Thanks Dennis
Glen wrote to my point
> > John in a letter expounding on things biblical:
> > >On this basis, the influence of Aegean Sea Peoples into early
> >biblical tradition occurred. Thus rather than a Semitic influence
into
> > >the Greek Corpus (as Dennis Poulter and Glen Gordon has been
claiming), I
> >believe rather it was an Aegean influence into the Semitic that
Dennis has
> > >been documenting.
> >
> > Quoi? I may have missed something vital here but... as far as I
am
aware,
> > after putting aside the contraversy of the validity of the bible's
> > historical account, the operative word here would be...
historical. I don't
> > think the bible was recounting about the time of 6000 BCE which
is
the time
> > that I suggest was the arrival of the agricultural Semitish
language to the
> > Balkans. Alot of languages can go extinct in 3000 years.
> >
> > Let me clarify some more. I don't believe that the Semitish
language was at
> > all present in the Balkans by 3000 BCE. Between 6000 to 5000 BCE
the
> > language found itself in the Balkans after a quick spread from
the
south.
Semitic languages are generally classified into four groups
(a) Northern Peripheral (Akkadian)
(b) Northern Central (West Semitic Amorite, Canaanite, Hebrew etc)
(c) Southern Central (Arabic)
(d) Southern Peripheral (Geez and other Ethiopic tongues)
If Semites were to travel to the Balkans by 6000-5000 BCE as Glen
supposes and if Semitic was a language that was to appear early in
the
Middle East with Yarmukan in Palestine, then we could expect Semitish
to have been an early one of the West Semitic tongues of the North
Central Family.
Yet in actual practice we find that the PIE words have more in common
with Akkadian than with any other of the Semitic languages.
Gamkreldze and Ivanov show that the Old English *adesa, Hittite
*ates-
and Sanscrit *-adhiti all mean axe. On the other hand Greek pelekus
and Sandscrit *parasu have been compared to the Akkadian *pillaq-
meaning "spike", itself a word which id derived from the Sumerian
balag, a word which seems derived from the pre-Sumerian substrate
language of the Ubaid peoples. There is also the Akkadian *sarpu
meaning silver, which has been linked to proto-Germanic. Indeed,
many
of the so-called Semitic loans in PIE have a Sumerian rather than a
proto-Semitic origin. Thus proto-IE *reudh (red), has a similarity
to
Sumerian *urud (copper), which again seems to come to both languages
from an unknown third source.
Thus the Semitic *tawru (ox) has been linked with PIE *(s)tauro, and
as Glen keeps reminding us Semitic seven *sab with PIE *septm. But
*tauru also has links with other Near Eastern languages also. The
same is true of the words for wine. Apparently when one compares the
so-called "Semitic borrowings, agricultural words are a quarter of
all
the words allegedly shared by Proto-Indo-European and Semitic."
(Mallory) But there is another explanation of this fact than having
Semitish the language of the first Balkan farmers. It is unlikely
that Semitic were already agricultural when they came out of Africa
(as there was no evidence of agriculture in Egypt prior to 4,500 BCE
(too late for Glen's "Semitish")). Semites learned their agriculture
from cultures in the Middle East cultures which were already
agricultural. It is the reason why Semitic agricultural terms are
shared widely with Proto-Elamite, Karvellian, Hattic and Hurrian.
They all shared a common technology, a technology which came probably
from the rain fed slopes of southern Anatolia and the Zagros (the
areas where wild progenators of domesticated plants and animals were
most widely found). PIE learned agriculture from people whose
technological origins were in the same area. Thus we find today
"videorecorder" is a word in Japanese, even though they have had
little culture contact with Latin tongues. Such examples become
"wander-words" which tend to spread far beyond their points of origin.
Another example. Proto-IE *kwelkwlo (wheel) has been linked to
Akkadian Semitic galgal. But this word seems derived from Sumerian
gigir and even Kartvellian grgar. We can therefore suppose, rather
than a Semitish-PIE loan occurring in the Balkans, that the
technology
of wheels, starting in Southern Mesopotamia, tended to carry the
words
for their use as they travelled northwards, across the Caucasas.
> Let me also clarify. What Glen and I have been talking about
> re-Semitish/Semitic are two entirely different things.
> I have been posting on possible specifically West Semitic
(Phoenician,
> Eblaite, Ugaritic etc.) and Egyptian influences on the Greek corpus
during
> the period ca. 1600-1100 BCE _only_.
Dennis, influences can go two ways. A West Semitic influence in
Greek
can equally be a Greek influence upon West Semitic. Thus we find
that
Iapetos/Japeth - one Greek and one Hebrew can be assumed to be either
a West Semitic influence upon Greek or a Greek influence upon West
Semitic. The same goes for the ddn - Dardanoi links we have been
speaking of in the two languages.
When talking about which way the influence goes we need to take into
account two sets of factors.
1. In which language group does the etymology have the deepest roots,
and
2. On the basis of the archaeology, which of the two areas was the
dominant culture of the time.
On the basis of your point
> This was the point of my question to Glen regarding the likelihood
of
> Semitish agriculturalists transmitting the /danu/ word _and_ it's
> mythological concepts to PIE, its persistence through 5000 years, to
> re-appear only at the geographical extremes of the IE world (having
rejected
> an inherited form as the source of Greek Eridanos and Danaos).
> I think it is unlikely, and prefer the idea of, either direct
contact
> between Phoenician traders and Celts in situ, or indirectly from the
> pre-Celtic population of western Europe who in turn had received it
from
> Levantine traders.
Dedan has a great deal in common with PIE in its full range - from
Ireland to India. As you say, it is unlikely to have originated in
the period 1600-1100 BCE.
Now what about the dominant cultures? It is true that Ugarit and
Alalakh were trading depots of importance in this period. Gubla
(Byblos) had been trading cyprus timbers to Egypt from late
pre-Dynastic times. But it is unlikely that this timber trading went
to Greece, which was heavily timbered itself at the time. From
1600-1100 BCE the dominant maritime power of the Eastern
Mediterranean
was not Levantine, but Minoan and then Mycenaean. Language changes
through bilingualism. Culture contact between a dominant power and a
less dominant one leads to the less domionant one becoming bilingual
in the tongue of those who are technologically or culturally superior
at the time. Then what happens is either the substrate language
reasserts itself (as what happened to English as against Norman
French), or else the substrate gets more and more confined until it
disappears altogether (as happened with Gaullish against Latin). I
have no doubt that from 1,000 BCE until 700 BCE Phoenician was
technologically and culturally dominant to Greek in the Eastern
Mediterranean. This was the period of orientalising influences in
Greek Art, the period of the adoption of the Greek Alphabet. But
from
1600-1100 the strength went the other way. Bilingual Minoan-Egyptian
speakers would have been found in the ports of the Nile delta, and
along the Levantine coast. We find representatives of Monoans and
Mycenaeans in Egyptian Art. We find no Levantines or Egyptians
portrayed in Minoan or Mycenaean art. As the spread of Late Helladic
IIIC pottery shows, the cultural influences of the period all came
out
of the Aegean.
True, the culture of a yonger, dominant power can be captured by the
sophistication of an older less dominant power (like the Romans were
captured by Hellenic culture, or the Manchu were captured by the
Chinese), but then there is clear evidence of this in the artistic
iconography of the periods and places concerned. In the period from
1600-1100 BCE we see no evidence of this in the Aegean vis-à-vis
Egypt
or the Levant. In the Levant we have clear evidence that an
Egyptianising elite were captivated by Egyptian culture. The horns
of
Hathor, Syro-Phoenician sphinx, and even ultimately the Sinaitic
script show a cultural influence out of Egypt into Syria.
The final piece of evidence is the fact that Peoples of the Sea
travelled through the length of the West Semitic zone at the close of
the late Bronze Age. We find no equivalent West Semitic or
Egyptian migration up into the Aegean.
Dennis concludes
> As for Glen's Semitish, I've been following your discussion
closely,
and for
> me the court is still out. Your knowledge of the
cultural/archaeological
> progression is very impressive, but you haven't countered Glen's
linguistic
> arguments. But, for my particular area of interest, it is largely
> irrelevant, albeit very interesting.
I hope the linguistic section above holds greater weight for you.
Warmest Regards
John