Re: [tied] Etruscan and Nakh

From: Glen Gordon
Message: 6441
Date: 2001-03-08

The saga continues:
>Such events happened ALL the time in prehistory.

There is no doubt that "such events happened ALL the time in prehistory" as
you say, that is, languages disappearing without a trace or very little of
one. However, you don't even bother demonstrating what exactly was supposed
to have happened during this 2800-year period between Etruscan and Nakh, so
why should anyone take your views seriously?

Fortunately, we agree that the arrivals of NEC (9000-8000 BCE) and NWC
(8000-7000 BCE) to the Caucasus occured earlier than Kartvelian (5000 BCE).
I believe 3000 BCE is more likely to have been the general date of
_fracture_ (not arrival) of Kartvelian. The first clear dialects to form
would have been proto-Svan on the one hand and proto-CGZ (everything else)
on the other. Svan apparently retains some tasty archaisms (... something to
do with the lack of "Series III" verbs and craziness involving ergativity &
the perception of transitivity... Deep, man, real deep. I can dig it).

>> 1. Cf. Etr. /than/, Nakh /dan/ 'to build'.
>
>Sorry, yes of course it is. And Hurrian /tan-/. Maybe all of them are
>related.

Or more likely: They aren't usable for a would-be Etruscan-Nakh comparison
at all. If they are related, it's through IE, which coincidentally has
managed to travel the farthest, ending up on every language's doorstep.

>> The Etruscan-IE connection compares only the _imperative_
>> endings of the two languages. Nakh doesn't come close
>
>Come up with some matches for the other verb endings. They don't
>exactly shout IE at you.

Sigh, alright...

verbal suffixes:
----------------
Etr. IE
-----------------------------
imperative -thi *-dh�
"-ing" -asa *-es
(I forget) -na *-no-s
potential -ne (future) *-n- (pops up in some
"present" formations
as with the
stem *kleu- "to hear")

nominal suffixes:
----------------

Etr. IE
-----------------------------------------
nominative [unmarked] [unmarked] (inanimate)
honorific -s (male deities) *-s (animate nominative)
accusative -n (pronominal) *-m
s-genitive -sa *-�s
l-genitive -al (Anatolian: Hittite/Lydian)
locative -thi *dhi
locative -pi *bhi

Note that -s appears to have originally had an "honorific" meaning based on
both IE and Etruscan. Internally in IE, one can arrive easily at the origin
of the animate nominative *-s. It can only derive from *se, the
demonstrative meaning "this, that, the" coincidently used for _animate_
nouns (later, masculine-feminine nouns). An "honorific" usage of definite
articles is seen in English itself: "Is that _the_ Patrick Swayze?! Where's
my camera! Boy, would I like to be _his_ underwear...". Nothing strange
about honorific articles.

Further, while Etruscan generally leaves the nomino-accusative of nouns
unmarked as with IE's inanimate nouns, /-s/ is still optionally attached to
male gods. We find /Tin/ as well as /Tins/, for example. The genitive of
/Tin/ is found as /Tinas/ (/Tinas clenar/ "Jupiter's sons"), not /Tins/
(nomino-accusative). So put a lid on it, will ya? :P

There is also the perfective modal suffix /-ce/, comparable to the Uralic
perfective *-ka (just as Etruscan -ne equates with Uralic *-ne of similar
function). Etruscan /-ce/ represents an IndoTyrrhenian archaicism *-k:e-
that IE itself doesn't seem to preserve (alas, woe is me), except perhaps by
petrifact as *-g-. Note that modal affixes appear infixed between the verb
stem and the pronominal endings in IE whereas in Etruscan, the verb appears
no longer to use pronominal endings, employing seperate pronouns as in
English instead (cf. /mi caru-ne/), leaving only an exposed modal suffix at
the end.

"To be" often describes not only an equivalence or relationship but a
_location_ as well. It would appear that Etruscan demonstrates this latter
sense in the Pyrgi text:

... Vac-al tmia-l avilchva-l amu-ce pulumchva snuia-ph.
(Notice both the verb /amu-ce/ and the locative /-ph(i)/ at the end.)

Now, "around" is a _locative_ word and IE *ambhi clearly has a common
locative particle *bhi stuck to it like a fat toddler on a coke bottle.
Taking away *bhi, we are left with a root **am- that looks very much to be
our "to be". Perhaps, not the best connection in the world but definitely of
more worth than Nakh comparisons any day.

>There is a 'connection' between IE and Etruscan. I just don't agree
>that there is enough evidence to say that that connection is genetic.
>And of course, even if that was the case, it would not preclude
>non-genetic influence from elsewhere anyway.

I am not ignoring the very real possibility of prehistorical interaction
between two or more non-related languages. I just don't believe that NEC can
possibly have ever crossed paths with Etruscan. Perhaps if I joined a seance
or phoned the Psychic Hotline, they might convince me that this is true. The
idea that Etruscan and IE are genetically related must be given far more
weight than other more absurd connections like the Nakh thing...

>The fact that the declension paradigm for /vaj/ is much simpler than
>for other pronouns also supports your theory.

Excellent. Soon you'll be assimilated.

>Could you elaborate about the place names?

At the very least, there's Greek /Ytte:nia/, known also as Tetrapolis,
connected to Etruscan /huth/ (cf. Tetra- means "four" in Greek). I would
reconstruct Tyrrhenian *Xottena "Four Peoples" (*xotta "four" > Etruscan
/huth/) to account for it.

The next puzzle though is whether the rest of the names and words like
Korinthos, Tirinthos, Knossos, labyrinthos, asaminthos, narkissos, and
probably others that lack the tell-tale /-sso-/ and /-ntho-/ markings are
truely Anatolian as some have suggested or in reality Tyrrhenian (or gasp,
worse yet: Tyrrhenian with Semitish, Semitic and/or Egyptian substrate!). At
any rate, the endings _can_ be explained a la Tyrrhenian (-sso- = *-se
[genitive]; *-ena-ta < *-ena [ethnic] = -ntho-)... The plot just gets
thicker and thicker.

>I mentioned North Picene only in case you were going to mention it as
> >evidence of pre-Italic speakers.

There were many pre-Italic languages that weren't Tyrrhenian, that's for
sure. There's the whole VascoCaucasic layer, for instance, that may or may
not explain some of these languages, not to mention languages that didn't
survive, ones different from your mystery language which doesn't even
survive modern linguistic scrutiny.

>On the whole, I think we probably have similar attitudes:

Yes. And no. I wouldn't have claimed a Nakh-Etruscan interaction without
thinking it through first.

>However - the point is, how long does it take to get from the >Southern
>Caucasus to Western Turkey on foot? A year or two, or >hundreds of years?

No, the question is: What movement are we speaking about? Demic? Cultural?
Technological? Mythological? Linguistic? Etc? Movement of who? The Nakh? The
Etruscans? The Tyrrhenians? The NEC? The Third Party of Mystery?? You need
to first figure out what you're theorizing before you start asking more
elaborate questions. At least with my IE-Tyrrhenian thing, I have a fairly
secure picture in my mind of the linguistic movements and interactions from
7000 to 4000 BCE. I state my theories with affirmation so that, if I'm
wrong, someone will eventually smack me with some relevant data that proves
me otherwise.

>What is the world coming to? People will be talking about >establishing IE
>roots by inserting a missing laryngeal next.

Much evidence backs the existence of laryngeals in IE and an overwhelming
majority of IEists (the non-UFO types, that is) accept them in some form.
Afaik, these nasal vowels are not taken seriously in Etruscan studies except
by a minor cult following. I see nothing mentioned in the sources I've read.
Pallottino (curse his geminated name!) mentions nothing, afaik. It smells of
wizardry from what you've described. At any rate, there's a deep difference
between the credibility of IE laryngeals and that of Etruscan nasal vowels.

- gLeN

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