22. Was Proto-Germanic a creole language?* When you are in the middle of an ocean, it is always good to be sitting on a craft or on an island. (Prof. Anttila, teaching class.) Abstract Prof. Raimo Anttila, to whom this chapter is dedicated, once asked the examination question: "Would you say that Proto-Germanic was a creole language?" The basis for the question was the high proportion of unetymologized Germanic vocabulary: about one third, according to the handbooks. Five approaches to the question are discussed: Neumann's "no problem" position, the substrate position, Rirt's "no problem" position, a Nostratic position, and the superstrate position. The latter position is defended with several arguments, among them a comparison of the unetymologized vocabulary within Germanic with Prof. Anttila's interpretation of the Germanic vocabulary within Finnish. The Phoenician superstrate position in particular receives much attention. The origin of the ominous "about one third" formula copied from one handbook into the next without a reference is traced to an 1899 book in which the percentages of new roots added to the German vocabulary are calculated for five historical stages, with the "European" stage (12.8%) and the "Germanic" stage (18.8%) adding up to 31.6%. - The overall answer to Prof. Anttila's examination question reached in the chapter is No: A comparison with the development of English with its strong superstrata! French influence shows that Proto-Germanic was not a creole but merely a language heavily affected by lan­ guage contact. 22.1. Prof. Anttila's question Prof. Raimo Anttila was one of my teachers at the University of Califor­ nia, Los Angeles, where I received my Ph.D. in Germanic Languages in 1968. At the preliminary examination (the "prelims"), he asked me the question, "Would you say that Proto-Germanic was a creole language?" I answered "No", and that answer must have been considered correct, because I passed the examination. 424 Was Proto-Germanic a creole language? I still consider my answer correct, as well as the reason I added, which was the standard one, namely that creole languages do not have elabo­ rate inflectional morphological systems, with numerous different para­ digms depending on word classes as well as individual exceptions to many paradigms, as have been reconstructed for Proto-Germanic. I also understood the probable motivations for the question, which undoubtedly were the following: (1) the fact that this language, though highly flectional, nevertheless is morphologically much simplified in comparison with its mother, Proto-Indo-European, as well as with some of its sister languages, especially the major "school languages", Latin, Greek, and Old Indic (Sanskrit); and (2) the fact that a large portion of the Germanic vocabulary has no generally accepted etymologies and is therefore likely to be of foreign origin. But foreign influence, even heavy foreign influence, is not the same as creolization; Proto-Germanic was a creole language neither in the strict sense of a language deriving from a pidgin through nativization nor in the loose sense of a language arising from a mixture of languages that does not allow the mixed lan­ guage unambiguously to be genetically derived from one parent lan­ guage. Yet the fact remains that an amazingly high proportion especially of Germanic lexical elements cannot be traced to Proto-Indo-European, and explaining this fact should be high on the agenda of problems to be solved by students of Germanic. Even though for many years I worked in other areas of linguistics, I never forgot Prof. Anttila's question. About fifteen years later I took a first step toward a solution (cf. section 22.2 below), and again ten years later, I began writing the articles in which the theory is developed that is presented here (in section 22.4) as my most comprehensive answer (so far). It is a long list, but I append it without embarrassment: It is a stu­ dent's bouquet of flowers for his teacher on the occasion of his birth­ day. 22.2. The principal answers 22.2. J. Answers not evaluating the nature of the unetymologized vo­ cabulary I know of two answers that pay no attention to the nature of the unety­ mologized vocabulary or at least do not draw any conclusions from it, and they are indeed the most frequently encountered ones. Was Proto-Germanic a creole language? 425 22.2.1.1. The "no problem" position One of the answers paying no attention to the nature of the unetymolo­ gized vocabulary is that there is no problem of Germanic etymology; if there is any problem at all it is a problem of Germanic etymologists: The Germanic vocabulary is entirely Indo-European, but the Germanic etymologists are simply not sufficiently industrious. If Germanic ety­ mologists went about their business more industriously one Germanic word after the other would succumb and reveal its Indo-European an­ cestry. This is the position most frequently cited with reference to Neu­ mann 1971.' 22.2.1.2. The substratum position Unimpressed by Neumanns strangely puristic stance, the authors of many handbooks of Germanic or German language history seem suffi­ ciently disquieted by the large portion of unetymologized vocabulary to propose a special kind of explanation (other than lack of diligence on the part of etymologists).2 A very general proposal says that the expla­ nation is language contact with speakers of non-Indo-European lan­ guages: Wir dUrfen auch in der Vorgeschichte der Germanen cine Begegnung, wenn niehl gar eine Versehmelzung von Stammen stark idg. [indogermanischerJ Pragung mit Volksgruppen annehmen, die vollig auBerhalb der allen idg. Gemeinsehaft standen. ... Die Beweise Iiefern uns einige Erscheinungen der Laut- und Formenlehre und des idg. Wortschatzes (Seardigli 1973: 45). The following quotation refers to a more specific proposal, but only as part of an alternative and only in the form of an indirect question: Auch der Wortschatz, den wir durch Vergleiehung der germanischen Sprachen als gemeingermaniseh erschlieBen konnen, weist dem Indoeuropaischen gegenliber wesentliehe Verschiedenheiten auf. Viele gemeingerm. Wortstamme lassen sich in den anderen ie. [indoeuropaischen] Sprachen nieht nachweisen, vor aHem im Reehts- und Kriegswortschatz, z.B. Adel, Dieb, dienen, Ding, Sache, Schwert, Schild und die germ. 'Kampf'-Worter hiid-, gunp-, hapu-, wfg-, die besonders in Personennamen fortleben, femer im See- und Schiffahrtswesen, das den germ. Meeresanwohnern nahelag (z.B. See, Hajj, Schiff, Segel, Steuer), und damit zusammenhangend die Bezeichnung der 426 Was Proto-Germanic a creole language? Himmelsrichtungen, die spater auch andere Spraehen wie das Franzosisehe aus dem Germ. tibemommen haben. Auffallig ist auch, daB viele germ. Worter mit anlautendem P- (hoehdt. Pi-) sich kaum etymologisch erkHiren lassen, zumal das lautgesetzlieh vorauszusetzende Indo-European b- nur sehr seHen vorkommt.3 Es ist die Frage, ob dieser germ. Eigenwortschatz auf vorindoeuropaisehem Substrat (unterworfene Vorbevblkerung) beruht oder auf eigener Wortsehdpfung (von Polenz 1978: 21f.). Since we are talking about words with mostly monosyllabic roots such as Adel, Dieb, dienen, Ding, Sache, Schwert, Schild, hild-, gunp-, hapu-, wlg-, See, Hajj, Schiff, Segel and Steuer, it is unclear what "Wortschop­ fung" is supposed to mean in this context; certainly a word such as Ding (urg. +ping-), originally meaning 'a legislative and judicative as­ sembly of free men', is not an onomatopoeic formation. Therefore, if we eliminate the hedging "Wortschopfung" alternative, this author, by posing the question and not offering at the same time a viable alterna­ tive, suggests that the Germanic words without cognates in the other Indo-European languages are substrata] loan-words. This is expressed without a hedging alternative in the following quotation, even if mo­ 4 dalized by moglicherweise : Es muS damit gere.::hnet werden, daB die 'Pragermanen' - ganz gleich, wo sie ihre Siedlungsgebiete hatten sich in den genannten Gebieten mit einer hier bereits ansassigen BevOlkerung vermischt hatten. Moglicherweise gehcn auf dieses cthnische Substrat die Antcile am Wortsehatz des Germanischen zuruck (ungefahr ein Orittel), die sich nicht aus dem Indogermanischen herleiten lassen (Schildt 1981: 29). In section 22.2.2 below I give reasons based on the semantics of the un­ etymologized Germanic words that the substratum explanation is in­ adequate. But even without such an analysis it could have been obvious to the numerous advocates of that view that it cannot be correct. The argument was framed most poignantly by Herman Hirt, in response to what may be the earliest appeal to the substratum explanation by Sig­ mund Feist: Einen anderen Gesichtspunkt fUr die Auffassung der dem Germanischen allein angehbrigen Wortfamilien macht jetzt S. Feist, Btr. 36, 350 f. [Feist 1911: 350f.] geltend. Er sieht darin Lehnworter aus der Sprache einer von den In­ dogermanen unterworfenen Urbevolkerung. Abgesehen davon, daB Feist nach seinen eigenen Bemerkungen die Saehe nieht ubersieht, kann ich dieser Ansieht aus den § 975 erorterten Grunden nicht beitreten. Selbst wenn Feist mit seiner Was Proto-Germanic a creole language? 427 Annahme recht hatte, daB die Germanen nieht eigentliche Indogermanen, son­ dem nur unterworfene6 waren, waren doch keine nennenswerten Bestandteile aus der ursprUnglichen Sprache zu erwarten, genau so, wie wir keine bedeutenden Elemente des Keltischen im Franzosischen finden, obgleich hier die gesehichtli­ ehen Tatsachen ganz sieher sind (Hirt 1921: 101). This argument is cogent. It rests on what is now generally accepted in the theory of language contact and what I call the substrate rule in Ven­ nemann 1995: 43 (cf. Vennemann 2003a: 207): viz. that substrates mainly influence the structure of their superstrates but less so their lexi­ con. - Concerning the above quotation, I would like to make it clear that I side with Feist against Hirt on the view that the unetymologized Germanic words are non-Indo-European loan-words (rather than Indo­ European words that happened to die out in all other Indo-European languages), and with Hirt against Feist on the view that those words were not taken from a substratum.