In an 1874 treatise on comparative linguistics, Danish scholar Vilhelm Thomsen demonstrated that a significant layer of Germanic loanwords existed in Finnic languages, dating to the late Bronze Age. Prior to Thomsen's investigation, linguists generally assumed that contact between Germanic and Finnic populations occurred much later, during the Migration Period of the fourth century CE. Thomsen meticulously analyzed phonetic structures, noting that archaic Germanic phonemes—which had long since vanished from modern Scandinavian dialects through Grimm’s and Verner’s sound shifts—were preserved virtually intact within Finnic vocabulary. Crucially, Thomsen emphasized that these borrowings were strictly restricted to agricultural terms, metalworking terminology, and maritime navigation vocabulary, whereas words pertaining to political organization and religious worship remained entirely native to Finnic roots. From this specific lexical distribution, Thomsen concluded that early interaction between these groups was limited to commercial exchange and technological transfer rather than political conquest or institutional integration.
According to the passage, which of the following is explicitly stated regarding the Germanic loanwords identified by Thomsen in Finnic languages?
- They were limited to specific domain vocabularies, such as agriculture, metallurgy, and seafaring.Cevap
- BThey contained phonetic features that originated during the fourth-century Migration Period.
- CThey included core terminology associated with governance and religious ceremonies.
- DThey entered Finnic languages after undergoing Grimm’s and Verner’s sound shifts in Scandinavian dialects.
- EThey were introduced primarily through institutional integration following military conquest.