Paleo-European languages

[Talskubilos]

given how hard it is to find a lone sardine, I'm utterly not surprised it became a mass noun {my underlining the above}

Any suggestions for the etymology of the Latin word?

[keenir]

given how hard it is to find a lone sardine, I'm utterly not surprised it became a mass noun {my underlining the above}

Any suggestions for the etymology of the Latin word?

Nothing different from my last post on the matter; sorry.

[Talskubilos]

I've just found a recent article by John Bengtson (coauthored with Corinna Leschber):
Notes on some Pre-Greek words in relation to Euskaro-Caucasian (North Caucasian + Basque)

Of course, I think his Vasco-Caucasian etymologies are flawed.

[Travis B.]

I've just found a recent article by John Bengtson (coauthored with Corinna Leschber):
Notes on some Pre-Greek words in relation to Euskaro-Caucasian (North Caucasian + Basque)

Of course, I think his Vasco-Caucasian etymologies are flawed.

Umm, just mentioning Basque in the same sentence as Caucasian puts one just a step below those Basque monks...

[Talskubilos]

Umm, just mentioning Basque in the same sentence as Caucasian puts one just a step below those Basque monks...

The thing is Bengtson is oblivious to criticism, either from Trask 25 years ago, or more recently from myself (see comments here). This is why I consider him to be a **crackpot**.

[WeepingElf]

You are throwing stones while sitting in a glass house. Not that I thought Bengtson was right - he is IMHO probably dead wrong - but many people consider you a crackpot, and don't forget that you endorsed a similar opinion just a few years ago. It would be better to say, "I used to think that way, too, but now I think that was fallacious".

[Talskubilos]

You are throwing stones while sitting in a glass house. Not that I thought Bengtson was right - he is IMHO probably dead wrong - but many people consider you a crackpot,

Yes, I know you do.

and don't forget that you endorsed a similar opinion just a few years ago. It would be better to say, "I used to think that way, too, but now I think that was fallacious".

That's right. I no longer support the Vasco-Caucasian hypothesis in the way Bengtson does. However, I think there's some Caucasian loanwords and Wanderwörter into IE, which in some cases reached Basque itself. On the other hand, Vennemann reverses the direction of some genuine IE loanwords into Basque and then presents them as coming from a supposed "Vasconic" substrate.

[WeepingElf]

You are throwing stones while sitting in a glass house. Not that I thought Bengtson was right - he is IMHO probably dead wrong - but many people consider you a crackpot,

Yes, I know you do.

Not to the same degree than earlier (see below), but you still seem to have problems with the standard methods and results of historical linguistics. Note that I am a speculator myself, and have come up with hypotheses that go beyond the accepted state of the discipline, but I do not insist on them being correct. I only say that it could perhaps have been the way I fancy, and I am ready to abandon a hypothesis when it turns out to be misguided. And I know that I should be very careful especially because I am a self-taught amateur myself!

What I objected to was that you brandmarked someone who probably has much better knowledge than you as a "crackpot" while operating outside accepted historical linguistics yourself. Bengtson is AFAIK an accomplished academic linguist, which only shows that even accomplished scholars are not always above positing questionable ideas.

and don't forget that you endorsed a similar opinion just a few years ago. It would be better to say, "I used to think that way, too, but now I think that was fallacious".

That's right. I no longer support the Vasco-Caucasian hypothesis in the way Bengtson does. However, I think there's some Caucasian loanwords and Wanderwörter into IE, which in some cases reached Basque itself. On the other hand, Vennemann reverses the direction of some genuine IE loanwords into Basque and then presents them as coming from a supposed "Vasconic" substrate.

This shows that you can learn. It is indeed unfair (but probably just due to failure to keep up to date) from those who still whack the Vasco-Caucasian thing around your head as if you had learned nothing. At least, you are capable of abandoning an unproductive hypothesis, which means that you are at least a step above the usual linguistic crackpots who just add some more mental contortions when confronted with counter-evidence.

[Talskubilos]

What I objected to was that you brandmarked someone who probably has much better knowledge than you as a "crackpot" while operating outside accepted historical linguistics yourself. Bengtson is AFAIK an accomplished academic linguist, which only shows that even accomplished scholars are not always above positing questionable ideas.

Really? He appears to have at best a limited knowledge on Basque and Romance but virtually nothing on IE.

This shows that you can learn. It is indeed unfair (but probably just due to failure to keep up to date) from those who still whack the Vasco-Caucasian thing around your head as if you had learned nothing. At least, you are capable of abandoning an unproductive hypothesis, which means that you are at least a step above the usual linguistic crackpots who just add some more mental contortions when confronted with counter-evidence.

There's a number of native (i.e. not obvious loanwords from Romance) Basque words with the structure CeCi or CoCi, which is reminiscent of the IE e ~ o Ablaut, and final -i of the thematic vowel -o-. However, this doesn't necessarily means there's a PIE etymology for these roots, as in most cases there's none.

[Talskubilos]

Not to the same degree than earlier (see below), but you still seem to have problems with the standard methods and results of historical linguistics. Note that I am a speculator myself, and have come up with hypotheses that go beyond the accepted state of the discipline, but I do not insist on them being correct. I only say that it could perhaps have been the way I fancy, and I am ready to abandon a hypothesis when it turns out to be misguided. And I know that I should be very careful especially because I am a self-taught amateur myself!

At least I build my own theories on actual linguistic data, but yours appears to rely on broad genetical and archaeological assumptions.

[WeepingElf]

At least I build my own theories on actual linguistic data, but yours appears to rely on broad genetical and archaeological assumptions.

I have abandoned the notion that pots and genes say much about languages. I have realized that attempts to match Y-DNA haplogroups with language families are misguided. Yet, genetics and archaeology say something about human migrations, which are not irrelevant to archaeolinguistics because migrants, especially when they become the new majority population in their new homeland, bring in their languages. But you are right that in historical linguistics, it is linguistic data that count. And I think there is some linguistic evidence for an older stratum of IE languages in Bronze Age Western Europe that was later eclipsed by Italic, Celtic and Germanic. What I have to admit is that so far, I haven't found anything that proves that this stratum was related to Anatolian, so this so far remains a conjecture. At least, I don't claim that it was that way! It is just a working hypothesis for my conlangs.

[Talskubilos]

I have abandoned the notion that pots and genes say much about languages. I have realized that attempts to match Y-DNA haplogroups with language families are misguided. Yet, genetics and archaeology say something about human migrations, which are not irrelevant to archaeolinguistics because migrants, especially when they become the new majority population in their new homeland, bring in their languages. But you are right that in historical linguistics, it is linguistic data that count. And I think there is some linguistic evidence for an older stratum of IE languages in Bronze Age Western Europe that was later eclipsed by Italic, Celtic and Germanic. What I have to admit is that so far, I haven't found anything that proves that this stratum was related to Anatolian, so this so far remains a conjecture.

As I mentioned before, I've found out some IE-satem loanwords into Western Europe languages, but this doesn't preclude the existence of other strata (in plural) as well.

[WeepingElf]

As I mentioned before, I've found out some IE-satem loanwords into Western Europe languages, but this doesn't preclude the existence of other strata (in plural) as well.

While I am not convinced, I can't say you were wrong. Maybe some Southern IE languages underwent a satem-like development, and as you say, there may have been several strata.

[Talskubilos]

While I am not convinced, I can't say you were wrong. Maybe some Southern IE languages underwent a satem-like development, and as you say, there may have been several strata.

This "Southern IE-satem" would be similar to Indo-Iranian and account for the results of *ḱerdh- in Basque and *k^wer- in Cisalpine Celtic and Etruscan. On the other hand, there're some loanwords in Gaulish and Etruscan from a "Northern IE-satem" Baltoid language.

[WeepingElf]

I have a few thoughts about Pre-Greek I wish to share with you in these difficult times where we are in dire need of distractions just in order to carry on.

First of all, it is of course uncertain whether the Greek words without IE etymologies are all from the same language. Rather, it is more likely that there was more than one language involved.

I think the unknown language of the Minoan civilization was similar to the languages spoken on the Greek mainland, the Aegean islands and southwestern Anatolia before the spread of Greek, as we found precisely
the same kind of pre-Greek names in Crete. Minoan was thus an Aegean language, if we name the family spoken in and around the Aegean Sea that way.

In my opinion, there is no valid reason to assume that the Aegean language was Indo-European. There are people like V. I. Georgiev who assume that it was an IE language, perhaps related to Anatolian, that underwent an Armenian-like sound shift. That would make the Aegean suffix *-nth- a reflex of PIE *-nt-, but the latter one of course formed present participles and agent nouns, which does not make sense semantically. Likewise, the identification of Aegean *-ss- with Luwian -ss- makes little sense, as the latter formed possessive adjectives. A name like Parnassos would mean 'of the house' in Luwian, but who would name a mountain that way?! Margalit Finkelberg has attempted to identify the Pre-Greek language as Lycian on the ground of phonological typology, which is nonsense because (1) this "method" doesn't work because phonology can change rapidly and (2) Lycian, of course, was spoken much later. Also, the road from the Pontic steppe to Anatolia does not go through Greece, so why should there have been an IE language related to Anatolian in Greece?

I also opine that the devoicing of the aspirates in Greek happened in Greece, i.e. after the landtaking. After all, they are not devoiced in Macedonian. This would mean that the Greeks adopted the Aegean "-nth-" suffix as *-ndh-, which looks utterly un-IE, and has substantial implications on what Aegean was like, and indeed, the Aegean names in Asia Minor show *-nd-.

Furthermore, I observed that the suffix *-ndh- always follows one of the apex vowels *a, *i or *u, while *-ss- also occurs after *e and *o. One way of explaining this would be assuming two strata, the older one, whence the suffix *-ndh-, with just three vowels, and a younger one, whence the suffix *-ss-, with five vowels. But maybe it is just phonotactics within the same stratum to be held responsible here - the vowels *e and *o did not occur before *n. Maybe we are dealing with nasal vowels here, which tend to show fewer distinctions than non-nasal vowels.

And finally, I don't think that Etruscan, whether it originated in Anatolia or Italy, was a member of this family. There are AFAIK no meaningful resemblances between Etruscan and the pre-Greek loanwords in Greek. (Also, it shows no traces of the Aegean word-forming suffixes *-ndh- or *-ss-.)

[hwhatting]

Not that I'm trying to prove or defend anything, just playing devil's advocate:

That would make the Aegean suffix *-nth- a reflex of PIE *-nt-, but the latter one of course formed present participles and agent nouns, which does not make sense semantically.

Florentia.

Likewise, the identification of Aegean *-ss- with Luwian -ss- makes little sense, as the latter formed possessive adjectives. A name like Parnassos would mean 'of the house' in Luwian, but who would name a mountain that way?

German Hausberg.

Also, the road from the Pontic steppe to Anatolia does not go through Greece, so why should there have been an IE language related to Anatolian in Greece?

Because if we assume that the Proto-Anatolians came to Anatolia from the Balkans, they may at the same time also have entered Greece?

I also opine that the devoicing of the aspirates in Greek happened in Greece, i.e. after the landtaking. After all, they are not devoiced in Macedonian. This would mean that the Greeks adopted the Aegean "-nth-" suffix as *-ndh-, which looks utterly un-IE, and has substantial implications on what Aegean was like, and indeed, the Aegean names in Asia Minor show *-nd-.

This only says something about which sound in their system seemed closest to whatever they found. Maybe the /d/ in the suffix was fortis or aspirated and therefore closer to Proto-Greek /*d^h/ than to /d/. And this may well be due to developments in that Para-Anatolian language after it split off from Proto-Anatolian.

[WeepingElf]

All fair points. Greece is not far from the route from the steppe to Anatolia, so a related language may have ended up there. Yet, unless someone convincingly shows that those Pre-Greek words and names have IE etymologies, the "null hypothesis" is that the language in question is non-IE. But we have seen surprises - consider the Anatolian languages themselves, consider Linear B.

[Moose-tache]

The semantic content of placenames is pretty treacherous. France most likely means "javelin" if we go back to proto-Germanic. Who would name a hexagon after something long and skinny? ;p

Also, if the suffix -ndh- looks not IE, with its typologically rare voiced aspirate, what does a poor suffix have to do to look IE? As stated, it all depends on the substrate's phonology and how Greeks mapped it to their own, which could quickly become circular if we speculate too hard.

Pre-Greek could easily be IE, but that's mainly because it could be almost anything. We can only speculate how many Greek words are non-Hellenic, how many source languages there are, what was spoken in different areas, etc. We're not going to identify a substratum language based on a couple of suffixes and some mysterious placenames.

[Talskubilos]

All fair points. Greece is not far from the route from the steppe to Anatolia, so a related language may have ended up there. Yet, unless someone convincingly shows that those Pre-Greek words and names have IE etymologies, the "null hypothesis" is that the language in question is non-IE.

It's quite possible this hypothetical non-IE language had adopted loanwords from IE languages. This would explain we can find IE lexemes with non-IE suffixes in Pre-Greek loanwords. Take for example, thálassa < Pre-Greek *tala-k^ja, where *tala- would derive from IE *telh₂- 'earth, ground' (cfr. Greek telamôn 'strap').

[WeepingElf]

The Germanic word for 'iron' is a loanword from Celtic. But what is the etymology of Celtic *îsarnon? I have seen the suggestion that it is related to Basque izar 'star'. This looks enough like PIE *h₂ster- to suggest a borrowing, perhaps from a Southern IE language; but that resemblance is only slight and may easily be a mere coincidence, and the Basque word for 'iron' is completely different, namely burdina.

What concerns the semantic connection between 'iron' and 'star', keep in mind that the first iron known to humans was from meteorites. The ancient Egyptians and Sumerians called the metal 'sky-metal'. Then there is this old chestnut Greek sidêros 'iron' vs. Latin sîdus (gen. sîderis) 'star, constellation'. As similar as these words look, they do not actually match; but AFAIK neither has a good IE etymology, and they may be borrowings from related sources.