Re: Odp: Greater Pelasgia

----- Original Message -----

From: John Croft

To: cybalist@eGroups.com

Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2000 2:29 PM

Subject: [cybalist] Re: Greater Pelasgia

John wrote: ...Given that Hittite(Neshite) was a supertratum language over the earlier Khattic (and that this occurred during the reign of Hattusilis I (The first Hittite king to rule from Hatussas (andother -ss- word Sylvia), this suggests a fairly late date for Anatolian languages arriving in Anatolia.   John, "Hatussas" has -ss- the way you spell it, but the standard transcription is Hattusa!   John: ... Atlas is interesting for many reasons.  Here we find an "-tl-s" similar to the later Greek "Thalassa", suggesting that Atlas may have originally been the name of a pre-Poseidonic god of the sea.  Atlas's daughters, the Atlantidae, are clearly linked to the Platonic story of Atlantis, which has a form "-tl-nt-" again suggesting a pre-greek language.  If the etymology "Atlantis" proposed here is correct - one possible translation of this name could well have been "Peoples of the Sea!"  Thus the linkage with "plst" found in Egyptian records, the Egyptian story told to Solon about Atlantis (found in the Critias and Timaeus), and the collapse of the Bronze Age civilisations in the Aegean can all be explained!   Don't draw hasty conclusions from superficial similarity. Thalassa, whatever its origin, has -ss- from *-t- palatalised before a historical *-j- (*thalat-ja); the Attic form is thalatta. Atlas is the stem *atlant- with the N.sg. ending -s (*atlants > *atlans > atla:s), hence the plural atlant-es (even in English in the architectural sense) and the derived adjective atlant-ikos. So in fact you'd have to compare thalat- with atlant-. The "-tl..s-" skeleton is just an illusion.   Piotr