Paleo-European languages

[Talskubilos]

]

Why couldn't it just be areal? Compare, for instance, the uvular rhotic in Western Europe.

I don't think so. In fact, it looks like Iberian already had a retroflex consonant written as /ld/ and adapted into Latin as /l(l)/

What you'd need to prove that claim is a list of regular correspondances. Is there such a list, though?

IE *kʷ > IE-satem k is standard.

Same thing for Baltic loans: are there any possible loans in Gaulish with Gaulish initial b- ~ Baltic p- ?

Without such a list, there isn't much that can be proven.

Unfortunately, there're too few correspondences for that, but I could also quote Gaulish *komboro- 'heap, accumulation' ~ Baltic *kumb(u)r- 'soil elevation, hill' (Lithuanian kumbrī̃s, kum̃bris, Latvian kumburis), so we can see Baltic /u/ was rendered as /o/ in Gaulish.

On the other hand, the notion of a Baltoid (i.e. akin to Baltic) substrate language in Western Europe isn't new, because it was already proposed by Catalan linguist Joan Coromines, who called it Sorothaptic from the Urnfield culture and was located somewhere between Baltic and Italic in the IE dialectal cloud. However, it's quite possible he actually conflated two different languages, a Baltoid one and an Italoid (i.e. akin to Italic) one.

There's also the fact that there were people there before IE people arrived, that they must have spoken something, that that something would possibly have left a few traces, so it's not really that surprising to find words with no clear IE etymology.

Actuaklly, there are "irregular" IE etymologies, pointing to cross-borrowing among IE languages, including substrate ones.

[Richard W]

]

Why couldn't it just be areal? Compare, for instance, the uvular rhotic in Western Europe.

I don't think so. In fact, it looks like Iberian already had a retroflex consonant written as /ld/ and adapted into Latin as /l(l)/]

And what creates that appearance?

What you'd need to prove that claim is a list of regular correspondances. Is there such a list, though?

IE *kʷ > IE-satem k is standard.

I take that reply as 'no'. Are there other examples where Celtic has what appears to be a reflex of *k rather than the expected *kʷ?

Same thing for Baltic loans: are there any possible loans in Gaulish with Gaulish initial b- ~ Baltic p- ?

Without such a list, there isn't much that can be proven.

Unfortunately, there're too few correspondences for that, but I could also quote Gaulish *komboro- 'heap, accumulation' ~ Baltic *kumb(u)r- 'soil elevation, hill' (Lithuanian kumbrī̃s, kum̃bris, Latvian kumburis), so we can see Baltic /u/ was rendered as /o/ in Gaulish.

I take that reply as 'no'.

On the other hand, the notion of a Baltoid (i.e. akin to Baltic) substrate language in Western Europe isn't new, because it was already proposed by Catalan linguist Joan Coromines, who called it Sorothaptic from the Urnfield culture and was located somewhere between Baltic and Italic in the IE dialectal cloud. However, it's quite possible he actually conflated two different languages, a Baltoid one and an Italoid (i.e. akin to Italic) one.

There's also the fact that there were people there before IE people arrived, that they must have spoken something, that that something would possibly have left a few traces, so it's not really that surprising to find words with no clear IE etymology.

The thing is there wasn't a single but several IE waves, as reflected in various IE substrate loanwords in IE languages.

What you need is alternative regularities. Otherwise, you could be looking at chance resemblances (quite easily done) or mere irregularities in the various languages themselves, perhaps akin to Latin <c> > Romance *g. (Is there a name for the apparent Romance substrate?) And these can often be allocated to subregularities, as with PIE *dʰ > Latin <b>.

[Talskubilos]

What you need is alternative regularities. Otherwise, you could be looking at chance resemblances (quite easily done) or mere irregularities in the various languages themselves, perhaps akin to Latin <c> > Romance *g. (Is there a name for the apparent Romance substrate?) And these can often be allocated to subregularities, as with PIE *dʰ > Latin <b>.

For example, Latin vitrum 'glass' seems to be linked to Lithuanian švìtras 'emery' (as well as other related words) < IE *k´weit-, but not as a direct loanword, so we're possibly dealing with a Wanderwort.

Are there other examples where Celtic has what appears to be a reflex of *k rather than the expected *kʷ?

Not exactly Celtic but precisely Cisalpine Gaulish and Lepontic (and for that matter, also Etruscan). Believe it or not, there're a few Gaulish words of non-Celtic origin despite Celtic etymologies have been proposed for them.

[Ares Land]

]

Why couldn't it just be areal? Compare, for instance, the uvular rhotic in Western Europe.

I don't think so. In fact, it looks like Iberian already had a retroflex consonant written as /ld/ and adapted into Latin as /l(l)/

How do we know it was retroflex?

And even so, how do we prove this is a substrate influence? There has been a fair bit of exchange between Sicily, Sardinia and parts of Spain for quite some time; they've been at several times ruled by the same people. I mean, it certainly could be substrate influence; but it could just as well be a later innovation spreading.

Without such a list, there isn't much that can be proven.

Unfortunately, there're too few correspondences for that, but I could also quote Gaulish *komboro- 'heap, accumulation' ~ Baltic *kumb(u)r- 'soil elevation, hill' (Lithuanian kumbrī̃s, kum̃bris, Latvian kumburis), so we can see Baltic /u/ was rendered as /o/ in Gaulish.

The thing is, if you just have two or three cognates, then you can't prove anything. Maybe it's a borrowing, maybe it's a coincidence.

And that said... *komboro, isn't attested in Gaulish at all. It's found as Latin combrus 'a heap of branches on a river', best explained by proto-Celtic *kombereti 'to bring together'.

On the other hand, the notion of a Baltoid (i.e. akin to Baltic) substrate language in Western Europe isn't new, because it was already proposed by Catalan linguist Joan Coromines, who called it Sorothaptic from the Urnfield culture and was located somewhere between Baltic and Italic in the IE dialectal cloud. However, it's quite possible he actually conflated two different languages, a Baltoid one and an Italoid (i.e. akin to Italic) one.

I see that Coromines proposed a substrate language; I'd need a cite to accept the claim that it would fit somewhere between Baltic and Italic

There's also the fact that there were people there before IE people arrived, that they must have spoken something, that that something would possibly have left a few traces, so it's not really that surprising to find words with no clear IE etymology.

Actuaklly, there are "irregular" IE etymologies, pointing to cross-borrowing among IE languages, including substrate ones.

Most certainly. And sometimes we just don't know. How do we know it's a borrowing from a IE languages and not coincidence if we don't have any correspondances?

For example, Latin vitrum 'glass' seems to be related to Lithuanian švitras 'emery' < IE *kweit-, but not as a direct loanword, so we're possibly dealing with a Wanderwort.

Again, how do we know that? I mean if we somehow dispense with regular correspondences, we can relate difficult etymologies in Latin to just about any IE language, it doesn't mean anything.

Maybe 'Sard' is IE through a Satem language. Maybe it's IE through some other language we don't know about. Maybe it's borrowed from some other language that left no particular traces.
I think you're a little grasping at straws here. I mean, we have a handful of similar words, some of which are only posited on the basis of much, much later forms and some of which already have a perfectly good etymology...

The only reasonable conclusion is that we just don't know what š3rdn means or what its etymology is. It could be Baltic, it could be Minoan, it could be from whatever neolithic farmers Crete spoke, or from some long-extinct language in the Balkans.

[Talskubilos]

And even so, how do we prove this is a substrate influence? There has been a fair bit of exchange between Sicily, Sardinia and parts of Spain for quite some time; they've been at several times ruled by the same people. I mean, it certainly could be substrate influence; but it could just as well be a later innovation spreading.

The thing is in the Iberian Peninsula retroflexes are restricted to a small area of Asturian and they're only residual in the Pyrenees (partly Aragonese and partly Gascon), where they usually evolved into a tap rhotic /ɾ/. So the odds are in favour of a substrate origin.

And that said... *komboro, isn't attested in Gaulish at all. It's found as Latin combrus 'a heap of branches on a river', best explained by proto-Celtic *kombereti 'to bring together'.

I disagree. The form combrus is from Medieval Latin and the Gaulish word is the direct source of Basque (Biscayan) gonburu, bonburu 'excess'.

I see that Coromines proposed a substrate language; I'd need a cite to accept the claim that it would fit somewhere between Baltic and Italic.

Working independently of Coromines, the Spanish Indo-Europeanist Francisco Villar identified a substrate language which he called "Pirenaico-Ibérico-Meridional" and is essentialy the same thing than Sorothaptic. I'd refer you to his book Indoeuropeos y no indoeuropeos en la Hispania Prerromana (in Spanish).

Maybe 'Sard' is IE through a Satem language. Maybe it's IE through some other language we don't know about. Maybe it's borrowed from some other language that left no particular traces.

Whether related to 'sard' or not, I've already quoted Basque (Biscayan) sarda 'fish school'.

[Ares Land]

The thing is in the Iberian Peninsula retroflexes are restricted to a small area of Asturian and they're only residual in the Pyrenees (partly Aragonese and partly Gascon), where they usually evolved into a tap rhotic /ɾ/. So the odds are in favour of a substrate origin.

In Spain? Maybe.
For that matter, other explanations have been put forth, such as a common origin in Southern Italy: https://www.jstor.org/stable/44940397?s ... b_contents
I mean, it could certainly be a Western European substrate or something, but again, we don't have any proof for that.
Is there any evidence of retroflexes in Sicilian Greek, for instance? If anyone was in contact with Mediterranean Retroflex People, it was the Greeks. They were there before the Romans.

And that said... *komboro, isn't attested in Gaulish at all. It's found as Latin combrus 'a heap of branches on a river', best explained by proto-Celtic *kombereti 'to bring together'.

I disagree. The form combrus is from Medieval Latin and the Gaulish word is the direct source of Basque (Biscayan) gonburu, bonburu 'excess'.

The problem with that Baltic cognate is that:
a) We suppose the Gaulish word existed on the basis of that Medieval Latin.
b) If it existed, it has a perfectly reasonable etymology, with cognates, as a derivation of *kombereti

*kombereti is attested; there are cognates relating to rivers in other Celtic language. I don't know the etymology of gonburu, but a derivation of *kombereti would certainly work well.
Why should we suppose a Baltic derivation, with no other evidence of Baltic to Celtic loanwords, when we have a perfectly good Celtic etymology?

I see that Coromines proposed a substrate language; I'd need a cite to accept the claim that it would fit somewhere between Baltic and Italic.

Working independently of Coromines, the Spanish Indo-Europeanist Francisco Villar identified a substrate language which he called "Pirenaico-Ibérico-Meridional" and is essentialy the same thing than Sorothaptic. I'd refer you to his books (written in Spanish though).

Sure.
But where is the evidence that this substrate language is somehow close to Baltic and/or Italic? I don't need to refer to all of his books: a short cite will do. In whatever language.

Maybe 'Sard' is IE through a Satem language. Maybe it's IE through some other language we don't know about. Maybe it's borrowed from some other language that left no particular traces.

Whether related to 'sard' or not, I've already quoted Basque (Biscayan) sarda 'fish school'.
[/quote]
How about Finnish sarda, also a kind of fish? Shoudl we drag Finno-Ougrian into this?
Syriac ܣܪܰܕ݂ 'to abandon in a terrified state' would be cute as an autonym too!

[Talskubilos]

I mean, it could certainly be a Western European substrate or something, but again, we don't have any proof for that.

It depends on what you'd consider to be a "proof".

The problem with that Baltic cognate is that:
a) We suppose the Gaulish word existed on the basis of that Medieval Latin.

Don't forget the Romance derivatives: French encombrer, Italian ingombrare 'to obstruct, to block' and Spanish escombrar 'to disembarrass'.

b) If it existed, it has a perfectly reasonable etymology, with cognates, as a derivation of *kombereti
*kombereti is attested; there are cognates relating to rivers in other Celtic language. I don't know the etymology of gonburu, but a derivation of *kombereti would certainly work well.

The thing is the reconstructed meaning of *komboro- is 'accumulation, heap', which IMHO doesn't specifically refers to rivers, so the purported Celtic etymology turns to be semantically inadequate.

Why should we suppose a Baltic derivation, with no other evidence of Baltic to Celtic loanwords, when we have a perfectly good Celtic etymology?

Not Celtic but precisely Gaulish. I'm explicitly claiming some Gaulish words are of non-Celtic origin but have correspondences in Baltic.

But where is the evidence that this substrate language is somehow close to Baltic and/or Italic? I don't need to refer to all of his books: a short cite will do. In whatever language.

Here you are: https://books.google.es/books?id=G7zC8U ... a&pg=PA407

[Richard W]

And that said... *komboro, isn't attested in Gaulish at all. It's found as Latin combrus 'a heap of branches on a river', best explained by proto-Celtic *kombereti 'to bring together'.

I disagree. The form combrus is from Medieval Latin and the Gaulish word is the direct source of Basque (Biscayan) gonburu, bonburu 'excess'.

In Trésor de la langue française informatisé I find the entymology "gaulois *kombero, cf. l'irl. commar « rencontre de vallées », cymrique Kymmer « rencontre de cours d'eau »". The entry can be quickly accessed by looking up encombrer in Wktionary. I had begun to suspect we were looking at a derivative of Latin cumulus.

[Ares Land]

It depends on what you'd consider to be a "proof".

Some hint of retroflexes in Sicily or Sardinia in Roman times? Some cite proving that Iberian had retroflexes?

Don't forget the Romance derivatives: French encombrer, Italian ingombrare 'to obstruct, to block' and Spanish escombrar 'to disembarrass'.

escombrar is listed as ultimately from cumulus; ingombrare from Old French. encombrer is the reason we're looking at combrus in the first place.

The thing is the reconstructed meaning of *komboro- is 'accumulation, heap', which IMHO doesn't specifically refers to rivers, so the purported Celtic etymology turns to be semantically inadequate.

Where and how does anyone reconstruct that?

The one meaning I have is that of *combrus is 'dam or barricade made of felled trees'.
For that matter, the Celtic etymology: "together-bear' fits your etymology even better.

Not Celtic but precisely Gaulish. I'm explicitly claiming some Gaulish words are of non-Celtic origin but have correspondences in Baltic.

OK, but why couldn't that word be of Celtic origin? Why should it be Baltic?

Here you are: https://books.google.es/books?id=G7zC8U ... a&pg=PA407

Ah, thanks.
I'm honestly perplexed at the "Baltic isoglosses"
'Voiced aspirates merging with voiced consonants'? Nothing particularly 'Baltic' about it. Celtic does the same.
/u/ en la palabra agua? What's that got to do with "Baltic'?
Nominal composition and composition with prefixes? Baltic, yes, and plenty of other IE languages.
saldus saltupe? Again, why link this to Lithuanian 'sweet', when we have a perfectly good IE etymon in *sh₂ld-, seh₂l?
Malaca > Malaga is most probably Semitic!
For that matter, is there anything like satemization listed in that book?

[Talskubilos]

Where and how does anyone reconstruct that? The one meaning I have is that of *combrus is 'dam or barricade made of felled trees'.

REW 2075 and Coromines for the meaning.

OK, but why couldn't that word be of Celtic origin? Why should it be Baltic?

Just because the purported Celtic etymologies are more or less inadequate. I'd add also *sant-ikā 'ladder' (Coromines) ~ Lithuanian sámtis 'spoon, ladle', sémti 'to pump, to scoop (a liquid)' < IE *semH- 'to pump, to scoop (a liquid)'.

/u/ en la palabra agua? What's that got to do with "Baltic'?

Surely he refers to *up- 'water'. Please notice the quotations marks around 'agua'.

[Ares Land]

Where and how does anyone reconstruct that? The one meaning I have is that of *combrus is 'dam or barricade made of felled trees'.

REW 2075 and Coromines.

REW 2075 has "Verhau", which says Wiktionary is:
schwer passierbares Hindernis oder dichte Sperre, ursprünglich aus gefällten Bäumen, Sträuchern und Dornenbüschen errichtet, in neueren Zeiten auch durch Verwendung von Stacheldraht verschärft

So yeah, a heap, but primarily a barrier of fallen trees, nothing like a hill. So again, what's wrong with the Celtic etymology?

(But I've got a feeling I won't talk you out of this. So let's agree to disagree, shall we?)

[Talskubilos]

So yeah, a heap, but primarily a barrier of fallen trees, nothing like a hill. So again, what's wrong with the Celtic etymology?

Coromines is my friend here. Remember those Romance forms wrongly linked to Latin cumulu.

[Talskubilos]

In Trésor de la langue française informatisé I find the entymology "gaulois *kombero, cf. l'irl. commar « rencontre de vallées », cymrique Kymmer « rencontre de cours d'eau »". The entry can be quickly accessed by looking up encombrer in Wktionary. I had begun to suspect we were looking at a derivative of Latin cumulus.

I'm afraid Wiktionary's etymology is nasty. DRAE's ones are even worse, though.

[Moose-tache]

we don't have any proof for that.

It depends on what you'd consider to be a "proof".

This thread in a nutshell. This business of substrates, satem Wanderwörter, secret IE sister languages, and pan-Mediterranean language families is all pure speculation. It's a human desire to see patterns in everything let loose on a stack of dictionaries.

[Talskubilos]

This thread in a nutshell. This business of substrates, satem Wanderwörter, secret IE sister languages, and pan-Mediterranean language families is all pure speculation. It's a human desire to see patterns in everything let loose on a stack of dictionaries.

Comparative linguistics is speculative per se, and this includes the beloved Proto-Indo-European (PIE).

[Ares Land]

This thread in a nutshell. This business of substrates, satem Wanderwörter, secret IE sister languages, and pan-Mediterranean language families is all pure speculation. It's a human desire to see patterns in everything let loose on a stack of dictionaries.

Comparative linguistics is speculative per se, and this includes the beloved Proto-Indo-European (PIE).

PIE is reasonable speculation, with long lists of cognates and correspondances that can't be explained in any other way.

What you have is a bunch of similar-sounding words, linked together in an haphazard manner, and each of these similarities can be reasonably explained by coincidence.

It's not that PIE is "beloved". It's just that it's fairly solid science while your own speculations are not.

[Talskubilos]

PIE is reasonable speculation, with long lists of cognates and correspondances that can't be explained in any other way. What you have is a bunch of similar-sounding words, linked together in an haphazard manner, and each of these similarities can be reasonably explained by coincidence. It's not that PIE is "beloved". It's just that it's fairly solid science while your own speculations are not.

I strongly disagree. Comparative linguistics is anything but a "fairly solid science" like e.g. physics or astronomy. And the thing is large sets of data ("cognates") create the illusion you're doing "science". Some examples: Bomhard's Nostratic, Čašule's Burushaski-PIE or Forni's Basque-PIE.

[Ares Land]

Sigh. None of those three is widely accepted.

It's just that you know, if you hundred of words in two languages, with p in one matching with f in the other, you have a relationship that can't be explained by coincidence. You can use that law to make predictions, and test these. That's just as scientific as physics. When you drop various masses from a height and determine velocity, you're doing the exact same thing: finding a relation between the two.

So far, you've given a few similar-looking words; you can't do anything with that. We don't have cognate sets between Baltic and supposed borrowings into Gaulish, so we can't say anything meaningful about them.

Again, you brought up *kombero, how do we know the resemblance isn't just coincidence?

(EDIT: to be honest, I don't think that discussion will go any further. Let's just say that I strongly disagree with your idea of comparative linguistics, and leave at that.)

[Richard W]

Sigh. None of those three is widely accepted.

I think that's Tavi's point.

Forni's comparison was published in a learned journal in the hope that it would lead to some objective method of assessing such lists. I don't think the act of publication succeeded in this.

Pokorny's 2,000 entries are more a list of possible roots than a plausible list of roots. Additionally, some of them are cross-references to to other forms. And some of the roots are highly likely to be regional roots.

It's just that you know, if you hundred of words in two languages, with p in one matching with f in the other, you have a relationship that can't be explained by coincidence. You can use that law to make predictions, and test these. That's just as scientific as physics.

Unfortunately, we're doing history, not physics. Sometimes scientific method can be used to explore the credibility of the story, but that seems rare. What happens seems more akin to natural history than to science.

Can you give me an example of what would be a falsifiable prediction?

Again, you brought up *kombero, how do we know the resemblance isn't just coincidence?

I think we can't. Now, with a set of words, we can start to say that it is highly implausible that it is all coincidence, but we can't necessarily say which ones are coincidence.

[Talskubilos]

Again, you brought up *kombero, how do we know the resemblance isn't just coincidence?

Not **kombero- but *komboro-. If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.

So far, you've given a few similar-looking words; you can't do anything with that. We don't have cognate sets between Baltic and supposed borrowings into Gaulish, so we can't say anything meaningful about them.

Sorry, but I disagree. The thing is the purported Celtic etymologies for a handful of Gaulish words turn to be inadequate, but they've got striking Baltic parallels, so we can deduce they're loanwords from a substrate language of the Baltic group or akin to it (i.e. Baltoid). I'm going to repeat them for our readers's sake:

1) Gaulish *borwā 'sludge' ~ Baltic *purwa- 'dirt, marsh'
purported Celtic etymology: *borwā 'hot spring' (Ablauting variant of *berwā 'brew, cook'). Phonetics is good but semantics is bad.

2) Gaulish *komboro- 'heap, accumulation' ~ Baltic *kumb(u)r- 'soil elevation, hill'
purported Celtic etymology: *kom-bero- 'confluence (of rivers)'. Phonetics and semantics are both problematic.

3) Gaulish *sant-ikā 'ladle, milking vessel' ~ Lithuanian sámti- 'ladle, wooden spoon'* ~
purported Celtic etymology: *sfanyā (feminine variant of *sfenyo- 'teat, pap'). A complete disaster, due to improper reconstruction of the Gaulish form.

On the other hand, there're some traces of "satem" loanwords elsewhere, seemingly from a non-Baltic source:
- Cisalpine Gaulish karnitu '(he) erected'**, Lepontic karite- '(he) made' ~ Sanskrit karóti, kr̥ɳóti 'to do, to make'
- Basque (Biscayan) sarda 'fish school' ~ Sanskrit śárdha-, śardhas- 'host, troop'

*Also Etruscan śanti 'a kind of vessel'
**There's a purported Celtic etymology from *karno- 'heap of stones'.