Re: Basque/Georgian

From: Glen Gordon
Message: 1565
Date: 2000-02-18

John:
>>Thus there was a greater distance between the Bahreini Sumerians >> and
>>the Elamite-Dravidian dialect chain, stretching from the Zagros to the
>>Indus and possibly beyond.

That conclusion seems correct.

Guillaume:
>I am not a specialist of dravidian, but I spend some time reading the
>book by McAlpin on "elamo-dravidian". First objection : he places
>brahui as a separate branch of "elamo-dravidian"

That IS a nasty speculation...

>Second objection : he doesnt cite elamite in cuneiform >translitteration as
>any sensitive man would do. People that studied >even the very basics of
>cuneiform writing will know how difficult it >is to have a precise idea of
>how the language was pronounced.

Well, Bomhard mentions McAlpin in his book I keep quoting, "Indo-European
and the Nostratic hypothesis" - the only resource I have on Elamite and free
advertisement for him, I guess :( He states the following about the language
on p.94:

[...] --- compare, for example, the conjugation of hutta-
"to do, to make" from Middle Elamite (cf. Reiner 1969:76;
Grillot-Susini 1987:33):

Person Singular Plural
1 hutta-h hutta-hu (< h + h)
2 hutta-t hutta-ht (< h + t)
3 hutta-s^ hutta-hs^ (< h + s^)

Now, I'm no Elamite expert but if the above is true, it firstly solidifies
the justification that Elamite is Nostratic and of the Eurasiatic branch
since we find the suffixing of distinctly Nostratic pronominal elements, *u
"1p absol", *tu "2p erg" and *cu "3p erg". (I'm sorry I reconstruct the 3rd
person with a *c instead of *s but there is a method to my madness). As well
I recognize the plural infix from Steppe.

As for Elamite relationship with Dravidian, I view Dravidian as being
plagued with grammatical changes that obscure alot of the original character
to make it difficult to determine.

Regardless of McAlpin's failings, there would seem to be a case for some
kind of relationship here. Comments? Is there an Elamitologist in the house?

- gLeN


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