>Who are the Vinc^a?
Arrghh... Basically Vinca is the name of a prehistoric culture
found in the Balkans to which the linear scripts of Crete may
owe their origin and to which I associate the involvement of
Hattic speaking peopels. Okay, here's the entire premise of my
latest thinkings. Hold on to your pants.
I recently suspect that Hattic is more related to NWC, not NEC.
From the homeland of the NWC, there are two paths to
the eventual homeland of the Hatti in Anatolia. To sum up, our
two choices are either a trans-caucasus route, or a trans-bosporus
route around the west coast of the Black Sea (or rather Lake
Euxine).
Taking the SinoDene Hypothesis into account which links NWC to
SinoTibetan and NaDene, Hatto-Caucasian (that is, Hattic and NWC
combined) must therefore be an immigrant from the east to the
Pontic-Caspian region via the steppes. Therefore, starting from
this more northerly position, it makes better sense for the
Proto-Hattic to follow the same route as Anatolian eventually
did many millenia later than to have fought its way through a
more densely populated, foreign region south of the Caucasus.
Secondly, by choosing a trans-bosporus route, we come to a tasty
solution concerning the language for which the linear scipts were
truely intended. Judging by the Mycenaean usage of Linear B, it
is often said that this hypothetical language was more likely syllabic,
lacking a distinction between *l and *r. The language
may have had at least five vowels (*a, *i, *e, *o, *u), maybe
even with nasal variants (*a versus *a~), and two diphthongs
(*ai and *au). There is also another curiosity. The script in
general makes no distinction of either voicing OR aspiration,
however labialized phonemes exist. One exception to this is
an apparent distinction between *t and *d. However, I believe
that this is a mirage and that one of the phonemes reflexes a
dental-like sound. How does this relate to Hattic and NWC?
I find a particular pattern fascinating concerning the NWC
reflexes of the SinoDene numerals. Where there is SinoDene *l
or *r based on SinoTibetan reflexes (regardless of whether it
is palatal, plain or labial), there is a lateral fricative *L
in NWC. In other words, I see no distinction of *l or *r, at
least in the earliest stages of NWC. Likewise, by association,
it must have been so in an early Hattic where there may have
only been three lateral phonemes (*l, *L & *LW), the latter two
possibly reflexed in the Linear B script via the d-/dw- series
or t-/tw- series.
Associating the language X to Hattic implies a somewhat drastic
reduction of the SinoDene consonant inventory which featured
at the very least palatal, plain, labial and ejective variants
of stops with voiced variants to boot. We may assume therefore
that the original small vowel inventory (perhaps only two
central vowels *a and *@) was expanded to compensate. Both this
language X and Hattic reflect just such an expanded vowel
inventory. Also, since Hattic words are generally much longer
than NWC, we may presume that while NWC compacted originally
polysyllabic words into monosyllabic ones (as strongly seems
to be the pattern), Hattic retained the original polysyllabicity,
opting for phonemic simplicity instead.
Since this origins theory for Hattic also takes care of the
"Linear Language" which is also associated with the Tartara
tablet of the Vinca culture, I use Proto-Hattic and Proto-Vinca
interchangeably. Sorry for the confusion. They are intended to
be one and the same.
Now I'm ready for the tomatoes to start flying at me :)
- gLeN
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