Re: [tied] Digest Number 1193

On Wed, 22 Jan 2003 15:46:12 +0100 (MET), Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen
<jer@...> wrote:

>Like it or not, the assyriologist Gordon Whittaker

Thanks, that was the name I was trying to remember.

>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.

J'imagine qu'il doit doit citer des mots comme urudu <= *h1reudh
A-t-il publié un livre ou des articles sur la question ? J'avoue que j'aimerai bien connaître les arguments qui lui permettent de prétendre qu'il s'agit d'emprunt de l'IE en Sumérien plutôt que l'inverse. Trouve-t-on des suffixes dérivationels IE dans les mots communs, par exemple ?

Guillaume