Course Introduction II: Who told these myths Flashcards
If the various Germanic languages descend from one common parent language (Proto-Germanic), does Porto-Germanic itself belong to a larger group of languages which in turn descend from a parent language spoken even further back in the past?
Yes. We call those people the Porto-Indo-Europeans (PIE), and they lived in the Ponitc-Caspian Steppe.
Who was the person responsible for laying the foundation of PIE research?
William Jones (1746-1794)
He was a European scholar residing as a judge in India (Calcutta), studying Sanskrit. He was the first to systematically explore the relationship between European and Indo-Aryan languages (including Farsi and Sanskrit)
What dis William Jones famously note?
“The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin (…) yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity (…) than could possibly have been produced by accident; so string indeed that no philologer could examine them all three without believing them to have sprung from some common source.”
What does the Indo-European language tree look like?
Look at picture on slides. What is important to remember is that the wide dissemination of these languages in early times is due to several waves of PIE migrations south and west
As William Jones and Jakob Grimm and many others did, words from different though related languages can be compared and traced back to a common origin SO can the names of gods! Give an example of this? (Dyēus phtēr)
+ Norse equivalent, linguistically speaking?
Greek Zeus (Patēr), Latin Jupiter “You-piter”, Indo-Iranian Dyauš-pHtar and Vedic are all related.
With their help, you can reconstruct a PIE deity called Dyēus phtēr (“daylight-sky-god-father). This was a sky god associated with the sun and daylight.
Whether he was as important to the PIE people as Zeus was to the Greeks or Jupiter, is a matter of speculation. But his Norse equivalent, linguistically speaking is Tyr.
What indicates that Try was a war god?
The missing hand, in many mythologies, that is what happens to - and indicated - a warrior.
So a lot changed as Dyēus phtēr (“daylight-sky-god-father) turned into Old Norse Tyr
There is not linguistic connection between the PIE and which god?
Old Norse Odin, who who is known as the “Allfather”.
As William Jones and Jakob Grimm and many others did, words from different though related languages can be compared and traced back to a common origin SO can the names of gods! Give an example of this? (The Storm god Perkūnos)
PIE strom god Perkūnos eventually turned into Old Norse Fjörgynn, who is ocassioanlly named as the mother of Thor (e.g. by Snorri) thigh she us usually called Jörô (Old Norse for soil/earth).
The PIE word for “thunder” was linked to Perkūnos -> eventually became a god of its own Thor
What can we learn from the example of Dyēus phtēr (“daylight-sky-god-father) becoming Tyr and The Storm god Perkūnos becoming Thor?
God’s names are not normal words, they move and evolve in wondrous ways.
