Re: [tied] Pronouns again

Like it or not, the assyriologist Gordon Whittaker of Goettingen has been
making a strong case for an IE substratum in Sumerian over the past decade
or so. The substratum is seen in a large number of IE loanwords in
Sumerian and in a number of sign values which make perfectly good sense as
IE. I understand it to be Whittaker's thesis that the Sumerians took at
least part of their writing system from a neighbouring IE population. If
correct the discovery adds over a millennium to the direct attestation of
IE linguistic material. I have bee present at two presentations by
professor Whittaker and have been genuinely impressed and, within the
limits of my judicial powers, quite convinced that he is basically right.

Jens

On Tue, 21 Jan 2003, Glen Gordon wrote:

>
> Miguel:
> >There have been some recent publications about Sumerian <-> IE
> >borrowings, although I don't remember the details. My feeling is that
> >some of them may be cognate, some of them borrowed (I wouldn't know in
> >which direction). Some of them may simply be coincidences.
>
> Borrowings between Sumerian and IE would be like borrowings between
> Proto-Germanic and Dravidian. Not very likely.
>
>
> - gLeN
>
>
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