Re: [tied] was Picenes

At 09:01 10.10.2002 -0400, you wrote:

> > >I am going by Diakonoff and Starostin, who are not always
> > >reliable, who simply say "Note that also Greek pyrgos 'tower' is
> > >like many other Greek substratum words, borrowed from Caucasian".
> > ...
> > Yes, but maybe the original assertion was only an attempt to fit the
> > substratist point of view, according to which there has been this pre-IE
> > language covering the Mediterranean prior to Greek, Italic, etc. So
> > everything that cannot be explained with the known historical languages,
> > are attributed to some exotic people, of which of course there is no
> > evidence in the written sources. My view is that there are substrates we
> > can trace, but they are also IE: Pelasgian in Southern Greece and the
> > Aegean islands, Picene and Liguro-Sicanian in Italy, etc.
>
>I agree with you in respect of the last ones you mention. I do not
>believe that the idea of an IE substrate can be supported for Cyprus
>and Anatolia, nor do I believe that the only substrates going around
>further West could only have been IE. I believe that the key core
>vocabulary of Etruscan is inherited from the language of an ethnic
>group which may have arisen out of intense language contact, in
>Anatolia originally, as a result of the economic and social upheavals
>of the Eastern Mediterranean associated with the aftermath of the
>eruption of Santorini.

I agree for Cyprus, and with the Sprachbund or "Linguistic League" for
Anatolia, if you mean this as I suppose.
But where do you find evidence of a non-IE substratum in the West
(including Greece and the Aegean) ?.
This is a question open for everybody. I think people has always taken this
assumption as good but without really analyzing the material on which we
can rely

> > I just take the notion of Pelasgians that the classical writers had, i.e.,
> > a stock of sailors coming from the East and having colonized some regions
> > of Italy, mainly Southern Etruria, likely "before the War of Troy".
> > ...
> > I have tried to trace this stratum in the place names of Southern Etruria
> > and maybe it works - it's up to the reader to decide -. The main doubt I
> > had is to distinguish between Etruscans/Tyrrhenians and Pelasgians, that
> > were often - but not always - confused in the classical sources.
>
>This is still compatible with what I am saying. I don't expect the
>Sea Peoples to have been homogeneous.

But I still suggest a different time horizon for the two things. Pelasgians
could be associated with the diffusion of the "Mycenean" pottery, for
instance, then Middle-Late Bronze Age, while the Thyrrenians are well
fitting the Sea People story.

> > I have tried to trace this stratum in the place names of Southern Etruria
> > and maybe it works - it's up to the reader to decide -. The main doubt I
> > had is to distinguish between Etruscans/Tyrrhenians and Pelasgians, that
> > were often - but not always - confused in the classical sources. But my
> > current point of view, thanks also to this discussion, is that they were
> > clearly distinct and that the Pelasgians preceded the Tyrrhenians of quite
> > a while (and the former gave the name to the latter !).
> > ...
> > As for the Ligurians, I think we shall separate the celtized Ligurians of
> > the historical times, from the ones who are responsible of the toponymy of
> > the region called Liguria.
> > ...
> > Let us call this stratum "Sicanian", not to be confused with the
> > "Siculian", who was a Western Italic language close to Latin. Now, the
> > similarities between the toponymy of Sicily to those of Liguria are known:
> > Entella, Eryx, Segesta is a topos in literature.
> > ...
> > Other place
> > names fit in this speculation, you will see them in a next web page of
>mine.
>
>I refer to Kelto-Ligurians only for convenience, as a reference to the
>real people responsible for the inscriptions in this area in historical
>times, and not to their ancestors. There are those who detect a non-IE
>element or substrate which may be associated with both the Ligurians
>and the Sicanians, and the name of the Iberians has been mentioned.
>What is your basis for believing the Ligurians and Sicanians to be IE,
>and how does one distinguish between Kelto-Ligurian and Ligurian, and
>between Sicanian and Siculian? (I agree the latter is close to Latin).

From place names, of course :), since we don't have written monumenta of
the two languages.

>Regards,
>
>Ed.
>
>
>
>
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