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Archiver > HERBARZ > 2001-03 > 0985317609


From:
Subject: Re: Gear at Grunwald
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 03:39:36 GMT
References: <sab9cfff.022@mail.walterhav.com>
In-Reply-To: <sab9cfff.022@mail.walterhav.com>


I am sorry that this debate seems to have taken an ill-tempered turn.


>We've BEEN in the "realm of semantics" since you launched into your exposition of Indo-European. Whether a linguistic branch is classified as a dialect or not, is purely arbitrary and more often political

I would remind you that it was your own good self who introduced the
philological aspect into this discussion for reasons still not
entirely apparent to me:

>From: "Leon Stevens" <>
>Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 11:23:41 -0500
>The Polish language itself contains borrowings from Indo-Iranian languages, such as "Bog," "Pan," and other terms, and pre-Christian Slavic religious images show Indo-Iranian influence extending to what is now eastern Germany.

I made no assertion as to the absolute nature of the heirarchy of
languages and dialects.
In your later posting you say:

>There aren't any Slavonic "rules."

I must have expressed myself insufficiently clearly when I spoke of
Slavonic rules. Of course, languages do not evolve from rule books.
It is just that philology proceeds by identifying regular
transpositions and using those generalisations, attempts to
reconstruct earlier forms and to identify borrowings. I did not
realise that I could be misunderstood so far as to seem to be saying
that some form of extrinsic blueprint existed . I was replying to
your prior posting that said:

>The "break up" as you call it, of Common Slavic is as yet incomplete. It's still possible for a Pole to carry on simple conversation with a Czech, with each speaking, as it were, his own language.

Whether Czech and Polish or languages or dialects is entirely beside
my point in this case. I had spoken of the break up of Common Slavic
and you had countered by asserting their mutual intelligibilty.
Whatever they are, Polish and Czech are not Common Slavic any more as
that language has to be reconstructed by different routes via a
conjectured West Slavic for both of them. Frankly I think the whole
issue is a red herring.
You end by saying:

>What's certain is that it doesn't represent any "German hegemony."

Inspite of several attempts to depict it as such, my contention re
Gear at Grunwald has never been that the Poles of that time were under
some kind of "German hegemony"( - your quotes). In the context of
Medieval Europe the very concept would be absurd.
"the Polish Kingdom and Silesia were under Western influence " is what
I actually wrote, which has quite different connotations to the Polish
ear, I am sure. I had also used the term "Silesian influence" but
only as you had used it yourself previously and the expression seemed
too innocuous to debate.
I had believed and will continue to hope that this "Sarmatian"
community of letters in which I have always felt most welcome, was
unburdened by any chauvinism at the expense of any of the former
Commonwealths ethnic constituents but some of the remarks in this
thread have given me some cause to doubt. My own German surname is
carved where the partisans of the group Gryf are commemorated. A
Bishop Auxiliary of Chicago, Pawel Rhode (1871-1945), bore our name to
the credit and advancement of his fellow Polish-Americans and the
Polish Republic. We, " have done the state some service, and they
know't. No more of that.".

>I occasionally lapse into romantic reveries myself, but eventually return to reality, hang my saber back on the wall, and continue with my laundry.

As a fencer myself, I my sabre is rarely on the wall, it is true. As
for romantic reveries, I have had my share; as for Romantic reveries,
I for one would far rather fill them with the exotic costumes of
Matejko - which is perhaps why the artist favoured them. History must
be about facts and the honest interpretation of them; about arguments
judged on their merits of consistency with those facts and of one
deduction with another. I hope that this debate, which now seems to
have moved on, has been of some interest to others. As for the point
at issue, perhaps we should say, chacun a son gout, at last.
Cordially yours,
John Rohde.






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