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Columbia pop-linguist McWhorter suggests strong verbs in Germanic languages may have been a Semitic influence.
by peter303 9y ago
Columbia pop-linguist McWhorter suggests strong verbs in Germanic languages may have been a Semitic influence.
- jdmichal 9y agoThat seems quite a stretch, when proto-Indo-European ablaut explains the exact same phenomenon. Also, Germanic strong verbs tend to be relatively primitive vocabulary -- go, sleep, drink, sing... So it's also explainable that these forms could develop prior to more standardized forms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_strong_verb#Origin_and_development https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_strong_verb#Origin_an...
- posterboy 9y agoI'm haven't read this or anything like that yet, but I'm sure the claim is only partial, not absolute, in which case, why not? Jewish diaspora is old.