genetic sense
> (Indo-European race?) only adds to the confusion. While one can
> pretty well define what languages are IE, and which ones are FU, in
> terms of genetics it is pretty fuzzy. Are Hindus, Bengalis and
> Persians who speak IE also genetically IE?
Apologizes. I didn't mean all IE people are genetically close relatives.
IE-languages where by large adopted by people whose ancestors were not
IE-speaking, and even what comes to proto-IE (PIE) there probably were
peoples of very different genetic inheritance who belonged to the same
discussion club.
With IE inheritance among Baltic-Finns I meant IE-language speaking
people who inhabit the Baltic Sea region: Scandinavians, Germans, Balts,
and by large the slavs in the area.
------------
Mika
Jarmo Niemi
>
>> > FU-Scandinavians are natives whereas Germanic Scandinavians are
>> > immigrants in Scandinavian Peninsula.
>>
>>
>> Jarmo, why are you repeating this thesis when you know it is not true? No
>> scientist in Finland woul'd agree.
>Jarmo is essentially correct, even if he is trying to use these facts to
>draw some strange conclusions.
For some reason JR fails to draw the conclusion that he is an
immigrant, most of whose ancestors have lived in Finland for
less than four thousand years...
Eugene Holman
Cavalli.Sforza, pg. 229:
[BEGIN QUOTE]
The tree shows three major clusters, Eskimos (joined by their American
neighbors, the Na-Dene), Lapps (with some Chukchi), and group of Siberian
populations. The PC [= principal component] map shows more detail. Lapps
and Eskimos are the cluisters farthest apart, forming the poles of the
first PC PC. They are followed by northern (Siberian) Uralics and Chukchi
at the poles of the second PC. The two western Uralic groups, Komi and
Mari, are somewhat intermediate between Lapps and northern Uralic gropups,
approximately corresponding to their relative geographic positions.
Nganasan are outliers of th Samoyed group in the tree and also in the PC
map, where, however, this detail is not clearly visible....Their posiitonas
an outlier must be a consequence of their very small population size (900),
which must have been responsible for extreme drift. In spite of this,
however, they still cluster with the other two Uralic-speaking groups who
are their geographic neighbors and who belong to the same linguistic brnch
of the Uralic family (North Samoyed).
[END QUOTE]
As to genetic distances (values x 10,000):
Table 4.11.1 (pg. 228):
FLP NLP SLP GES NN-D MGT CHK NEUR NGUR
SUR
Finnish Lapps: 0 418 465 920 1748 723 1061 854 1927 1269
FLP = Finnish Lapp
NLP = Norwegian Lapp
SLP = Swedish Lapp
GES = Greenland Eskimos
NN-D = North na-Dene
CHK = Chukchi
NEUR = Nentsy Uralic
NGUR = Nganasan Uralic
SUR = Samoyen[sic] Uralic
Table 5.11.1 (page 270):
FIN LAP DUT GER DAN NOR SWE RUS POL CZE HUN
Finns: 0 210 123 77 96 94 82 153 139 107 115
Lapps: 210 0 341 314 334 317 333 323 395 470 338
Hungarians: 115 338 71 46 78 77 99 30 25 69
0
LAP = Lapp
DUT = Dutch
GER = German
DAN = Danish
NOR = Norwegian
SWE = Swedish
RUS = Russian
POL = Polish
CZE = Czech
HUN = Hungarian
It is worth noting that the greatest genetic distances according to this
table are between Sardinian and Lapp (667) and Basque and Lapp (629).
> If those readings are from Cavalli-Sforza, as I believe they are, it
> totally contradicts Sami-Samoyed close relations.
I can't find this table in the edition I have (abridged paperback,
Princeton University Press, 1994), but as you see, a clear link exists,
between the Samis and some Arctic rim peoples, even if not a very close
one.
>
> And the same time it shows Finns are the closest people related to Sami.
True, but the people of northwestern Europe are also rather close, perhaps
giving further support to the view that the Komsa culture originated in a
pre-Indo-European north-western Europe.
> >
> > All the Finnish pre-history I have ever studied supports the view of
> > Baltic-Finnic peoples who were in a transitional stage between hunting and
> > gathering, entering a Finland which already had a small Sami population and
> > some type of Germanic settlement on the Åland Islands and offshore Islands,
> > this being a continuation of Germanic settlements on the western shores of
> > Estonian offshore islands.
>
> This was the old idea, about 10-20 years ago, which based almost solely
> on linguistic science. The archaeolocical new material as well as new
> linguistic theories and genetic studies have changed this radically.
> Archaeolocical continuation from Suomusjärvi culture 8000 BC all the way
> to the comb ceramic culture (and beyond that) suggests the same people
> have formed the major body of inhabitants in Finland. The people of comb
> ceramic culture are commonly accepted being FU speaking people, and the
> latest point when FU language was present in Finland, although it most
> likely was also the language of Suomusjärvi culture. This people are the
> ancestors of both Sami and Finns, making them proto-Samic-Finnic people.
> The separation of Samic and Finnic languages is supposed to happen no
> later than 1500 BC.
I shall have to do more reading on this before I can take a standpoint. In
any case there is the problem of a definite and longstanding cultural and
linguistic boundary demarked by the River Daugava, as well as of early
Baltic contacts which were intense enough to have left their mark on
Finno-Ugric language as far to the east as Mordvin (which was part of a
dialect continuum which was broken when Baltic-Finnic and Mordvin were
separated by the assimilation of the Meryas and Muromas into the Russians).
>
> In previous posts you agreed that Sami and Finns were the same people.
> When I asked you how do you explain agreeing this, and still make
> Estonia and Ingermanland the home of Baltic-Finnic people 2000 BC, you
> didn’t answer. Well, at least I don't get it.
>
My view is that the Sami represent an aboriginal culture which has remained
distinct but intensively interacted with later waves of settlers. I would
speculate that conditions in Finland two or three millennia ago were harsh
enough that some groups and times perferred the older hunting and gathering
style of life, while others preferred the agriculturalist way, but that
both ways of life co-existed, with individuals and groups having the choice
of moving relatively freely from one group to the other, as is still the
case today. The description of the Fennones (= Samis?) given in Tacitus
*Germanica*, although probably embroidered with traveler's exggeration,
coveys a picture of a people who are quite content with a non-acquisitional
hunting and gathering existence. Certainly in Lappland today being a Finn
or a Lapp is partially a function of the family you are born into, but also
partially a function of later lifestyle choices concerning choice of a
spouse, language, and identity. In this sense I see the Finns and Sami
being in an ages old symbiotic relationship with a traditionally low
threshold of crossover between the two groups.
> >
> > Finland, Estonia, Ingermanland and northern Latvia, down to the Daugava
> > River, have to be looked at as a single area. Around the year 2000 BC area
> > has three populations and three ways of life:
> > 1. Continental Finland, inhabited by a small, hunting and Sami-speaking
> > population
>
> And, by the way, Finland is no more considered being almost empty.
I attended a talk by Professor Wiik dealing with this topic about a year
ago. He mentioned that pre-historic Finland seems to have had a few
'genetic bottlenecks'. Changes in climate or other factors drastically
reduced the population, for which reason when the 'normal' population was
re-established, the small set of people who had bene able to survive were
the ancestors of most of the people who eventually repopulated the country.
This certainly fits in with my idea of some period of intense but unequal
relationship between 'Goths' and the population of Finland, and it is also
consistent with the idea of there once having been an influx of
'Gothic'-speaking women (hence äiti 'mother'), whose children opted for
their father's language but spoke it with their privileged mother's accent.
>
> > 3. Estonia major, including Ingermanland, the Neva River Valley, and
> > northern Latvia, but not necessarily the western shores of offshore islands
> > facing the baltic Sea. The Baltic-Finnic dialects spoken by this population
> > were
> > heavily balticized in conjunction with the interaction with their southern
> > neighbors, who had settled in formerly Finno-Ugric populated area, which
> > resulted in their learning agriculture from the neighboring Balts to the
> > south. To the east of this speech communty were other, now extinct
> > Finno-Ugric languages such as Merya and Muromon which served as a link
> > between Baltic-Finnic and Mordvin. To the west, at least on the western
> > shores of Saaremaa and
> > Hiiumaa, there are Germanic speaking agriculturalist communities which also
> > derive from Gotland and Central Sweden.
>
> There never was a break with connection fron FU-people in Finland and
> the FU-people of Volga-Kama area. Trade routes existed more than 4000
> BC, and brought eg ceramics, flint stone, sembra pine and later bronze
> items all the way from Ural into Finland. That is, into Finland, not to
> Estonia by FU people who lived next to Estonia. What comes to
> agriculture, that arrived Finland with the corded ware culture (battle
> axe culture). They definately practiced it, and they definately came all
> the way to Finland.
There was a very important break during the first millennium of our era
with the incursian into the area of aggressive Indo-Europeans speaking late
Slavic - Early Russian. A cultural and linguistic border was eventually
established along Lake Peipsi which allowed Estonia to continue as a
Finno-Ugric speaking area, but saw the peoples and languages, the Meryas,
Muromas, and others, who once linked the Neva River valley to the peoples
of the Volga Kama area gradually assimilated into the aggressively
expanding Russians.
> >
> > € A slow but steady stream of migrants from Estonia Major begins to enter
> > Finland over the Gulf of Finland and the isthmus of Karelia. The Lapps in
> > southern Finland are assimilated or pushed back by this migrants, those
> > that retain their Lappish identity have their language profoundly influence
> > by that of the newcomers.
>
>
> There is no need of migrant flow from Estonia into Finland to explain
> FU-people in Finland. If Finland had got FU speaking immigrants, it
> obviously would have got them already 2000 years earlier with the
> arrival of the comb ceramic culture. But, this too is without proof.
> Certainly there has been immigrants, but no evidence of waves which
> profoundly changed the population in the country after 2000 BC, from
> Estonia or Volga-Kama regions. (Interestingly, just today I read from
> “Muinaistutkija”, earliest comb ceramics in Finland appear even before
> it did in Volga-Kama region, and might even be an independent
> invention).
There is still the problem of the sharp linguistic and cultural boundary
that bisects Finland along the line running approximately from Kokkola to
Hamina. There are physical differences between the people (more Nordic vs.
more East-Baltic), their folk culture shows links to Scandinavia and
Estonia in the West, and to Russia in the East (e.g. unleavened vs.
leavened bread, non-use vs. use of mushrooms, non-use vs. use of pirogs
[piirakoita], etc.), and the south-westernmost dialects show clear links to
northern Estonian dialects in vocabulary, e.g. (all examples SWF
[dial.]/Est) suvi 'summer', nisu 'wheat', SWF [dial.]/Est huotava/odav
'cheap', etc.) as well as phonology, e.g. SWF [dial.]/Est apocopy and
compensatory lengthening in words with long stressed syllable, e.g.
kyl.m/kül.m 'cold' yk.s/ü.ks 'one', syncope of short unstressed syllables,
e.g. suamlane/soomlane.
There is a clear and long-standing culturaland linguistic link between
south-western Finland and northern Estonia, just as there is similar link
between Eastern Finland, Karelia, and lake Ladoga.
> As I put in the earlier posts, it has been shown one cannot assume the
> daughter languages in the top of the language family tree separated
> last, and the languages closest to trunk separated first from the common
> proto language; the previously mentioned lateral theory, and
> reconstruction attempts of proto Uralic which greatly reminds Finnish.
> There is even no proof there ever was a common proto language (Ago
> Künnap in his article “Radical renewing in Uralistics” refers to Wiik
> and Pusztay) but instead a group of languages that interacted with each
> others, and other outside languages, making them thus more or less
> different at intervals. As a result of this, looking only linguistic
> data will get you nowhere but lost. If you intend to say where Finns
> originated, you need to look a wider picture.
>
This is a good point. The structurally most archaic Finno-Ugric languages
are Vepsian and Erza Mordvin. The most innovative ones are the Ugric
languages, particularly, of cousre, Hungarian.
> > How can a settlement show 'Germanic' features?
> >
> > > but what ever germanic people arrived in Finland, they always
> > > merged to the majority. No Germanic wawes shown, nor initial germanic
> > > inhabitants.
I agree that that they merged with the inhabitants, nor do they have to
have come in waves. I insist on only three points:
1. There is definite evidence of a period of 'Gothic'/Baltic-Finnic
bilingualism, not contacts, but *bilingualism* in Finnish today. Among the
earliest Germanic settlers in - let's call it the Baltic-Finnic area,
because the best evidence is in Åland, where we know that an earlier FU
population was replaced by a Germanic one in prehistoric times, and on the
western shores of outlying Estonian islands. We should remember that until
they were replaced by the Vikings, the 'Goths' (= Gotlanders) dominated the
eastern Baltic and the trade route along the Finnish and Estonian coasts to
the Neva Delta and through Russia to the Volga. There were many
opportunities foir interaction between 'Goths' and baltic Finns, who were
more interested in the north-south route.
2. This contact involved an influx of 'Gothic'-speaking women to the
Baltic-Finnic area, and it resulted in the establishment of bilingual
families in which the children wound up speaking Baltic-Finnic with a
'Gothic' accent. At some time in the past there was a shortage of
Baltic-Finnic speaking women. (This seems to have been a recurrent problem,
given the large number of words pertaining to women and relationships with
the wife's family borrowed from proto-baltic at a still earlier date:
morsian 'bride', heimo 'extended family', sisar 'sister, tytär 'daughter',
kaima 'person with the same name'). The Gotlandsaga tells us that they
inhabitants of the island tradiitonally dealt with overpopulation by
forcing a certain proportion of the population to migrate, and that some of
this migration was to Estonia and Kurland, from which the settlements thus
established expanded into Åland, among other places. If this took place
during one of the periods when Finland underwent a rapid depopulation (cool
spell, disease?), it could help explain why Finns are so markedly
genetically 'Indo-European' but linguistically Finno-Ugric.
3. This also resulted in the establishment of a period of a symmetrical
social relationships between the minority 'Gothic' speaking women and their
possible male supporters, and the majority Baltic-Finnic population. This
explains the words like vero 'tax', mitta 'measure', hallita 'rule',
kuningas 'king', ruhtinas 'prince', herttua 'duke' - all words for the
males who maintained the privileged status of the women - as well as the
fact that of the two Germanic words for 'mother' it was aithei 'mother of a
legitimized child' rather than *môdar 'woman who has given birth', which
was borrowed into Baltic-Finnic, replacing in standard Finnish, but not
Estonian (although cf. Est eit 'old woman, wife, crone, hag'), the FU word
emä, cf. Estonian ema 'mother', Finnish emo 'mother animal'. This period
need not have lasted for a long time. It was, however long enough to alter
the pronunciation and grammar (the borrowing of ja 'and', cf. Gothic jah
'and' meant the firm establishment in Baltic-Finnic of coordination beside
the older FU technique of linking by subordination, cf. Finnish isä ja
lapsi 'father and child' vs. the older FU type still widely used in
Estonian isa lapsega 'father child-with' and as a stylistically marked
alternative in Finnish isä lapsineen 'father child-with-his'; Finnish hän
juo ja laulaa 'he drinks and sings', the unmarked alternative which
competes with the older and stylistically marked hän juo laulaessaan 'he
drinks in-his-singing/while singing/"singingly"') of Baltic-Finnic towards
that of the more prestigious 'Gothic'.
(Other interesting material, which I shall evaluate and comment on
subsequently, snipped.)
--
Regards,
Eugene Holman
Eric van C
Alexander R. <ravens...@altavista.net> wrote in message >
The Komsaculture normaly dates from 8-7000 bc, and is a mesolithic culture,
> while
> the south culture of "hamburgerkulturen" or the "Brommekulturen" or the
> "Ahrensburgkulturen" dates to late paleolithicum.
You forgot the Blomvaag-culture (10500 B.C !!!), the Askola-culture and the
finds from Hollerup!
Alexander R.
Eugene Holman <hol...@elo.helsinki.fi> wrote in message news:holman-
> Jarmo is essentially correct, even if he is trying to use these facts to
> draw some strange conclusions.
>
> The first evidence of human habitation in Scandinavia after the last ice
No, that sounds strange to me. Don't forget the south! There are a lot of
much earlier cultures in the south of Scandinavia (Denmark-South of Sweden).
The Komsaculture normaly dates from 8-7000 bc, and is a mesolithic culture,
while
the south culture of "hamburgerkulturen" or the "Brommekulturen" or the
"Ahrensburgkulturen" dates to late paleolithicum. Even the Maglemoseculture
was earlier.
Alexander R.
Eric van C <eric_...@yahoo.co.nz> wrote in message
>
> The Komsaculture normaly dates from 8-7000 bc, and is a mesolithic
culture,
> > while
> > the south culture of "hamburgerkulturen" or the "Brommekulturen" or the
> > "Ahrensburgkulturen" dates to late paleolithicum.
>
the
> finds from Hollerup!
>
archaeologist here, don't you have anything to add to this discussion or
are you a mouse who allow the liguistic argument interfere with Your
conception of the past?
Eric van C
Alexander R. <ravens...@altavista.net> wrote
> >
> I knew you would comment on this, besserwisser. Anyway, you are the
> archaeologist here, don't you have anything to add to this discussion or
> are you a mouse who allow the liguistic argument interfere with Your
> conception of the past?
Go to hell. I'm on vacation!
/evc
Heikki Kantola
soc.culture.nordic with the following:
>But it´s an amusing fact that the more long-faced Europeans and their
>North American descendants often find the Finns´ faces..."elflike" was
>the word used by John Updike.
Aah, that explains why Santa's little helpers are also called elfs...
:)
--
Heikki "Hezu" Kantola, <Heikki....@IKI.FI>
Lähettämällä mainoksia tai muuta asiatonta sähköpostia yllä olevaan
osoitteeseen sitoudut maksamaan oikolukupalvelusta FIM500 alkavalta
tunnilta.
Taavi Horila
: Inner Finland, particularly Häme, is quite racially mixed due to the
: Karelian refugees of WW II. In some Häme municipalities one third of
: the postwar population were Karelians.
Just curious, when you talk about Häme, do you mean:
-the former province of Häme (Hämeen lääni)
-Häme Region (Hämeen maakunta, AKA Kanta-Häme)
-something else
More information about Häme Region available at
http://www.hameenliitto.fi/
--
Taavi Horila Planner, Regional Council of Hame
http://www.jyu.fi/~taakho/ http://www.hameenliitto.fi/
--- Economists can supply it for demand ! ---
Hiski Haapoja
: : Karelian refugees of WW II. In some Häme municipalities one third of
: Just curious, when you talk about Häme, do you mean:
: -the former province of Häme (Hämeen lääni)
: -Häme Region (Hämeen maakunta, AKA Kanta-Häme)
: -something else
Depends of the context. There is also the political constituency of
Häme (former Häme south) which includes the modern regions of (Kanta-)
and Päijät-Häme. The _real_ historical province of Häme is much larger,
once it went "from salt sea to salt sea". Veltto Virtanen is one of the
few people who talks about the disgrace of splitting old Häme into tiny
pieces, which is another reason to vote for him. Kari Rydman has also
written biting columns about it.
In this case, the heaviest concentration of Karelians was in the southern
part of the Häme province, particularly around Lahti.
Hiski
# Mustasukkaisuus on sairaus, joka pitaa parantaa ryhmaseksilla. # (Sanctius)
Jan Böhme
> GREAT! Another butthole who has read racist Swedish schoolbooks of 1930s!
Mostly _German_ schoolbooks, as a mater of fact.
> To disqualify Nurmi wasn't enough - Aryan science from Uppsala lives long
> after the dust of that ugly decade has settled.
And we _did_ disqualify, Hägg, Andersson and Waern on our own side, too.
Tends to be forgotten in Finland.
--
Jan Böhme
Korrekta personuppgifter i detta inlägg är att betrakta som
journalistik.
Felaktigheter utgör naturligtvis skönlitteratur.
Jan Böhme
> Sami - Samoyed 555 (Totally different. Very distant peoples
> genetically)
> Sami - Germans 167
> Sami - Volga area FU 149
> Sami - Swedes 142
> Sami - Finns 126 (Finns are the closest people to Sami genetically, if
> still not very close)
> Finns - Samoyed 496
> Finns - Volga area FU 71
> Finns - Germans 50
> Finns - Swedes 41 (Swedes are the closest people to Finns genetically).
>
> If those readings are from Cavalli-Sforza, as I believe they are, it
> totally contradicts Sami-Samoyed close relations.
>
> And the same time it shows Finns are the closest people related to Sami.
Although by very little. The difference between Sami - Swedes and Sami -
Finns is of questionable significance. If true, it probably only
reflects a slightly greater intermarriage Finns-Sami than Swedes-Sami.
(Which in and by itself is reasonable, since a much larger part of the
Swedish population comes from areas where so Sami settlement is known,
or even inferred.)
Plesase note further, that the data in Cavalli-Sforza's book still
mostly is based on phenotypic caracters and expressed genes. If the
analysis is done on "junk DNA", which is not subject to selection, the
difference between Sami on one hand and Scandinavians on the other is
even greater.
Eugene Holman
Kantola <he...@iki.fi> wrote:
> Aah, that explains why Santa's little helpers are also called elfs...
^^
Doing my part to ensure that a delightful mutation is handed down to the
next generation, I must pedantically inform you that the standard English
plural of elf is elves, cf.
wife - wives
knife - knives
shelf - shelves
leaf - leaves
loaf - loaves
wolf - wolves
***********************
safe - safes
reef - reefs
chief - cheifs
Leaf - Leafs (as in Toronto Mape Leafs)
This situation has a parallel in Finnish, which I will use this oportunity
to point out.
Stage I.
A language has an automatic alternation between two sounds:
English: -f alternates automatically with -v-:
cf. Old English wulf [wulf] - wulfas [wulvas]
Finnish: In inherited e-stems: -i alternates automatically with -e, cf.:
nuolen - nuoli 'arrow GenSg, NomSg'
viinen - viini 'quiver GenSg, NomSg'
Stage 2.
The language takes in words from another language where the two sounds in
question can appear in the same invironment, thus making what had formerly
gone unnoticed cross the limit of perception:
English: Between 1066 and 1400 English borrowed many words from Norman
French. In that language the difference between [f] and [v] was used to
distinguish words in all positions, e.g.:
fine ‚ vine
safer ‚ saver
safe ‚ save
The older set of words with the automatic f ~ v alternation becomes a
closed set, while the new pattern become productive. Any new words
entering the language follow the new pattern, while the older pattern is
maintained by societal norms (e.g. the correct form is 'elves', not
'elfs') and possible later unexpected factors allow historically
unjustified 'analogical' forms to be produced, e.g. Maple Leafs. Sometimes
these analogical forms compete with and oust the historically correct
form, e.g. roof, with roofs nowadays being the more common alternative.
Finnish: Almost all foreign nouns borrowed into Finnish receive a
non-etymological invariant (in the singular) -i to facilitate declension:
Swedish stol, vin > tuoli 'chair', viini 'wine'
Once again, this results in the older e ~ i words becoming a closed set,
new words entering the language join the invariant i class, cf.:
tuolin - tuoli 'chair GenSg, NomSg'
viinin - viini 'wine GenSg, NomSg'
I would assume that similar unexpected changes and closing of open sets
also take place in the genetic history of peoples. A relatively small set
of Gothic women at a crucial time in history were able to close one set
and establish a new open one, thus, I would argue, accounting for some of
the unexpected amd well-entrenched ancient East Germanic features in
modern Finnish.
Regards,
Eugene Holman
Eugene Holman
> Aah, that explains why Santa's little helpers are also called elfs...
^^
Doing my part to ensure that a delightful mutation is handed down to the
next generation, I must pedantically inform you that the standard English
plural of elf is elves, cf.
wife - wives
knife - knives
shelf - shelves
leaf - leaves
loaf - loaves
wolf - wolves
***********************
safe - safes
reef - reefs
chief - chiefs
Stage I.
Stage 2.
cf. also onnen - onni 'luck enSg, NomSg', but Onnin - Onni 'Onni [male
given name] Sg NomSg'
Gunnar
Eugene Holman wrote:
> ....
> This certainly fits in with my idea of some period of intense but unequal
> relationship between 'Goths' and the population of Finland, and it is also
> consistent with the idea of there once having been an influx of
> 'Gothic'-speaking women (hence äiti 'mother'), whose children opted for
> their father's language but spoke it with their privileged mother's accent.
> ....
> 2. This contact involved an influx of 'Gothic'-speaking women to the
> Baltic-Finnic area, and it resulted in the establishment of bilingual
> families in which the children wound up speaking Baltic-Finnic with a
> 'Gothic' accent. At some time in the past there was a shortage of
> Baltic-Finnic speaking women. (This seems to have been a recurrent problem,
> given the large number of words pertaining to women and relationships with
> the wife's family borrowed from proto-baltic at a still earlier date:
> morsian 'bride', heimo 'extended family', sisar 'sister, tytär 'daughter',
> kaima 'person with the same name'). The Gotlandsaga tells us that they
> inhabitants of the island tradiitonally dealt with overpopulation by
> forcing a certain proportion of the population to migrate, and that some of
> this migration was to Estonia and Kurland, from which the settlements thus
> established expanded into Åland, among other places. If this took place
> during one of the periods when Finland underwent a rapid depopulation (cool
> spell, disease?), it could help explain why Finns are so markedly
> genetically 'Indo-European' but linguistically Finno-Ugric.
In contrast to what one first might think it is often the mothers who
"make
the boys into men" and vice versa for daughters-fathers, although at a
later age.
(standard freudian thing, although the common mistake is to assume that
boys take after their father, girls after their mother)
My point that the word for a "mother" might also originate from the
father, especially in case
it had some specific meaning for this father?? (legally acknowledged
father, something
the father made a decision on??)
I've understood there is an old (swedish) tradition that a married
couple starts
calling each other "mother" and "father" (mor,far, not the more recent
mamma, pappa
used by the kids, as soon as they get a child) although they obvioulsy
don't do it before they have become an official couple.
That is, I think it is possible for a husband to shout for "mor, get
your ass
over here", meaning his wife, not his own mother, and the other way
around??
(in swedish, maybe not in english,finnish??)
Anyway, my point is that it seems strange to think a word fucntioning
in terms of a relation to a (voluntary) father would be introduced by
"mothers"??
However, this mother-father is also used in some macho-based sexual
dreams of
foreign women, either portraing them as "mothers" or oneself as the
"father" implying
a vigorous sexual activity when abroad...hehe..(always greener grass
around the corner, at least the hope of it)
Interesting that the "aiti" word has nothing to do with feeding the
baby, which
also made me think it might have been used differently??
Gunnar (just thinking aloud while waiting for the mongolian finnish
president making
sound bites for USA media, seems he hasn't the skill to put everything
into 10 seconds of
emotional associations, that is, at the most 10 words..??)
Gunnar
"Jan Böhme" wrote:
>
> Captain wrote:
>
> > Sami - Samoyed 555 (Totally different. Very distant peoples
> > genetically)
> > Sami - Germans 167
> > Sami - Volga area FU 149
> > Sami - Swedes 142
> > Sami - Finns 126 (Finns are the closest people to Sami genetically, if
> > still not very close)
> > Finns - Samoyed 496
> > Finns - Volga area FU 71
> > Finns - Germans 50
> > Finns - Swedes 41 (Swedes are the closest people to Finns genetically).
> >
> Although by very little. The difference between Sami - Swedes and Sami -
> Finns is of questionable significance. If true, it probably only
> reflects a slightly greater intermarriage Finns-Sami than Swedes-Sami.
Or a slightly higher swede-non_sami intermarriage than finn-non_sami..
Or just plainly a matter of collecting swedish genes more to the south
than for finns,etc,etc.. everyone can make their favorite pick..
> (Which in and by itself is reasonable, since a much larger part of the
> Swedish population comes from areas where so Sami settlement is known,
> or even inferred.)
as above, any difference in traced genes of south-north sweden...
most of south sweden is mostly danish anyway :)
>
> Plesase note further, that the data in Cavalli-Sforza's book still
> mostly is based on phenotypic caracters and expressed genes. If the
> analysis is done on "junk DNA", which is not subject to selection, the
> difference between Sami on one hand and Scandinavians on the other is
> even greater.
Do you imply a higher infant or other mortality or a higher sexual
success depending on
these particular genes?? (although someone claimed sami men have a
higher
sexual drive to take them through the long dark winter I kind of doubt
both
the source as well as how this was measured.. :)
Gunnar
PS On the othe hand, maybe thats the genes finnish men have in common
with the
sami men?? wonder what opinion Jarmo might arrive at?? But I'm sure he
needs to
first exclude all swedish talking finns, to keep the gene pool pure and
original
(losing the best sperm measured, the one at Aland..)
Gunnar
Captain wrote:
>
> If I should throw a guess, Finns were once considered to get the
> know-how of ceramics through marrying wives from Volga-Kama-region.
> Well, Väinämöinen, Ilmarinen and Lemminkäinen always were pretty though
> guys for me. Why not Finns go to expeditions into Sweden and Danmark,
> rob their women (and swords and tax them, too). Hence the children would
> call their mothers "äiti" which is a Germanic loan, and fathers "isä"
> which is Finno-Ugric.
Maybe you better talk to your private shrink about your sexual
fantasies..
There are some good finnish ones who can trace above dreams to early
relations to mothers.. (hoping for a tougher son than the soon to
be whimp who produced that very son)
>
> > € Why does Finnish have so many Germanic loanwords that have known parallels
> > in Gothic, but not in other Germanic languages (äiti 'mother', ja 'and',
> > lammas '"ovis", not "agnus"')?
>
> Obviously, through contacts.
Yeah, Nokia is just starting to connect people, earlier it was the
bicycle which made
it possible, before that my guess it was easier to do it in a boat than
in the
road.
(makes me think of an a finnish movie of the 80s, a fertilizer-pestizide
pilot
additionally spreading his genes among the local daughters and
wifes...<sound
of low flying cessna...leaving huge, broad white clouds of something
behind it>)
>
> I always thought Finns and Sami never were a one
> people (well, maybe they were VERY long time ago, more than the
> inhabitation of Scandinavia) but two who had pretty similar languages
> and who coexisted, rather than the traditional view Sami language
> separated Finnish...
You haven't heard about the superior sexual drive and skills of the sami
men??
(as well as the women)
Totally getting out of control in the south?? skilled in moving
fast in and out in when the sun is down??
Gunnar
Gunnar
lus...@rocketmail.com wrote:
>
> In article <7k8i08$4...@idefix.eunet.fi>,
> POI...@PUPPU.fi wrote:
>
> > GREAT! Another butthole who has read racist Swedish schoolbooks of
> 1930s! To disqualify Nurmi wasn't enough - Aryan science from Uppsala
> lives long after the dust of that ugly decade has settled.
>
> Well, the fact that Finns were put in a different, non-Aryan racial
> category had the beneficial effect that there were less bona fide
> Fascists/Nazis in Finland than in Sweden - and Swedish speakers were
> hugely overrepresented among them.
Well, when swedish speaking nazist didn't get up to the quota, the
definition was changed to include finnish speaking, but I understood
it still was difficult to fill the quota.
> (I´m not of course referring to the _fascistoid_ ultra-national
> movements in Finland - there we did quite well.)
Yeah, on must account for the 6-93 ratio, or whatever it is,
I would guess 93 finnish speaking fascist nationalists to 6 swedish
speaking and then 0.01 sami might be close to reality??
Gunnar
However, maybe Jyvaskyla and ALand upsets the statistics a little bit??
at least in terms of the ultra nationalist variable??
Björn V
> When I see a Germanic Scandinavian I see an immigrant (invandrare) in my
> eyes.
Hear the local echos of the previous ethnic cleansing, oh excuse me I
mean "arguments", of the Third Reich and the more recent ones of
Kosovo...
> The high cheek-bones and "Asiatic look" among some Finns comes from the
> Samis.
I thought skull measurements as a scientific method had been abandoned
decades ago...
> The FU-Samis are an ancient European race.
> The Indo-Europeans have come from the South to FU-lands.
> The IE people have hard to swallow the fact that FU-people are natives
> in Scandinavia and North-East of
> Europe. It is like in the Northern-America some were first and IE people
> arrived later.
> It is just a scientific fact-nothing political.
First of all, all talk about "human races" is ridiculous. There is no
mammalian species around which is so homogeneous from a genetic point
of view as Homo sapiens. Two unrelated individuals differ genetically
by no more 0.1-0.2%, chimpazees differ from each other up to close to a
percent (if I recall correctly), whereas man and chimpanzees differ by
about 2%. From a genetic point of view, the non-African human
population is close to a "clone", a result of the in numbers limited
original emigration from Africa to the rest of the world.
To speak about "human races" today is nothing but racist.
Secondly, I have previously related in scn the recent genetic results
of Svante Pääbo: the results clearly support the idea that Finns are
Indoeuropean from a genetic point of view.
bjorn
Alo Merilo
> First of all, all talk about "human races" is ridiculous.
>
> <snip>
>
> Secondly, I have previously related in scn the recent genetic results
> of Svante Pääbo: the results clearly support the idea that Finns are
> Indoeuropean from a genetic point of view.
What does it mean to be "Indoeuropean from a genetic point of view"?
This statement is particularly ambiguous in light of what you just
said earlier: all talk about "human races" is ridiculous. In my
humble opinion Indoeuropean is a linguistic, not a racial or genetic
term. If that were not so, then who are more "Indoeuropean from
genetic point of view" -- Swedes or Hindus? (Both are native
speakers of Indoeuropean languages).
Best regards,
Alo Merilo
Jan Böhme
>
> "Jan Böhme" wrote:
> > Plesase note further, that the data in Cavalli-Sforza's book still
> > mostly is based on phenotypic caracters and expressed genes. If the
> > analysis is done on "junk DNA", which is not subject to selection, the
> > difference between Sami on one hand and Scandinavians on the other is
> > even greater.
> Do you imply a higher infant or other mortality or a higher sexual
> success depending on
> these particular genes??
I only mean that if you perform the analysis on junk DNA, then you are
dead certain that your results are not confounded by selection, whereas
you never know if you look at expressed genes.
Jan Böhme
>
> On Mon, 21 Jun 1999, Björn V wrote:
> > Secondly, I have previously related in scn the recent genetic results
> > of Svante Pääbo: the results clearly support the idea that Finns are
> > Indoeuropean from a genetic point of view.
>
> What does it mean to be "Indoeuropean from a genetic point of view"?
> This statement is particularly ambiguous in light of what you just
> said earlier: all talk about "human races" is ridiculous. In my
> humble opinion Indoeuropean is a linguistic, not a racial or genetic
> term.
I would phrase it a bit differently.
I would say that Pääbo's results support the idea that Finns and (north)
Europeans speaking Indo-European languages have a common ancestry much
later then either population and the Sami have.
Captain
>
> In article <37686271...@sci.fi>, Captain <Ca...@sci.fi> wrote:
>
> > Eugene Holman wrote:
> > >
> > > In article <3766D466...@sci.fi>, Captain <Ca...@sci.fi> wrote:
> > >
> > > > Eugene Holman wrote:
> > > > > The Lapps show clear genetic
> > > > > and linguistic links to the Uralic peoples of the rim of northern Eurasia,
> > > > > such as the Komis, Maris, and Samoyeds, although the degree to which this
> > > > > is a substratum as opposed to an adstratum is unclear (see
> > > >
> > > > The Lapps do not show genetic link to Uralic peoples in northern
> > > > Eurasia, or anywhere else.
> > >
> > Sami - Germans 167
> > Sami - Volga area FU 149
> > Sami - Swedes 142
> > Sami - Finns 126 (Finns are the closest people to Sami genetically, if still not very close)
> > Finns - Samoyed 496
> > Finns - Volga area FU 71
> > Finns - Germans 50
> > Finns - Swedes 41 (Swedes are the closest people to Finns genetically).
> >
>[BEGIN QUOTE]
>
Hmmm. The numbers you have, are different from what I presented. Maybe
my numbers then weren't Cavalli-Sforza's? However, the numbers are
parallel by large and give the same image; no close relatives to Lapps!
You say Lapps have a link to Samoyeds, while their distance is well over
1000 units? Regarding the distance of English and Japanese being 1244,
makes them as closely linked. If I could deduct anything from this, the
Lapps' link to Russian Uralic people is ancient, it could as well date
back to when FU-people still lived in Middle-Europe. If you see the
lower table (5.11.1), Lapps seem to be much closer related to European
IE-speaking people.
Too bad I don't have Cavalli-Sforza's book here, but I quote a review of
it, which can be found in Net (get URL here). Tracing the Genetic
History of Modern Man:
"A widely debated question has been the nature of the Lapps, an Arctic
European group speaking a language similar to that spoken in the Urals.
The trees show that the Lapps group with other Europeans."
What comes to the numbers showing genetic distance, I must agree with
the above.
The review continues:
"The best guess is that this group migrated into Scandinavia from nearer
the Urals, bringing a Mongoloid pattern of gene frequencies with them,
and then gradually interbred with other Scandinavians, until their gene
frequencies had the general European pattern."
Well, that is a guess (again we see where people locate the home of
“Uralic” language). At least the majority of FU-people in Finland in
Stone Age were descendants of people who migrated Russian steppes. So,
at least THEY did come from Russia. Another question is, whether Lapps
also have genetic heritance of people who arrived northern Norway the
western route.
> I can't find this table in the edition I have (abridged paperback,
> Princeton University Press, 1994), but as you see, a clear link exists,
> between the Samis and some Arctic rim peoples, even if not a very close
> one.
I never ment there isn’t a very, very ancient link! All people link when
you go back long enough, and Cavalli-Sforza does that. But as you said:
not very close one. That must go far beyond settling Scandinavia after
the end of Ice Age! Both Sami and Samoyeds differ considerably of other
European peoples.
> True, but the people of northwestern Europe are also rather close, perhaps
> giving further support to the view that the Komsa culture originated in a
> pre-Indo-European north-western Europe.
Are there other chances? Hmmm. Maybe that it originated in north-EASTERN
Europe? I don't mind, I go with either.
> I shall have to do more reading on this before I can take a standpoint. In
> any case there is the problem of a definite and longstanding cultural and
> linguistic boundary demarked by the River Daugava, as well as of early
> Baltic contacts which were intense enough to have left their mark on
> Finno-Ugric language as far to the east as Mordvin (which was part of a
> dialect continuum which was broken when Baltic-Finnic and Mordvin were
> separated by the assimilation of the Meryas and Muromas into the Russians).
How do you see this a problem? In Scandinavia there was also this
longlasting cultural and linguistic boundary of Limes Norrlandicus.
However, Finnish ceramics spread all over Scandinavia and southern
Scandinavian stone and metal tools in Finland and Lappland. Not to speak
of genes.
Sure Baltic influence was intense enough. The Battle Axe (Corded Ware)
culture that arrived Finland is thought to have spoken IE Baltic
language. While as in Germany and southern Scandinavia their arrival had
an influence to local proto-German.
> My view is that the Sami represent an aboriginal culture which has remained
> distinct but intensively interacted with later waves of settlers. I would
> speculate that conditions in Finland two or three millennia ago were harsh
> enough that some groups and times perferred the older hunting and gathering
> style of life, while others preferred the agriculturalist way, but that
> both ways of life co-existed, with individuals and groups having the choice
> of moving relatively freely from one group to the other, as is still the
> case today. The description of the Fennones (= Samis?) given in Tacitus
> *Germanica*, although probably embroidered with traveler's exggeration,
> coveys a picture of a people who are quite content with a non-acquisitional
> hunting and gathering existence.
Yes, but you still dismiss the people of Suomusjärvi(-Kunda) culture and
it's successor the Comb Ceramic culture as the ancestor of Finns, and
only credit them as ancestors of Samis. You said Finns are descendants
of people that migrated from Estonia Major about 2000 BC, and you meant
the FU-people, not the Battle Axe people that came 2500 BC.
My view is Finns are result of all the people that came into Finland,
and the contribution of the oldest inhabitants is remarkable.
What comes to Tacitus, if he speaks of people in Finland, they were
Finns. If he speaks people of Lappland, they were Sami. That divide was
clear long before Tacitus’ time. In my opinion it is the Finns he
describes.
> > > Finland, Estonia, Ingermanland and northern Latvia, down to the Daugava
> > > River, have to be looked at as a single area. Around the year 2000 BC area
> > > has three populations and three ways of life:
> > > 1. Continental Finland, inhabited by a small, hunting and Sami-speaking
> > > population
Here you do it again.
> > And, by the way, Finland is no more considered being almost empty.
>
> I attended a talk by Professor Wiik dealing with this topic about a year
> ago. He mentioned that pre-historic Finland seems to have had a few
> 'genetic bottlenecks'. Changes in climate or other factors drastically
> reduced the population, for which reason when the 'normal' population was
> re-established, the small set of people who had bene able to survive were
> the ancestors of most of the people who eventually repopulated the country.
Mmmm. The bottleneck-theory. Well, it is interesting. What bottleneck is
usually said to mean, is that Finnish population has had a population
decrease in some phase of their history (around 2000 BC is the suggested
time, I guess - based on biologic clock?). Or that Finland was on
occasion(s) repopulated. But as far as I understand, both of those
concepts are wrong interpretations. What it means, is two things:
1) The ancestors of Finns today were a relatively small amount of
people.
2) There hasn’t been big immigrations since where the phenomena is dated
(at least, not big compared to the existing population).
I would ask, how does this differ from the concept we have of Finnish
history? The country HAD a small population compared to e.g. other
Scandinavian countries. The question here should be: how small is
small? I don’t know if anyone has given answers to that. A few
thousand? A few tens of thousand?
One thing I said time after time: archaeologic evidence doesn’t support
major immigration waves into Finland. The country has been remote, while
Scandinavia and Baltics have gained no doubt more immigrants.
There is one phenomena that could be linked with bottleneck theory; the
assimilation of IE Battle Axe culture (2500 BC) into the original
inhabitants’ FU Comb Ceramic culture, resulting the IE+FU Kiukainen
culture (2000 BC). The assimilation is obvious in the archaeologic
evidence of ceramics, stone tools and burial methods where FU material
grows more dominant, and supported by the Baltic loan words and genetic
inheritance. From the emergence of Battle Axe culture, Finland remains
culturally divided, coast culture aligned with Scandinavia, the inner
country with Volga-Kama region. Kiukainen culture continues strong ties
to the Scandinavian Baltic Sea cultures, which is even amplified with
the beginning of Bronze Age trade (1500 BC). The division into inner and
coastal cultures may not be strict, it probably is just more to do with
trade routes.
> This certainly fits in with my idea of some period of intense but unequal
> relationship between 'Goths' and the population of Finland,
If you insist that bottleneck theory has major importance (which it
may), then it implies Finns are descendants of Kiukainen culture.
However, the ancestors still are not German/Gothic, but IE Baltic and FU
Samic!
And if one considers Kiukainen culture as the start of Finns, then you
have all the right to call the original inhabitants of the country
proto-Finnic-Samic, because their contribution to the culture is
remarkable. If the genetic heritance of Finns today is much more
Scandinavian, it most probably wasn’t so 2000 BC, but is a result of
next four millenias.
What comes to changes in climate, it wouldn’t have restricted itself
only inside of Finland. The climate of Europe from 6000 BC to about 3000
BC was much warmer than the current one. I guess the cooling started
about the same time with the emergence of Pitted Ware culture, which
based on seal hunting, and actually gave a boost to hunting livelyhood.
Since people of Finland still long after 3000 BC mainly lived from
hunting and gathering (not agriculture), the climatic changes should
have had a smaller effect in here than for example in southern
Scandinavia. (Maybe Germanic immigrations from Scandinavia to Middle and
Eastern Europe around first and second centuries might be a result of
cooling..)
Anyways, if the population in Finland had dropped because of inadequate
food supplies, I don't think other peoples would have been too eager to
get here, either! No, I don't believe there were these groups of hunters
in neighbouring areas with a preassure to move in - waiting for Finns to
drop dead and get their chance. If migrations did take place, they
happened regardless the situation in here.
>and it is also
> consistent with the idea of there once having been an influx of
> 'Gothic'-speaking women (hence äiti 'mother'), whose children opted for
> their father's language but spoke it with their privileged mother's accent.
In southern Scandinavia peoples might have changed their language into
IE, which later evolved into proto-German and German, for the reason
they changed their alignment to the agricultural peoples and cultures of
south AND had some immigrants (suggested amount of immigrants vary from
about 15% to 27%). However, there was a limit where agriculture wasn’t
any longer the more prestigious culture! In Sweden that was at Limes
Norrlandicus height, where the southern Funnel Beaker culture did accept
agriculture, but the northern proto-Finnic-Samic did not. While
agriculture slowly advanced in (northen) FU-culture, it didn’t get the
same status, and even immigrants accepted FU-language. The whole Finland
and Estonia were probably similar; FU-culture remined more prestigious.
> There was a very important break during the first millennium of our era
> with the incursian into the area of aggressive Indo-Europeans speaking late
> Slavic - Early Russian.
So? That is so late it is way off-topic.
> There is still the problem of the sharp linguistic and cultural boundary
> that bisects Finland along the line running approximately from Kokkola to
> Hamina. There are physical differences between the people (more Nordic vs.
> more East-Baltic), their folk culture shows links to Scandinavia and
> Estonia in the West, and to Russia in the East (e.g. unleavened vs.
> leavened bread, non-use vs. use of mushrooms, non-use vs. use of pirogs
> [piirakoita], etc.)
Again, so late phenomenas they are off-topic.
However, coastal Finland had (at least) since the arrival of Battle Axe
culture strong links with Southern Scandinavia. This continued with it’s
Finnizied successor Kiukainen culture and later with bronze and iron
trade. The inner parts of the country, however, maintained contacts to
Volga-Kama region Finno-Ugric cultures.
> 1. There is definite evidence of a period of 'Gothic'/Baltic-Finnic
> bilingualism, not contacts, but *bilingualism* in Finnish today.
Can you pinpoint the time this bilingual existence took place? Your 2000
is too early if it took place in Finland. The start of Broze Age (1500
BC) in Finland would fit better, since we know there is remarkable trade
with Southern Scandinavia and Gotland, and continuing perhaps all the
way until the rise of Svear in 6th century. I’m in favor of this theory.
But there is another chance, too. As I posted before. -- The Battle Axe
culture that arrived Finland, did adopt the language of her original
inhabitants. These were the proto-Samic-Finnic people, who also had
contacts with Germanic people in Sweden and Norway. It is under debate,
if even the people of southern Scandinavia were speakers of FU language
before their language change. It is as good a place for the bilingualism
as is Finland.
When is it you can identify Gothic language from East German language?
>Among the
> earliest Germanic settlers in - let's call it the Baltic-Finnic area,
> because the best evidence is in Åland, where we know that an earlier FU
> population was replaced by a Germanic one in prehistoric times, and on the
> western shores of outlying Estonian islands. We should remember that until
> they were replaced by the Vikings, the 'Goths' (= Gotlanders) dominated the
> eastern Baltic and the trade route along the Finnish and Estonian coasts to
> the Neva Delta and through Russia to the Volga. There were many
> opportunities foir interaction between 'Goths' and baltic Finns, who were
> more interested in the north-south route.
You say Goths dealt with Russian and Volga trade already 2000 BC?
Unheard! What is your evidence? At that age the trade with Russia was
firmly on the hands of FU-people of inner Finland and (I don’t know but
I would suggest) Estonia. Then Scandinavians traded with FU people.
There is a Baltic oriented Bronze Age culture in southern Scandinavia
and Gotland that starts about 1700 BC. Trade with Baltic-Finns is
remarkable. I’ve even seen statements that there had been Gotlandic
trade posts in Estonia starting around 500 BC. Gotlandic dominance in
Baltic Sea is obvious about 0-500 AD.
Whether people of Gotland are Goths or not, and into what extent they
are the same Goths as Ostro- and Visigoths, I don’t take a stand here. I
do agree Gotland plays a major role in Baltic Sea, but I would place it
considerably later than 2000 BC. Over one millenia later. Certainly,
people of Gotland around 2000 - 1000 BC (nor elsewhere at Scandinavia)
were nothing like vikings world came to know later.
> 2. This contact involved an influx of 'Gothic'-speaking women to the
> Baltic-Finnic area, and it resulted in the establishment of bilingual
> families in which the children wound up speaking Baltic-Finnic with a
> 'Gothic' accent. At some time in the past there was a shortage of
> Baltic-Finnic speaking women. (This seems to have been a recurrent problem,
> given the large number of words pertaining to women and relationships with
> the wife's family borrowed from proto-baltic at a still earlier date:
> morsian 'bride', heimo 'extended family', sisar 'sister, tytär 'daughter',
> kaima 'person with the same name').
How do you figure a shortage of women among Baltic-Finns? And how do you
think they were replaced by Germanic/Baltic wives?
Since it’s customary for mature women to leave their home in both
hunter-gatherer and agricultural societies, I would rather suggest
Germanic speaking women chose FU-speaking husbands. This might have
happened in Finland with the Germanic immigrants, but even in greater
extent in southern Scandinavia. In a previous post I suggested FU men
raiding Scandinavia and robbing wives. Well, I was not too serious,
but... howabout trade and seasonal hunting?
In a spezialised hunter culture like among seal-hunters, or fishermen,
males become the primary supportes of families. This might sound
chauvinistic, but females are then selected to attract males and take
care of the children. If seal hunting was good and you had customers
among other peoples, you might trade for a wife, or two. Or you might be
considered as a promising spouce.
In my opinion, since Finns have as rule been underestimated in
Scandinavian history, we tend to imagine trade with Germanic people was
done in the fashion that Germanic traders came to Finland. I’m sure it
happened. But also the opposite! Finnish trades/seal hunters might have
traded in southern Scandinavia, even lived there seasonably and had
“second wife” and family in there.
Anyway, loan words that relate to relationships (and especially female
relatives) with foreign speaking cultures,
suggests that FU-speaking men were in higher esteem than Germanic/Baltic
speaking were. Otherwise we would have the phenomena vice versa, using
Germanic/Baltic name for father and FU name for mother. Of course, that
might have happened - and even a bigger change - with the language
change among nordic Germanic people.
> The Gotlandsaga tells us that they
> inhabitants of the island tradiitonally dealt with overpopulation by
> forcing a certain proportion of the population to migrate, and that some of
> this migration was to Estonia and Kurland, from which the settlements thus
> established expanded into Åland, among other places. If this took place
> during one of the periods when Finland underwent a rapid depopulation (cool
> spell, disease?), it could help explain why Finns are so markedly
> genetically 'Indo-European' but linguistically Finno-Ugric.
You’re streching the timeline here now immensely. Your idea was Gothic
kings in Baltic-Finnic region around 2000 BC. Gutasaga was composed in
12th and 13th century AD. And I think that immigration is generally
regarded as the immigration of Goths into the mouth of Vistula river in
first century. Kurland (Courland) inhabitation, settlement of Grobin, I
think dates to 7th century and Truso in Poland, too.
> 3. This also resulted in the establishment of a period of a symmetrical
> social relationships between the minority 'Gothic' speaking women and their
> possible male supporters, and the majority Baltic-Finnic population. This
> explains the words like vero 'tax', mitta 'measure', hallita 'rule',
> kuningas 'king', ruhtinas 'prince', herttua 'duke' - all words for the
> males who maintained the privileged status of the women - as well as the
> fact that of the two Germanic words for 'mother' it was aithei 'mother of a
> legitimized child' rather than *môdar 'woman who has given birth', which
Yes, words dealing with organized society and metals come from
Germanic/Gothic. Does it mean Finland was ruled and taxed by Gothic
kings? Not at all. We also have loan word “keisari” (emperor) but we
were never ruled by a Roman emperor. Finland had Gothic/Germanic
immigrants, and Finns no doubt visited Scandinavia. It is entirely
possible, since those words didn’t have equivalents in Finnish, they
were imported loans. Yes, a Finn/Goth or whoever living in Finland did
eventually use the loan words. It doesn’t mean nothing of the sort, that
a Gotlandic power would have stretched in Finland. That is pure
speculation.
> was borrowed into Baltic-Finnic, replacing in standard Finnish, but not
> Estonian (although cf. Est eit 'old woman, wife, crone, hag'), the FU word
Yep. Finns didn’t come from Estonia major 2000 BC.
> emä, cf. Estonian ema 'mother', Finnish emo 'mother animal'. This period
> need not have lasted for a long time. It was, however long enough to alter
> the pronunciation and grammar (the borrowing of ja 'and', cf. Gothic jah
But Gotland was in major position in Baltic Sea for a loooong time.
Almost two millenias. There is very high possibility it contributed
continuosly to the populace of Finland.
---------------
Mika
Captain
Captain wrote:
...or rather IE Baltic and FU-Samic-Finnic.
"Paternal and maternal DNA lineages reveal a bottleneck in the founding
of the Finnish population”
Antti Sajantila, Abdel-Halim Salem, Peter Savolainen, Karin Bauer,
Christian Gierig, Svante Pääbo
ABSTRACT An analysis of Y-chromosomal haplotypes in several European
populations reveals an almost monomorphic pattern in the Finns, whereas
Y-chromosomal diversity is significantly higher in other populations.
Furthermore, analyses of nucleotide positions in the mitochondrial
control region that evolve slowly show a decrease in genetic diversity
in Finns. Thus, relatively few men and women have contributed the
genetic lineages that today survive in the Finnish population. This is
likely to have caused the so-called "Finnish disease heritage"--i.e.,
the occurrence of several genetic diseases in the Finnish population
that are rare elsewhere. A preliminary analysis of the mitochondrial
mutations that have accumulated subsequent to the bottleneck suggests
that it occurred about 4000 years ago, presumably when populations using
agriculture and animal husbandry arrived in Finland."
Well, I asked Jarmo Niemi (who works as a researcher in Turku University
Centre for Biotechnology) what would be a suggestion to the size of this
founding population. Here’s his answer:
“The Finnish population displays a clear "founder" effect, which means
the original population has been rather small, however in a recent
lecture the leader of the Finnish Genome research center professor Juha
Kere said that the founder population appears to have been about
2000-5000 persons which would make the four families rather extended.”
2000-5000 people, 2000 BC. And first the suggested amount was 4
families? Heh, heh. There you go! How reliable is this?
Bottleneck theory is said to be a problem. Problem why? Well, first
because archaeologicwise, populace of southern Finland was much bigger
than this. Second because this founder populace managed to remain so
isolated.
I think there IS something in this bottleneck phenomena. I believe it
certainly proves of very small influx of foreign people to the founder
populace. Or, the founder populace being considerably bigger than amount
of immigrants. What I don’t believe yet, is the date 2000 or the
suggested size of founder population. I wager, those can change several
times still. In my humble uneducated opinion, the size of populace must
be considerably larger, or the date considerably earlier.
--------------------
Mika
Captain
>
> In article <37686271...@sci.fi>, Captain <Ca...@sci.fi> wrote:
>
> > Eugene Holman wrote:
> > >
> > > In article <3766D466...@sci.fi>, Captain <Ca...@sci.fi> wrote:
> > >
> > > > Eugene Holman wrote:
> > > > > The Lapps show clear genetic
> > > > > and linguistic links to the Uralic peoples of the rim of northern Eurasia,
> > > > > such as the Komis, Maris, and Samoyeds, although the degree to which this
> > > > > is a substratum as opposed to an adstratum is unclear (see
> > > >
> > > > The Lapps do not show genetic link to Uralic peoples in northern
> > > > Eurasia, or anywhere else.
> > >
> > Sami - Germans 167
> > Sami - Volga area FU 149
> > Sami - Swedes 142
> > Sami - Finns 126 (Finns are the closest people to Sami genetically, if still not very close)
> > Finns - Samoyed 496
> > Finns - Volga area FU 71
> > Finns - Germans 50
> > Finns - Swedes 41 (Swedes are the closest people to Finns genetically).
> >
> > > Finland, Estonia, Ingermanland and northern Latvia, down to the Daugava
> > > River, have to be looked at as a single area. Around the year 2000 BC area
> > > has three populations and three ways of life:
> > > 1. Continental Finland, inhabited by a small, hunting and Sami-speaking
> > > population
Here you do it again.
> > And, by the way, Finland is no more considered being almost empty.
>
> I attended a talk by Professor Wiik dealing with this topic about a year
> ago. He mentioned that pre-historic Finland seems to have had a few
> 'genetic bottlenecks'. Changes in climate or other factors drastically
> reduced the population, for which reason when the 'normal' population was
> re-established, the small set of people who had bene able to survive were
> the ancestors of most of the people who eventually repopulated the country.
"Paternal and maternal DNA lineages reveal a bottleneck in the founding
of the Finnish population”
Antti Sajantila, Abdel-Halim Salem, Peter Savolainen, Karin Bauer,
Christian Gierig, Svante Pääbo
ABSTRACT An analysis of Y-chromosomal haplotypes in several European
populations reveals an almost monomorphic pattern in the Finns, whereas
Y-chromosomal diversity is significantly higher in other populations.
Furthermore, analyses of nucleotide positions in the mitochondrial
control region that evolve slowly show a decrease in genetic diversity
in Finns. Thus, relatively few men and women have contributed the
genetic lineages that today survive in the Finnish population. This is
likely to have caused the so-called "Finnish disease heritage"--i.e.,
the occurrence of several genetic diseases in the Finnish population
that are rare elsewhere. A preliminary analysis of the mitochondrial
mutations that have accumulated subsequent to the bottleneck suggests
that it occurred about 4000 years ago, presumably when populations using
agriculture and animal husbandry arrived in Finland."
Mmmm. The bottleneck-theory. Well, it is interesting. What bottleneck is
usually said to mean, is that Finnish population has had a population
decrease in some phase of their history (around 2000 BC is the suggested
time, I guess - based on biologic clock?). Or that Finland was on
occasion(s) repopulated. But as far as I understand, both of those
concepts are wrong interpretations. What it means, is two things:
1) The ancestors of Finns today were a relatively small amount of
people.
2) There hasn’t been big immigrations since where the phenomena is dated
(at least, not big compared to the existing population).
I would ask, how does this differ from the concept we have of Finnish
history? The country HAD a small population compared to e.g. other
Scandinavian countries. The question here should be: how small is small?
Well, I asked Jarmo Niemi (who works as a researcher in Turku University
Centre for Biotechnology) what would be a suggestion to the size of this
founding population. Here’s his answer:
“The Finnish population displays a clear "founder" effect, which means
the original population has been rather small, however in a recent
lecture the leader of the Finnish Genome research center professor Juha
Kere said that the founder population appears to have been about
2000-5000 persons which would make the four families rather extended.”
2000-5000 people, 2000 BC. And first the suggested amount was 4
families? Heh, heh. There you go! How reliable is this?
Bottleneck theory is said to be a problem. Problem why? Well, first
because archaeologicwise, populace of southern Finland was much bigger
than this. Second because this founder populace managed to remain so
isolated.
I think there IS something in this bottleneck phenomena. I believe it
certainly proves of very small influx of foreign people to the founder
populace. Or, the founder populace being considerably bigger than amount
of immigrants. What I don’t believe yet, is the date 2000 or the
suggested size of founder population. I wager, those can change several
times still. In my humble uneducated opinion, the size of populace must
be considerably larger, or the date considerably earlier.
One thing I said time after time: archaeologic evidence doesn’t support
major immigration waves into Finland. The country has been remote, while
Scandinavia and Baltics have gained no doubt more immigrants.
There is one phenomena that could be linked with bottleneck theory; the
assimilation of IE Battle Axe culture (2500 BC) into the original
inhabitants’ FU Comb Ceramic culture, resulting the IE+FU Kiukainen
culture (2000 BC). The assimilation is obvious in the archaeologic
evidence of ceramics, stone tools and burial methods where FU material
grows more dominant, and supported by the Baltic loan words and genetic
inheritance. From the emergence of Battle Axe culture, Finland remains
culturally divided, coast culture aligned with Scandinavia, the inner
country with Volga-Kama region. Kiukainen culture continues strong ties
to the Scandinavian Baltic Sea cultures, which is even amplified with
the beginning of Bronze Age trade (1500 BC). The division into inner and
coastal cultures may not be strict, it probably is just more to do with
trade routes.
> This certainly fits in with my idea of some period of intense but unequal
> relationship between 'Goths' and the population of Finland,
If you insist that bottleneck theory has major importance (which it
may), then it implies Finns are descendants of Kiukainen culture.
However, the ancestors still are not German/Gothic, but IE Baltic and FU
Samic!
And if one considers Kiukainen culture as the start of Finns, then you
But Gotland was in major position in Baltic Sea for a loooong time. Well
over a millenia. There is very high possibility it contributed
Martha Hughes
>
> In article <slrn3achc747m...@tuuri.ling.helsinki.fi>, Heikki
> Kantola <he...@iki.fi> wrote:
>
> > Aah, that explains why Santa's little helpers are also called elfs...
> ^^
>
> Doing my part to ensure that a delightful mutation is handed down to the
> next generation, I must pedantically inform you that the standard English
> plural of elf is elves, cf.
>
> wife - wives
> knife - knives
> shelf - shelves
> leaf - leaves
> loaf - loaves
> wolf - wolves
>
> ***********************
>
> safe - safes
> reef - reefs
> chief - chiefs
> Leaf - Leafs (as in Toronto Mape Leafs)
Actually, the leafs is incorrect, even if Toronto uses it. It should be
Leaves. The Maple Leafs has driven my crazy for years.
Captain
>
> Eugene Holman wrote:
> >
> > bilingualism, not contacts, but *bilingualism* in Finnish today.
>
> Can you pinpoint the time this bilingual existence took place? Your 2000
> is too early if it took place in Finland. The start of Broze Age (1500
> BC) in Finland would fit better, since we know there is remarkable trade
> with Southern Scandinavia and Gotland, and continuing perhaps all the
> way until the rise of Svear in 6th century. I’m in favor of this theory.
>
I'm replying here my own mail (single quotation are my lines, double
quatation Holman's).
I asked that question from Bertil Häggman, who has written several
articles into OLDNORSENET about Gotland's pre-viking age history. Here's
his reply:
"Gotiska talades inte saa tidigt som 2 000 f.Kr. Det gotiska
spraaket torde ha utvecklats fraan aartusendet foere Kristi foedelse
och det gotiska skriftspraaket under perioden 200 till
500 e.Kr. Alfabetet aer haemtat fraan dels grekiskan
och dels runorna."
In English: Gothic wasn't spoken as early as 2000 BC. The gothic
language is thought to have developped from 1000 BC and Gothic writing
500 to 200 BC. Alphabets were taken partly from Greek and partly from
runes.
As I've been saying; Gothic influence into Finnish is much later than
2000 BC. At earliest I would wager 500 BC. The early Bronze Age
influence should be called Proto-Germanic, and didn't limit to contacts
with people from Gotland.
> > Among the
> > earliest Germanic settlers in - let's call it the Baltic-Finnic area,
> > because the best evidence is in Åland, where we know that an earlier FU
> > population was replaced by a Germanic one in prehistoric times, and on the
> > western shores of outlying Estonian islands. We should remember that until
> > they were replaced by the Vikings, the 'Goths' (= Gotlanders) dominated the
> > eastern Baltic and the trade route along the Finnish and Estonian coasts to
> > the Neva Delta and through Russia to the Volga. There were many
> > opportunities foir interaction between 'Goths' and baltic Finns, who were
> > more interested in the north-south route.
>
> You say Goths dealt with Russian and Volga trade already 2000 BC?
> Unheard! What is your evidence? At that age the trade with Russia was
> firmly on the hands of FU-people of inner Finland and (I don’t know but
> I would suggest) Estonia. Then Scandinavians traded with FU people.
>
> There is a Baltic oriented Bronze Age culture in southern Scandinavia
> and Gotland that starts about 1700 BC. Trade with Baltic-Finns is
> remarkable. I’ve even seen statements that there had been Gotlandic
> trade posts in Estonia starting around 500 BC. Gotlandic dominance in
> Baltic Sea is obvious about 0-500 AD.
Since Holman repeatedly mentioned there were settlements of Goths in the
rims of Finland, meaning Finnish archipelaho, probably coast, Åland and
Estonia 2000 BC, I askeed this too. Bertil Häggman's reply:
"Gotlaendska kolonier fanns inte, enligt min
uppfattning, i Oestersjoeomraadet saa tidigt som
2 000 - 1 000 f.Kr. Om goterna utvandrade fraan
Gotland, boer det ha skett omkring Kristi foedelse.
Gotlaendska handelskolonier bildades under
vendeltiden (500 - 800 e. Kr). Gotiska kolonier aer
enbart moejliga efter år 0. Aaland, Estland och
Finland hade enligt min uppfattning inte naagra
gotiska kolonier."
In English: In my opinion there were no Gotlandic colonies in Baltic Sea
area 2000 - 1000 BC. If Goths emigrated from Gotland, that should have
happened about the time of Christs birth. Gothic tradeposts were built
under Vendel Period (800 - 500 BC). Gotlandic colonies are possible only
after year 0. In my knowledge there were no Gothic colonies in Åland,
Estonia or Finland.
Just a curiosity. This is what "Bertil Häggman" tells about Gothic
kings:
"Det är ett välkänt faktum att gotlaenningarna
styrdes republikanskt och att de sedan urminnes
tid utgjorde en bonderepublik, unik foer Oestersjoeomraadet.
...
Gutalagen baer vittnesboerd om ett fritt bondesamhaelle
utan kungaboeter och andra kungliga prerogativ."
In English: It is a well known fact Gotlandic were lead rebulic fashion
and that they already from ancient time formed a peoples' republic,
unique in Baltic Sea region.
...
Gutalagen holds evidence of a free peasant society without king's taxes
or other kingly priviledges.
-----------------
Mika
Eugene Holman
> Actually, the leafs is incorrect, even if Toronto uses it. It should be
> Leaves. The Maple Leafs has driven my crazy for years.
Linguistic correctness is not an absolute and is always subject to changes
in the light of usage. That's why we use the 'incorrect' plural form *you*
when addressing one person instead of the 'correct' singular form *thou* .
Often, as is the case with the *Leafs* in *Toronto Maple Leafs*, a word
begins two paths distinct of development once it begins to be used as a
proper noun. Consider the case of people whose last names are Fairchild or
Holman.
English speakers would invariably say:
The Fairchild's (Holman's) are an interesting group of people.
Never: the *Fairchildren or *Holmen.
This is the case with the Toronto Maple Leafs and, indeed with Finnish
names such as Satu, Onni, and Into. As proper anmes they have the
genitive/accusative forms Satun, Onnin, and Inton, but the corresponding
forms for the normal nouns from which they are derived are sadun, onnen,
and innon.
This is an aspect of the working of a semiotic principle called iconicity,
first discussed in detail at the turn of the century by the American
semioticist Charles Sanders Peirce.
--
Regards,
Eugene Holman
Eugene Holman
> Captain wrote:
> >
> > Eugene Holman wrote:
> > >
> > > 1. There is definite evidence of a period of 'Gothic'/Baltic-Finnic
> > > bilingualism, not contacts, but *bilingualism* in Finnish today.
> >
> > Can you pinpoint the time this bilingual existence took place? Your 2000
> > is too early if it took place in Finland. The start of Broze Age (1500
> > BC) in Finland would fit better, since we know there is remarkable trade
> > with Southern Scandinavia and Gotland, and continuing perhaps all the
> > way until the rise of Svear in 6th century. I’m in favor of this theory.
> >
> > When is it you can identify Gothic language from East German language?
>
> I'm replying here my own mail (single quotation are my lines, double
> quatation Holman's).
>
> I asked that question from Bertil Häggman, who has written several
> articles into OLDNORSENET about Gotland's pre-viking age history. Here's
> his reply:
>
> "Gotiska talades inte saa tidigt som 2 000 f.Kr. Det gotiska
> spraaket torde ha utvecklats fraan aartusendet foere Kristi foedelse
> och det gotiska skriftspraaket under perioden 200 till
> 500 e.Kr. Alfabetet aer haemtat fraan dels grekiskan
> och dels runorna."
>
> In English: Gothic wasn't spoken as early as 2000 BC. The gothic
> language is thought to have developped from 1000 BC and Gothic writing
> 500 to 200 BC. Alphabets were taken partly from Greek and partly from
> runes.
'torde ha utveclats' is somewhat more speculative than 'is thought to have
developed'. I suggest 'is assumed to have developed'.
I would not disagree with claims made in this statement. However, it does
need some qualification. We know relatively little about Gothic,
particularly its early history, and almost all of our data concerning it
comes from a single source representing a late and highly developed form of
the language, Wulfila's 4th century A.D. partial translation of the
non-violent parts of the Bible, the language being evidently a variety of
Visigothic spoken in what is now northern Bulgaria.
Gothic provides us with the oldest continuous texts (as opposed to
inscriptions limited to a sentence or a few words) in any Germanic
language. Wulfila's Gothic has enough specific features for us to conclude
that the language went its own way with respect to the other Germanic
languages long before the 4th century AD.
Gothic is so distinct from the other Germanic languages in terms of both
retentions of Proto-Germanic features (e.g. a sibilant as the reflection of
the proto-Germanic masc. nom. sing. ending *-az, reduplicated pefect stems
of verbs) and innovation (e.g. the development of Proto-Germanic *-e- to
-i-) that it is regarded as forming, along with West and North Germanic a
third branch, East Germanic. As Häggman wrote, the language probably began
to develop as a distinct entity starting around 1,000 BC, however this does
not preclude some earlier transitional Germanic dialect containing more
East Germanic that Proto-Germanic features having preceded it.
It is impossible to posit a universal rate of change for languages.
Nevertheless, clearly differentiated Northern, Western, and East Germanic
types of Germanic had become clearly differentiated by the the beginning of
the modern era, and this is most likely the result of at least a millennium
of separate development with some possible cross fertilization resulting
from contacts between the already differentiated languages, cf. English
borrowings into contemporary Swedish and German.
>
> As I've been saying; Gothic influence into Finnish is much later than
> 2000 BC. At earliest I would wager 500 BC. The early Bronze Age
> influence should be called Proto-Germanic, and didn't limit to contacts
> with people from Gotland.
The date 2000 BC is admittedly too early, but I think that 500 BC is too
late, given the extremely archaic linguistic features in the oldest stratum
of loans, i.e. words such as kana 'chicken', kallio 'boulder', patja
'mattress', and rikas 'rich', kaunis 'beautiful'. These words have more
Proto-Germanic, perhaps even pre-Proto-Germanic features such as the *k-
for early Germanic *x- > Later Germanic *h, rather than features of the
type of Gothic we know (e.g. Finnish kaunis < Proto-Germanic *skaunis >
Gothic skauns, armas < Proto-Germanic *armaz > Gothic arms), with the
thematic vowel retained in Finnish and Proto-Germanic but lost in Gothic),
so a date before 1000 BC does not seem impossible. Opinions differ as to
when Proto-Germanic evolved as a distinct form of Indo-Euroepan, although
the most common view today is that the area where is emerged (northern
Germany, the Danish Isles, southern Scandinavia) had been Indo-Europeanized
by the year 1,000 BC (cf. Carol Henrikson and Johan van der Auwera 'The
Germanaic Languages' in *The Germanic Languages*, E. König and J. van der
Auwera, Routledge 1994.)
> >
> > You say Goths dealt with Russian and Volga trade already 2000 BC?
> > Unheard! What is your evidence? At that age the trade with Russia was
> > firmly on the hands of FU-people of inner Finland and (I don’t know but
> > I would suggest) Estonia. Then Scandinavians traded with FU people.
> >
I didn't state anything quite this strong. What I stated was that Gotland
and the people that left there to settle along the shores of the Baltic,
including some of the Åland Islands, dominated trade in the Eastern Baltic
until they were replaced by the Vikings, around 500 AD. When this dominance
began is difficult to determine but (this has double quotes, but it is
Captian's statement from In article <376E9737...@sci.fi>, Captain
<Ca...@sci.fi> June 21, 1999):
> > There is a Baltic oriented Bronze Age culture in southern Scandinavia
> > and Gotland that starts about 1700 BC. Trade with Baltic-Finns is
> > remarkable. I’ve even seen statements that there had been Gotlandic
> > trade posts in Estonia starting around 500 BC. Gotlandic dominance in
> > Baltic Sea is obvious about 0-500 AD.
>
>
> "Gotlaendska kolonier fanns inte, enligt min
> uppfattning, i Oestersjoeomraadet saa tidigt som
> 2 000 - 1 000 f.Kr. Om goterna utvandrade fraan
> Gotland, boer det ha skett omkring Kristi foedelse.
> Gotlaendska handelskolonier bildades under
> vendeltiden (500 - 800 e. Kr). Gotiska kolonier aer
> enbart moejliga efter år 0. Aaland, Estland och
> Finland hade enligt min uppfattning inte naagra
> gotiska kolonier."
>
> In English: In my opinion there were no Gotlandic colonies in Baltic Sea
> area 2000 - 1000 BC. If Goths emigrated from Gotland, that should have
> happened about the time of Christs birth. Gothic tradeposts were built
> under Vendel Period (800 - 500 BC). Gotlandic colonies are possible only
> after year 0. In my knowledge there were no Gothic colonies in Åland,
> Estonia or Finland.
>
Here we have a semantic problem. We both agree that Gothic may have existed
as a dostinct linguistic entity since 1,000 BC. And we both agree that the
possibility exists of there having been Gothic trading posts "in Estonia"
by 500 BC. Trading posts are usually areas that are known as places where
traders meet, but they need not, but can be, permanently inhabited.
Colonies, on the other hand, implies a continuous tradition of
inhabitation. the establishment of trafding posts is often preceded by some
kind of informal exploration. In the United States, for example, many
places in the central and north-western parts of the country had been
superficially explored by Europeans for centuries, with various kinds of
contacts established with the natives, before trading posts or missions
were eventually established. If a decision can have been made by the
Goths/Gotlanders to establish 'trading posts' at certain locations in
'Estonia', Gothic/Gotlandic - Baltic-Finnic contacts could have antedated
these decisions by several centuries.
>
> Just a curiosity. This is what "Bertil Häggman" tells about Gothic
> kings:
>
> "Det är ett välkänt faktum att gotlaenningarna
> styrdes republikanskt och att de sedan urminnes
> tid utgjorde en bonderepublik, unik foer Oestersjoeomraadet.
> ...
> Gutalagen baer vittnesboerd om ett fritt bondesamhaelle
> utan kungaboeter och andra kungliga prerogativ."
>
> In English: It is a well known fact Gotlandic were lead rebulic fashion
> and that they already from ancient time formed a peoples' republic,
> unique in Baltic Sea region.
> ...
> Gutalagen holds evidence of a free peasant society without king's taxes
> or other kingly priviledges.
Here is what Winfred P. Lehmann, one of the foremost authorities on the
Goths and Gothic culture, has to say (W. P. Lehmann 'Gothic and the
Reconstruction of Proto-Germanic' in E, König and J. van der Auwera, op.
cit.):
"According to tradition the Goths maintained an aristocratic culture that
reflected many characetristics of Endo-Euriopean society. They supported
poets who preserved accounts of their valiant men, such as the king,
Ermanric, who came to be central figures in the medieval literatures of the
West and North Germanic peoples.ŠThe language contains many military,
legal, and political terms, such as drauhtu- 'army' in derivativesŠ".
The latter term shows up in Finnish in an extremely archaic (borrowed well
before the beginning of the Christian era) form in the word ruhtinas
'prince', < PG *druhtinaz > Old English dryhten 'lord'. I find it
significant that druhtinas, kuningas 'king', mitta 'measure', and vero
'tax', basic evaluative adjectives such as armas 'dear', rikas 'rich',
viisas 'wise', kaunis 'beautiful', sairas 'sick', and hurskas 'pious,
loyal', not to mention äiti 'mother', all show up in Finnish in forms that
suggest that they were borrowed at the same time from the same source
language, this being an extremely early form of Gothic or some other
equally archaic East rather than North Germanic language.
--
Regards,
Eugene Holman
Eugene Holman
'torde ha utvecklats' is slightly more speculative than 'is thought to have
developed'. I suggest 'is assumed/speculated to have developed'.
I would not disagree with claims made in this statement. However, it does
need some qualification in addition to the adjustment of the modality of
the verb. We know relatively little about Gothic, particularly its early
history, and almost all of our data concerning it comes from a single
source representing a late and highly developed form of the language,
Wulfila's 4th century A.D. partial translation of the non-violent parts of
the Bible, the language being evidently a variety of Visigothic spoken in
what is now northern Bulgaria.
Gothic provides us with the oldest continuous texts (as opposed to
inscriptions limited to a sentence or a few words) in any Germanic
language. Wulfila's Gothic has enough specific features to enable us to conclude
confidently that the language went its own way with respect to the other
Germanic languages long before the 4th century AD.
Gothic is so distinct from the other Germanic languages in terms of both
retentions of Proto-Germanic features (e.g. a sibilant as the reflex of
the proto-Germanic masc. nom. sing. ending *-az, reduplicated pefect stems
of verbs) and innovation (e.g. the development of Proto-Germanic *-e- to
-i-, the replacement of the Indo-European kinship terms for 'mother' and
'father' with the innovations 'aithei' and 'atta'), that it is regarded as
forming, along with West and North Germanic, a third branch, East Germanic.
As Häggman wrote, the language probably began to develop as a distinct
entity starting around 1,000 BC, however this does not preclude some
earlier transitional Germanic dialect containing more East Germanic that
Proto-Germanic features having preceded it.
It is impossible to posit a universal rate of change for languages.
Nevertheless, clearly differentiated Northern, Western, and East Germanic
types of Germanic had become clearly distinct linguistic entities by the
the beginning of the modern era, and this is most likely the result of at
least a millennium of separate development with some possible cross
fertilization resulting from contacts between the already differentiated
languages, cf. English borrowings into contemporary Swedish and German.
>
> As I've been saying; Gothic influence into Finnish is much later than
> 2000 BC. At earliest I would wager 500 BC. The early Bronze Age
> influence should be called Proto-Germanic, and didn't limit to contacts
> with people from Gotland.
The date 2000 BC is admittedly too early, but I think that 500 BC is too
late, given the extremely archaic linguistic features in the oldest stratum
of loans, i.e. words such as kana 'chicken', kallio 'boulder', patja
'mattress', and rikas 'rich', kaunis 'beautiful'. These words have more
Proto-Germanic, perhaps even pre-Proto-Germanic features such as the *k-
for early Germanic *x [= German ach-Laut]- > Later Germanic *h, rather than
features of the type of Gothic we know (e.g. Finnish kaunis <
Proto-Germanic *skaunis > Gothic skauns, armas < Proto-Germanic *armaz >
Gothic arms), with the
thematic vowel retained in Finnish and Proto-Germanic but lost in Gothic),
so a date before 1000 BC does not seem impossible. Opinions differ as to
when Proto-Germanic evolved as a distinct form of Indo-Euroepan, although
the most common view today is that the area where is emerged (northern
Germany, the Danish Isles, southern Scandinavia) had been Indo-Europeanized
by the year 1,000 BC (cf. Carol Henrikson and Johan van der Auwera 'The
Germanic Languages' in *The Germanic Languages*, E. König and J. van der
Auwera, Routledge 1994.)
> >
> > You say Goths dealt with Russian and Volga trade already 2000 BC?
> > Unheard! What is your evidence? At that age the trade with Russia was
> > firmly on the hands of FU-people of inner Finland and (I don’t know but
> > I would suggest) Estonia. Then Scandinavians traded with FU people.
> >
I didn't state anything quite this strong. What I stated was that Gotland
and the people that left there to settle along the shores of the Baltic,
including some of the Åland Islands, dominated trade in the Eastern Baltic
until they were replaced by the Vikings, around 500 AD. When this dominance
began is difficult to determine but (this has double quotes, but it is
Captain's statement from In article <376E9737...@sci.fi>, Captain
<Ca...@sci.fi> June 21, 1999):
> > There is a Baltic oriented Bronze Age culture in southern Scandinavia
> > and Gotland that starts about 1700 BC. Trade with Baltic-Finns is
> > remarkable. I’ve even seen statements that there had been Gotlandic
> > trade posts in Estonia starting around 500 BC. Gotlandic dominance in
> > Baltic Sea is obvious about 0-500 AD.
>
>
> "Gotlaendska kolonier fanns inte, enligt min
> uppfattning, i Oestersjoeomraadet saa tidigt som
> 2 000 - 1 000 f.Kr. Om goterna utvandrade fraan
> Gotland, boer det ha skett omkring Kristi foedelse.
> Gotlaendska handelskolonier bildades under
> vendeltiden (500 - 800 e. Kr). Gotiska kolonier aer
> enbart moejliga efter år 0. Aaland, Estland och
> Finland hade enligt min uppfattning inte naagra
> gotiska kolonier."
>
> In English: In my opinion there were no Gotlandic colonies in Baltic Sea
> area 2000 - 1000 BC. If Goths emigrated from Gotland, that should have
> happened about the time of Christs birth. Gothic tradeposts were built
> under Vendel Period (800 - 500 BC). Gotlandic colonies are possible only
> after year 0. In my knowledge there were no Gothic colonies in Åland,
> Estonia or Finland.
>
Here we have a semantic problem. We both agree that (pre-)Gothic may have
existed as a distinct linguistic entity since 1,000 BC. And we both agree
that the possibility exists of there having been Gothic trading posts "in
Estonia"
by 500 BC. Trading posts are usually areas that are known as places where
traders meet, but they need not, but can be, permanently inhabited.
Colonies, on the other hand, are places with a continuous tradition of
immigrant
inhabitation. The establishment of trading posts is often preceded by some
reflected many characetristics of Indo-European society. They supported
Captain
I quite understand you (that is, Eugene Holman) fancy Goths, but still I
think you are exaggerating their role among Baltic-Finnic region in the
period from 2000 BC to 1000 BC. I do think you should not post your
statements of Finnish pre-history and origin of Finns giving an
impression they are facts, or at least you would make it fairer to
mention this is your hypothesis.
At least there is 3 points I find most irratating when posted as facts.
1) When was Finno-Ugric language first spoken in Finland. Since this is
not known. Most believe it is no later than 4500-4000 BC when Comb
Ceramic Culture began in Finland. However it can go as far as the first
signs of habitation. We just don't know it for sure.
2) That inhabitants of 2000 BC are only proto-Samis, not proto-Finns.
This is great wrongness, since everything shows continuation from
earlier culture. What we know, it might be at 2500-2000 BC when Samis
and Finns began to SEPARATE. Bottleneck-theory means the profounders of
Finns were a relatively small amount of people, and genetic heritance
shows strong indoeuropean influence. Neither of them dismiss the earlier
inhabitants from being also ancestors of Finns! It is certainly visible
archaeologicwise and languagewise, the newcomers assimilated with the
earlier inhabitants. How fast Finns got this genetic heritance they now
have? We don't know. It could have taken a few millenias!
3) That Gothic kings ruled in Finland and there were Gothic settlements
in the rims of Finland. This is the most hypothetical part of your
statements, and you cannot prove this by linguistic examples alone. It
is all speculation. Someone as skilled as you, might argue Germans used
Basques/something-else as their seamen...
Coastal Finland was a Baltic Sea oriented culture and the influence of
Germanic Scandinavia and Gotland as well as Balts have been remarkable
there. It don't make Finns Germans nor Goths. Vice versa, it made
Germans and Gotlandics (and all the rest of them) Finns.
--------------
Mika
Eugene Holman
> I quite understand you (that is, Eugene Holman) fancy Goths, but still I
> think you are exaggerating their role among Baltic-Finnic region in the
> period from 2000 BC to 1000 BC. I do think you should not post your
> statements of Finnish pre-history and origin of Finns giving an
> impression they are facts, or at least you would make it fairer to
> mention this is your hypothesis.
What are 'facts' in history? The views that I have been posting were
recognized as 'facts' deduced from the available evidence when I studied
these things, admittedly a generation before you. As you see, I have no
problems engaging in a dialoge with you on these things, and am willing to
revise my opinions in the light of better evidence or new facts.
Nevertheless, the interpretation of these matters that I have been posting
comes from the work of Profs. Ella Kivikoski, Lauri Posti, Toivo Vuorela,
Mikko Korhonen, Arvo Laanest, Lauri Hakulinen, Pertti Virtaranta, Maria
Gimbutas, Kalevi Wiik and others, all well recognized experts in the field
of Finnish and Baltic prehistory between the 1950s and the 1980s.
> At least there is 3 points I find most irratating when posted as facts.
>
They are all facts from the standpoint of the linguistically-oriented
paradigm within which I learned these things.
> 1) When was Finno-Ugric language first spoken in Finland. Since this is
> not known. Most believe it is no later than 4500-4000 BC when Comb
> Ceramic Culture began in Finland. However it can go as far as the first
> signs of habitation. We just don't know it for sure.
We can probably never learn the absolute truth, since languages and
cultures spread by different dynamics, something which can easily be seen
as we consider the impact of Anglo-American culture on still essentially
Finnish and Swedish-speaking Finland. One problem is terminological. One
should distinguish between Finno-Ugric and Uralic. There are sound reasons
for postulating that Sami has some type of Samoyed substratum (see: M.
Korhonen: *Johdatus lapin kielihistoriaan*), and that the earliest
inhabitants of what is now Finland might have spoken a Uralic, but not
necessarily Finno-Ugric language. It hardly matters though, since from the
standpoint of a new wave of settlers/invaders, the possible relatedness of
a language which is clearly different spoken in the territory the intend to
conquer is hardly important. Speaking closely related languages never
deterred the Germans from invading the Netherlands or, in the not too
distant past, Denmark and Sweden from being mortal enemies. Thus the
question of when the first Finno-Ugric or Uralic language was spoken in
Finland is not as important as the question of *linguistic continuity*
which, we both agree, begins no later than the Comb Ceramic Culture. There
were clear cultural and evidently linguistic links between Finland and the
Volga region, but these were broken by the later slavicization of
intermediary Finno-Uric peoples such as the Meryas and Muromons.
>
> 2) That inhabitants of 2000 BC are only proto-Samis, not proto-Finns.
> This is great wrongness, since everything shows continuation from
> earlier culture. What we know, it might be at 2500-2000 BC when Samis
> and Finns began to SEPARATE. Bottleneck-theory means the profounders of
> Finns were a relatively small amount of people, and genetic heritance
> shows strong indoeuropean influence.
And this is pefectly consistent with the 'traditional' theory of an
important wave (or, if it was small, ripple) of balticized and possibly
germanicized settlers coming from what is now Estonia. Since there were
already people in Finland, it is not surprising that some intermingling
took place. Nevertheless, the relative importance of this input from
Estonia is shown by the fact that south-western Finnish and northern
Estonian were essentially a dialect continuum from about the year 2000 BC
until around the year 1500, when efforts to modernize and standardize the
languages resulted in the creation of literary varieties which embarked on
different paths. Eastern Estonia, Ingermanland, Karelia, and Savo
constitute the eastern component of this old dialect continuum which has a
somewhat different history, as demonstrated by the still clear linguistic,
cultural, and genetic border that bisects Finland on a line extending from
Kokkola to Hamina (cf. M. Rapola *Johdatusta Suomen murteisiin*, A. Laanest
*Sissejuhatus läänemeresoomlaste keeltesse*, and L. Cavalli-Sforza et al.
*The History and geography of Human Genes*, Fig. 5.5.3, page 271. Sami,
although clearly Finno-Ugric, is *not* part of this dialect continuum and
represents the result of an earlier wave of settlement. These are facts
that are evident to anyone who has studied Baltic-Finnic historical
phonology, Finnish and Estonian dialectology, and Sami.
Of course being a Finn or a Sami is a partially a matter of personal
choice, and this seems to have been the case in the past as well. Thus is
comes as no surprise that many Finns have same Sami ancestors, as well as
vice versa.
> Neither of them dismiss the earlier
> inhabitants from being also ancestors of Finns! It is certainly visible
> archaeologicwise and languagewise, the newcomers assimilated with the
> earlier inhabitants. How fast Finns got this genetic heritance they now
> have? We don't know. It could have taken a few millenias!
The traditional theory says that the people who became the Finns arrived
from the south-west, from north-eastern Estonia, and from the south-east,
from eastern Estonia and Ingermanland, and that they gradually pushed
back the Lapps, but also partially assimilated with them and any possible
Germanic elements they found here. It is really not that difficult from the
alternative view you are proposing, accept that it *emphasizes* the imposition
of new linguistic and cultural systems and *de-emphasizes* the role of
assimilation. You, in turn, are *de-emphasizing* the importance of the new
langauge and culture, and *emphasizing* the role played by assimilation. So
we are talking
about essentially the same events, but placing different amounts of weight
on specific aspects elikkä sama paska hieman erimuotoisessa paketissa.
The strongest argument in favor of my interpretation is the simnple fact
that wouth-western Finnish and north-western Estonian continue to be close,
as do eastern Finnish, Karelian, Lydian, Vepsian, Ingrian, Izhorian, and
Votian. The Inari Sami dialect, which is the most important one from the
standpoint of Finnish history, is a very distinct language whose
relationship to Finnish is not even immediately obvious to the untrained,
e.g. chalbme = silmä 'eye', kuolli = kala 'fish', puori = hyvä (cf.
par(h)a- in paras, parhain), kiehta = käsi, oivi = pää (cf. oiva), mon =
minä 'I', ton = sinä 'you', son = hän 'he(she)', leam = olen 'I am' (cf.
lie- 'may be', Hungarian lenni 'to be'). So, even if there was some
assimilation, Sami and Finnish cultures evolved as distinct entities with
little evidence of the kind of long-term symbiotic relationship we see,
e.g. between Finnish and Swedish.
>
> 3) That Gothic kings ruled in Finland and there were Gothic settlements
> in the rims of Finland. This is the most hypothetical part of your
> statements, and you cannot prove this by linguistic examples alone.
I do not think that Gothic kings ruled in Finland. I think that at some
time in the past some speakers of Gothic or East Germanic established a
foothold in the general area, this could have been the Åland Islands, the
wastern shore of Saarenmaa, the coast of Nyland, or northern Estonia, and
they dominated over the pre-Finns for a while, before eventually
intrmarrying with and ultimately being assimilated into them. This foothold
could have been permanent settlements, trading posts, who knows. Whatever
the details of the time and speace frame within which the interaction
occurred, its important and irrefutable results include the following:
1. The entire Baltic-Finnic sound system was restructured according to
Germanic model. All sounds not found in Proto-Germanic/Gothic, but present
in early Proto-Finnic (e.g. 'sh', palantalized dentals) disappeared from
the language. At the same time, an alternation of word internal consonants
p ~ v, t ~ , k ~ <gh> similar to the alternation of in proto-Germanic. e.g.
-b ~ -v-, -d ~ - -, g ~ <gh> and Verner's Law also began to establish
itself in proto-Finnic. This is the
type of situation we see in cases when a high prestige language influeces a
low prestige one. This was discussed extensively for the first time by
Lauri Posti in 1952 (Finnisch Ugrische Forschungen, 'From Pre-Finnic to
Late Proto-Finnic', with a brief discussion of the main points in Raimo
Anttila's more recent 'An Introduction to Historical and Comparative
Linguistics'.
2. The 'Goths' evidently intermarried with the proto-Finns. Hence the
Gothic word äiti 'mother'. Actually, Gothic and some other ancient Germanic
lanuages had two words for mother (cf. S. Feist *Gotisches etymologisches
Wörterbuch'). One of them, based on the Indo-European root *mater, cf. Old
High German muoter, simply designated a women who had given birth. The other
one, Visigothic aithei > cf.Finnsih äiti 'mother', Estonian eit 'hag',
designates a woman whose partner in the creation of her child has sworn an
oath that the child will inherit him, that is to say, has legitimized the
child.
3. Baltic-Finnic has two sets of vocabulary items, one pertaining to an
enequal type of social relationship between the 'Goths' and the ancient
Finns, the other containing strongly evaluative adjectives: thus kuningas
'king', ruhtinas 'prince', kihla 'hostage', vero 'tax', mitta 'measure',
tuomita 'judge', valta 'power', hallita 'rule'; armas 'dear, originally
'pitiable, cf. Visigothic arms, German arm 'poor', sairas 'sick', kaunis'
beautiful', rikas 'rich', viisas 'wise', hurskas 'pious' (cf. Lauri
Hakulinen, *Suome kielen rakenne ja kehitys). These are the types of words
we would expect to be borrowed in a situation where one group had
established dominance over the
other to the extent that it exacted tribute from the other and was regarded as
competent to evaluate the subordinate group.
4. The Baltic-Finnic vocabulary developed many 'Gothic'/Finno-Ugric
synonyms and grammatical strategies, e.g. kari/luoto 'outlying island',
aalto/laine 'wave', leipä/kyrsä 'bread', äiti/emo 'mother', armas/rakas
'dear', cf. Estonian armastama 'to love'.
€ The construction isä ja poika is Germanic, as is the conjunction ja (cf.
Gothic jah 'and'). It served as an alternative to the older construction
with the comitative case: isä poikineen
€ The construction isossa talossa 'in the big house' is of either Baltic or
Germanic origin. Older pre-Finnic would have had *iso talosna, with no
ending on the adjective, cf. Erzya Mordvin paks kodoso 'in the big house',
Hungarian a nagy házban 'in the big house', where the older structure is
preserved.
> It
> is all speculation. Someone as skilled as you, might argue Germans used
> Basques/something-else as their seamen...
There is nothing speculative here, the issue concerns the interpretation of
undeniable facts. The linguistic evidence is too abundant and too
mutually supportive for us to draw any other conclusion except that at some
time in the past the language which developed into Finnish and Estonian,
but not Lappish, was subjected to a period of intense influence by an
eastern-Germanic, Gothic-type language. Study of the chronology of
proto-Finnic sound changes tells us that these contacts took place after
the Baltic contacts (approx. 2500 - 1500 BC) and before the Slavic
(starting approx 900 AD) contacts. Study of the loans themselves reveals
that some of them have pre-proto-Germanic features, others have features
consistent with what could be expected of some archaic form of Gothic. The
loans are of such a type that they suggest that the social situation in
which these contacts took place involved the Germanic speakers imposing
some kind of rule over the Finnic speakers which required them to pay
tribute, but it was also characterized by bilingualism accompanied by
intermarriage, as well as by an effort on the part of the speakers of
proto-Finnic to emulate the pronunciation of the higher status Germanic
language. The impact of this Germanic influence was so intense that some of
the most frequent words in contemporary Finnish are of Germanic,
specifically east
Germanic, origin (ja 'and', äiti 'mother'), as is one of the most striking
featurs of its grammar, qualitative consonant gradation, (mäki ~ mäen, pato
~ padon, lupa ~ luvan) as well as its hushing-sibilant-less, palatalized
dentals-less overall sound system.
>
> Coastal Finland was a Baltic Sea oriented culture and the influence of
> Germanic Scandinavia and Gotland as well as Balts have been remarkable
> there. It don't make Finns Germans nor Goths. Vice versa, it made
> Germans and Gotlandics (and all the rest of them) Finns.
I am not claiming that Finns are Goths. I am claiming that 'Gothic' or some east
Germanic speech form has left a striking impact on both Finnish and Estonian,
and that the facts available - and they are certainly facts in every sense
of the word - are consistent with: 1) the proto-Finns having at some time
been ruled over by the 'Goths' to the extent that they had to pay tribute
(vero 'tax', mitta 'measure', kihla 'hostage, pawn') and acquired the
Germanic words needed to talk about their masters and the cultural model
they had imposed (kuningas 'king', ruhtinas 'prince'; vero 'tax', valta
'power', hallita 'to rule'; rikas 'rich', kaunis 'pretty', viisas 'wise'.
2) proto-Finnic/'Gothic' bilingualism widespread enough to have a profound
influence on the sound inventory, morphophonemics, grammar, and vocabulary
of the language, 3) regulated (thus aithei and not *môder as the word
designating 'mother'), intermarriage between 'Gothic' women (aithei =
äiti/eit 'mother > (Est 'hag'), isä/isa 'father'), and proto-Finnic men,
with the children raised speaking the language of their fathers modified by
the more-prestigious accent, grammatical details, words, and emotive
element of their mothers.
--
Regards,
Eugene Holman
Captain
Eugene Holman wrote:
>
> I am not claiming that Finns are Goths. I am claiming that 'Gothic' or some east
> Germanic speech form has left a striking impact on both Finnish and Estonian,
> and that the facts available - and they are certainly facts in every sense
> of the word - are consistent with : 1) the proto-Finns having at some time
> been ruled over by the 'Goths' to the extent that they had to pay tribute
> (vero 'tax', mitta 'measure', kihla 'hostage, pawn')
Oh yes, I quite believe there has been a bilingual phase! The point is,
it couldn't have taken as early as you claim, and it most probably
continued well over a thousand years.
You're fascinated by the idea of Gotlandic (Gothic) warriors and kings.
I'm not a linguist, but even I know that lending words usually has to do
with new inventions and ideas! And since Finns were still largely in
hunter-gathering/animal-husbandry way of life, words like king, tax,
iron, barley, oats, measure, rust, gold etc. represent by large new
conceptions to Finns. It don't mean the farmers were Germans, nor the
kings were.
Obviously Germans did not only come and visit (raid) Finland. They
stayed here too, like your bilinguaism shows, and genetic heritance and
archaeologic finds all agree. But they also show Germans lived WITH
Finns (also: armas "dear", mother "äiti"). And there's no Gotlandic
colonies. There's just no good reason to think Gotlandics came here and
subjugated Finns (or Lapps or what ever)!
I believe Germans immigrated Finland gradually, over very long period of
time. They did bring new concepts from south, and did trade. Later in
Iron Age they even raided occasionally coasts (at least Svear and Danes
did). I do not believe Gothic kings hold any rule ever in Finland.
I might use my imagination and explain the loans of organized society
this way:
Germanic people (later Finns) immigrated Finnish coasts, and became
under the rule of FU (Samic?) hunter/gatherers. The words tax and king
etc. are used by the Germans, but of the FU-kings and taxes they need to
pay. German women are also eager to marry FU-men who are in higher
status, and thus words mother "äiti" and dear "armas" come from German
and word father "isä" remains FU. New Finnish families consist of FU men
with German wives. Over time Germanic immigrants start to speak the FU
language in their own accent which develops into Finnish.
Well, might, or might not. Rather not since there's no reason to assume
either side ruled or taxed each other. New comers had these words and
ideas, and they were passed to new generations. But all in all, one
can't draw deductions like you did, and claim they have some
argumentative value.
---------------
Mika
Eugee Holman
> Eugene Holman wrote:
> >
> > I am not claiming that Finns are Goths. I am claiming that 'Gothic' or
some east
> > Germanic speech form has left a striking impact on both Finnish and
Estonian,
> > and that the facts available - and they are certainly facts in every sense
> > of the word - are consistent with : 1) the proto-Finns having at some time
> > been ruled over by the 'Goths' to the extent that they had to pay tribute
> > (vero 'tax', mitta 'measure', kihla 'hostage, pawn')
>
> Oh yes, I quite believe there has been a bilingual phase! The point is,
> it couldn't have taken as early as you claim, and it most probably
> continued well over a thousand years.
It is hard to say when it began, but the phonetic form of certain Germanic
loanwords is pre-Gothic and perhaps even incipient-Germanic. I've already
commented on kana 'chicken' and kallio 'boulder'. Another one is rengas <
*Proto-Germanic hrengaz 'ring', with the e retained, whereas all other old
Germanic has the short /e/ raised to /i/ before a nasal. Opinions differ
as to when Germanic started to develop, but it was a distinct language by
1000 BC. The earliest Germanic contacts would thus date from some
centuries before that date or, alternatively, Proto-Finnic wopuld have
been in contact with a conservative outlying dialect of proto-Germanic
which did not develop some of the features which otherwise define
proto-Germanic.
Now, just as you see the Finns as having a major component of genetic
continuity with the Lapps or proto-Lapps, I see the existence of Swedish
in Finland today as tracing its nucleus to these oldest Germanic contacts.
Finnish and the languages from which it has evolved have been in constant
and contact with Germanic languages for at least the past 2500 years and
possibly longer. The contacts were initiated at the time Baltic contacts
were weaking, probably by the assimilation of Balts into the proto-Finns.
The language at this time was an early form of proto-Germanic, later loans
seem to be from proto-Germanic as reconstructed by linguists, indeed many
Finnish loanwords are in precisely the form specialists in Germanic
languages posit for proto-Germanic. Erkki Itkonen in *Kieli ja sen
tutkimus* speaks of the words as having been preserved in the 'Finnish
icebox'. Still later loans show clear Gothic features, with later loans
showing Old Norse and Old Swedish features. After that the floodgates are
opened, and Middle Swedish loans come in by the hundreds. The only abrupt
change is the one from Gothic to Old Norse, but this corresponds nicely to
the norsification of the population and language of Gotland. Even today
Gutnish is a highly divergent dialect of Swedish with several features
indicating a Gothic substratum, e.g. Gutnish lamm = 'sheep' as do Gothic
lambs and Finnish lammas, not 'lamb', as in Swedish, English and the other
Germanic languages.
>
> You're fascinated by the idea of Gotlandic (Gothic) warriors and kings.
> I'm not a linguist, but even I know that lending words usually has to do
> with new inventions and ideas! And since Finns were still largely in
> hunter-gathering/animal-husbandry way of life, words like king, tax,
> iron, barley, oats, measure, rust, gold etc. represent by large new
> conceptions to Finns. It don't mean the farmers were Germans, nor the
> kings were.
Words going from one language to another can result from several different
types of contact, from the most superficial to the most intimate. In the
Finnish case, the Germanic loanwords are quantitatively and qualitatively
of such a type that we are dealing with intimate contacts. And, as I've
already shown, proto-Finnic - Germanic linguistic contacts were not just
limited to words: the sound system was recast along Germanic lines, and
the grammar shows signs of Germanic influence as well. Changes of this
magnitude arise in situations of the type of interaction between different
languages that persist over several centuries and involve widespread
biolingualism. Two well-known historical examples are Norman-French -
English bilingualism in England from about 1066 until 1450, and the
so-called Balkan Sprachbund, where widespread multilingualism has led to
Albanian, Bulgarian, Greek, and Romanian sharing several features of
phonetics, grammar, and phraseology without being closely related.
Note that the Finnish words for king, prince, duke, power, rule, measure,
tax, hostage, need, ring, all come from the same linguistic source and
were borrowed at about the same time - this we can tell by examining the
phonetic forms of the words. We are not just dealing here with a few stray
words borrowed here and there, this is a clear semantic field: the
terminology needed to talk about an administrative system in which one
group is subordinate to another and which involves the subordinate group
having to pay tribute to the superordinate one. This is not surprising,
since forcing the indigenous people in the lands that they have conquered
or claim as their own to pay tribute is a well-known feature of ancient
Germanic cultures. These ideas probably did represent new concepts to the
proto-FGinns, but there would have been little reason to borrow them from
the same source and at the same time if they had no practical use for
them. The extensive remodling of the Finnish sound system to make it more
Germanic is additional evidence of a subordinate relationship of
Proto-Finnic speakers to Germanic speakers, and this conclusion is further
supported by the borrowing, once again at the same time and from the same
source of the evaluative adjectives like 'pretty', 'rich', 'wise',
'pious', and 'dear'.
>
> Obviously Germans did not only come and visit (raid) Finland. They
> stayed here too, like your bilinguaism shows, and genetic heritance and
> archaeologic finds all agree. But they also show Germans lived WITH
> Finns (also: armas "dear", mother "äiti"). And there's no Gotlandic
> colonies. There's just no good reason to think Gotlandics came here and
> subjugated Finns (or Lapps or what ever)!
Now we're once again talking about the same thing from different
standpoints. Those speakers of proto-Germanic > Gothic > Old Norse that
came to live amongst the proto-Finns didn't just fall out of the sky. They
came from somewhere and they had a way of life that was markedly different
from that of the proto-Finns. In particular, their ideas concerning land
ownership and the paying of tribute were quite different from those of the
proto-Finns who practiced a lifestyle based more on subsistance
agriculture on fields cleared from forests by the slash-burning technique,
supplemented by the older system of hunting and gathering. We both agree
that these Germanic contacts were from the south-west, and I would go so
far as to say that they were primarily immigrants from Gotland, which
successively spoke proto-Germanic, Gothic, norsified Gothic, and Old
Gutnish and spread to the north and east. These contacts need not even
have been in Finland proper: northern Estonia, particularly Saarenmaa as
well as some of the smaller islands along the coast of Finland might have
sufficed. The early Goths were involved in the trade with the interior of
Russia as early as 500 BC, and western proto-Finnic was a single speech
area comprising south-western Finland and northern Estonia. The Gulf of
Finland was thus an area for contact between the Goths, who were primarily
interested in using it for east - west movement, while the proto-Finns
were more interested, as Finns and Estonians still are today, in north
south movement.
In such conditions contacts arose, and the linguistic evidence indicates
that it started with Germanic speakers establishing enough authority over
the proto-Finnic speakers to convince the proto-Finns of their superiority
and force them to pay tribute. This is the reason an entire semantic field
was borrowed into proto-Finnic at the same time, this is the reason that
proto-Finns started to emulate the more prestigious Germanic accent, this
is the reason the proto-Finns borrwed a large set of adjectives to
evaluate people and things. Eventually, this class system broke down, and
Germanic women in particular started to have children with (not
necessarily marry, hence the aithei > äiti word for legitimized mother)
proto-Finnic men.
Now, this is what the linguistic evidence tells us. If we want to call the
situation that existed when the Goths were exacting tribute from the
Proto-Finns - and some had to be living there to make sure the Proto-Finns
didn't cheat or mount in insurrection - colonialization or not is
basically a matter of semantics. Exacting tribute requires some kind of
administrative structure and thus some kind of presence. In Norman-ruled
England this was done essentially by having an urban upper class in charge
of administration, and a tax-imposing church keeping tabs on the
English-speaking farmers living in the countryside.
>
> I believe Germans immigrated Finland gradually, over very long period of
> time. They did bring new concepts from south, and did trade. Later in
> Iron Age they even raided occasionally coasts (at least Svear and Danes
> did). I do not believe Gothic kings hold any rule ever in Finland.
However the oldest loanwords in Finnish point not to German (und = 'and'),
not to Scandinavian (og, oc, och, ok = 'and', but clearly to *Gothic* (jah
= 'and') or some closely related *east Germanic* speech form.
>
> I might use my imagination and explain the loans of organized society
> this way:
> Germanic people (later Finns) immigrated Finnish coasts, and became
> under the rule of FU (Samic?) hunter/gatherers. The words tax and king
> etc. are used by the Germans, but of the FU-kings and taxes they need to
> pay. German women are also eager to marry FU-men who are in higher
> status, and thus words mother "äiti" and dear "armas" come from German
> and word father "isä" remains FU. New Finnish families consist of FU men
> with German wives. Over time Germanic immigrants start to speak the FU
> language in their own accent which develops into Finnish.
>
> Well, might, or might not. Rather not since there's no reason to assume
> either side ruled or taxed each other. New comers had these words and
> ideas, and they were passed to new generations. But all in all, one
> can't draw deductions like you did, and claim they have some
> argumentative value.
>
We don't have to use our imagination. Historical linguistics has a large
array of techniques for analyzing loanwords and drawing the conclusions
from them. Read the two chapters in Lauri Hakulinen's *Suomen kielen
rakenne ja kehitys* dealing, respectively with loanwords into Proto-Finnic
from the Baltic and Germanic languages and then read some of the material
by Jaakko Kalima, Hans Fromm, and Jorma Koivulehto dealing with these
issues and you will see that a careful analysis of loanwords can be used
to make numerous conclusions, which, of course, are best supported by
facts from other historical disciplines, about the social conditions which
prevailed when one speakers of one language decided to borrow a word or
entire semantic field from another language.
Best regards,
Eugene Holman
Captain
I'm replying here. Thanks for sending it by mail too, Eugene!)
Eugene Holman wrote:
>
> In article <377FF8AD...@sci.fi>, Captain <Ca...@sci.fi> wrote:
>
> > Oh yes, I quite believe there has been a bilingual phase! The point is,
> > it couldn't have taken as early as you claim, and it most probably
> > continued well over a thousand years.
>
> It is hard to say when it began, but the phonetic form of certain Germanic
> loanwords is pre-Gothic and perhaps even inscipient-Germanic. I've already
> commented on kana 'chicken' and kallio 'boulder'. Another one is rengas <
> *Proto-Germanic hrengaz 'ring', with the e retained, whereas all other old
> Germanic has the short /e/ raised to /i/ before a nasal. Opinions differ
> as to when Germanic started to develop, but it was a distinct language by
> 1000 BC. The earliest Germanic contacts would thus date from some
> centuries before that date or, alternatively, Proto-Finnic wopuld have
> been in contact with a conservative outlying dialect of proto-Germanic
> which did not develop some of the features which otherwise define
> proto-Germanic.
The earliest contacts go to when proto-Germanic was spoken, far to early
Stone Age. That is obvious by archaeologic evidence.
Germanic-Finno-Ugric bilinguism among Baltic-Finns dates furter back
than the development of East-Germanic and Gothic. I'd suggest 2000 BC -
1700 BC. Gothic-Finno-Ugric bilinguism I would suggest starting 500 BC -
0 and lasting to sixth century AD when Svear replaced Gotlandics in
Baltic Sea region. (That is, contacts with Gotland pretty much
quitted...).
1) Proto-Germanic was a distinctive language before 1000 BC. But Gothic
wasn't. So there couldn't have been Gothic influence in Finnish 2000 BC
no matter what.
2) Gotlandic influence starts in Baltic-Finnic region around 500 BC.
Before that it is South Scandinavian.
So, if you want Gothic kings in Finland, and them being GOTHIC, make
them appear after 500 BC (better than that, after year 0). Then it would
fit the general Baltic Sea region frame. But would still be all
hypothetical with no evidence. With 2000 BC you are as much way off,
like stating Spain was ruled by Romans 2000 BC.
> Now, just as you see the Finns as having a major component of genetic
> continuity with the Lapps or proto-Lapps, I see the existence of Swedish
> in Finland today as tracing its nucleus to these oldest Germanic contacts.
Heh, heh. That's ballony! The descendants of these earliest contacts are
Finns, not Finnish Swedes. Swedish language and people started to
immigrate around 1000 AD. The major body of them after 1300 AD. If you
want Gotlandic roots, you better be a Finn!
> Finnish and the languages from which it has evolved have been in constant
> and contact with Germanic languages for at least the past 2500 years and
> possibly longer. The contacts were initiated at the time Baltic contacts
> were weaking, probably by the assimilation of Balts into the proto-Finns.
> The language at this time was an early form of proto-Germanic, later loans
> seem to be from proto-Germanic as reconstructed by linguists, indeed many
> Finnish loanwords are in precisely the form specialists in Germanic
> languages posit for proto-Germanic. Erkki Itkonen in *Kieli ja sen
> tutkimus* speaks of the words as having been preserved in the 'Finnish
> icebox'. Still later loans show clear Gothic features, with later loans
> showing Old Norse and Old Swedish features.
Now, here I agree 100 percent. And if you include pre-proto-Germanic
before IE influence, it's much longer than 2500 years.
> Words going from one language to another can result from several different
> types of contact, from the most superficial to the most intimate. In the
> Finnish case, the Germanic loanwords are quantitatively and qualitatively
> of such a type that we are dealing with intimate contacts. And, as I've
> already shown, proto-Finnic - Germanic linguistic contacts were not just
> limited to words: the sound system was recast along Germanic lines, and
> the grammar shows signs of Germanic influence as well.
Quite right. Contacts and trade date way back to old Stone Age, both
directions. It started to blossom during southern Finnish Kiukainen
culture 2000 BC and got boosted by the start of Bronze Age a few
centuries after. Since that there has always been speakers of FU and
(proto-)Germanic living in Finland.
> Note that the Finnish words for king, prince, duke, power, rule, measure,
> tax, hostage, need, ring, all come from the same linguistic source and
> were borrowed at about the same time - this we can tell by examining the
> phonetic forms of the words.
Agreed. As do dozens of other loans. Yet, you only mention those that
fit with your thesis! Errr...sorry, not yours. I hear this is a
Finnish-Swedish nationalist thesis (to get Gothic roots?) and dates back
quite long time.
> We are not just dealing here with a few stray
> words borrowed here and there, this is a clear semantic field: the
> terminology needed to talk about an administrative system in which one
> group is subordinate to another and which involves the subordinate group
> having to pay tribute to the superordinate one. This is not surprising,
> since forcing the indigenous people in the lands that they have conquered
> or claim as their own to pay tribute is a well-known feature of ancient
> Germanic cultures.
There you go. But Finland was never conquered or made pay tribute by
Germans! Whether it was lack of German interest, result of good
relations or result of resistance -- or all of these -- I don't think it
is known.
> These ideas probably did represent new concepts to the
> proto-FGinns, but there would have been little reason to borrow them from
> the same source and at the same time if they had no practical use for
> them.
Ahem. Aren't you now forgetting that these German immigrants pretty much
WERE Finns? That is, Finns are descendants of THEM and the original
people of the country. Baltic-Finnish is their language. So, your
suggestion should be: "the people of Baltic-Finnish speakers were ruled
by kings". What kings? Were they Gothic? Certainly not if you take it
more back than 500 BC. Maybe they started to have their own kings. Maybe
they just used these words of other kings and peoples.
Yes, since there were immigrating people continuously from Southern
Scandinavia to Finland, we also get continuosly - surprise, surprise! -
news. Rome was well known among Scandinavians. Roman kings as well as
Central European kings must have been pretty familiar to Scandinavian
kings, traders, mercenaries and among immigrants from south. Eastern
Europe (Russian region) kings and princes must have been known to
Finnish traders who traded all the way to Volga river and Ural
mountains. Both norse and Finnish pagan religion got influences from
Rome, Christianity and other Mediterranean religions.
Even if there was no Finnish kings, who says there was no need for these
concepts any more with the immigrants? There most certainly was trade,
and probably relatives left to Southern Scandinavia. Traders probably
paid tax for their trading rights (to their kings). If Finns didn't have
kings before Scandinavian contacts, they sure started having them
thereafter (hence the loan words needed).
There is a whold BUNCH of kings in Europe and in Scandinavia from the
period of Gothic-Finnish bilinguism (around 500 BC - 500 AD). Roman
influence is strong in wares, weapons, stories, legends...everywhere. I
think your error is to take this Finnish-Gothic phase back to 2000 BC.
>These contacts need not even
>have been in Finland proper: northern Estonia, particularly Saarenmaa as
>well as some of the smaller islands along the coast of Finland might have
>sufficed. The early Goths were involved in the trade with the interior of
>Russia as early as 500 BC, and western proto-Finnic was a single speech
>area comprising south-western Finland and northern Estonia. The Gulf of
>Finland was thus an area for contact between the Goths, who were primarily
>interested in using it for east - west movement, while the proto-Finns
>were more interested, as Finns and Estonians still are today, in north
>south movement.
No, no and no. The contacts and bilinguaism with Gothic definately
happened in Finland. Contacts with proto-Germanic happened whole
Fennosscandia wide. What comes to the idea of proto-Finnish contacts
north-south-direction, it couldn't be more wrong. All evidence - and
there's a lot of it - speak of wide trade deep in Russia already from
Stone Age. And at the same time trade to Southern Scandinavia. So that
is no way north-south direction. Your mind is set with the old view of
Finns coming from Estonia.
> In such conditions contacts arose, and the linguistic evidence indicates
> that it started with Germanic speakers establishing enough authority over
> the proto-Finnic speakers to convince the proto-Finns of their superiority
> and force them to pay tribute. This is the reason an entire semantic field
> was borrowed into proto-Finnic at the same time, this is the reason that
> proto-Finns started to emulate the more prestigious Germanic accent, this
> is the reason the proto-Finns borrwed a large set of adjectives to
> evaluate people and things. Eventually, this class system broke down, and
> Germanic women in particular started to have children with (not
> necessarily marry, hence the aithei > äiti word for legitimized mother)
> proto-Finnic men.
Indo-European Germanic might have been a result of more prestigious
agricuture status. But you're turning here the idea upside down. If the
status was important in Baltic-Finnic area, then the more prestigious
must have been Finno-Ugric, since that was accepted and Germanic
rejected! It makes perfectly sense regarding how old roots
hunting-gathering was, compared to much more laborous and uncertain
farming. That, and the relatively small number of immigrants (no waves,
no conqures).
> Now, this is what the linguistic evidence tells us. If we want to call the
> situation that existed when the Goths were exacting tribute from the
> Proto-Finns - and some had to be living there to make sure the Proto-Finns
> didn't cheat or mount in insurrection - colonialization or not is
> basically a matter of semantics. Exacting tribute requires some kind of
> administrative structure and thus some kind of presence. In Norman-ruled
> England this was done essentially by having an urban upper class in charge
> of administration, and a tax-imposing church keeping tabs on the
> English-speaking farmers living in the countryside.
Linguistic evidence doesn't tell you who the kings were. It only tells
you what language the people spoke. As stated before, they could have
been proto-Finnic kings. They could have been their own kings, rising
from the descendants of proto-Finns and immigrants. They could have been
foreign kings too, but in Gothic case that would take much, much, much
later than the 2000 BC suggested by you. It could have been also these
words became with traders and immigrants, meaning foreign kings and
peoples. I've said I don't believe in Gothic kings, and that's because
linguistic "evidence" is the only thing you got. I put evidence in
quotation marks since it cannot prove the origin, location, language or
ethnicity of these kings, or whom they ruled. But most of all, you go
wrong with the date.
> However the oldest loanwords in Finnish point not to German (und = 'and'),
> not to Scandinavian (og, oc, och, ok = 'and', but clearly to *Gothic* (jah
> = 'and') or some closely related *east Germanic* speech form.
Isn't this in conflict what you said earlier in this post: "It is hard
to say when it began, but the phonetic form of certain Germanic
loanwords is pre-Gothic and perhaps even inscipient-Germanic."
Eh... if someone else reads this, I'd better mention that there IS far
older loanwords in Finnish than Germanic/Gothic, that is
proto-indoeuropean, indoeuropean and Baltic loanwords.
---------
Mika