From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 19588
Date: 2003-03-04
----- Original Message -----
From: "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@...>
To: "Piotr Gasiorowski" <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2003 4:30 AM
Subject: Re[4]: [tied] Re: alb. gji
> That's certainly my strong inclination, especially since I've seen only a summary. At the same time, I'm not willing to dismiss out of hand something that Roger Lass is willing to take seriously.
Roger Lass and I have been together to some of Theo Vennemann's talks about the (para-)Semitic "Atlantiker" and "Vasconic" Old Europeans, so we both know that stuff first-hand. I have also read Vennemann's articles on those matters. Frankly, much as I tend to agree with Roger on many issues, I can't understand why he should take Vennemann's etymologies seriously (I mean things like Gk. antHro:pos < "Vasconic" *andera- + *-(a)ba- 'woman's son') and mention them in _Historical Linguistic and Language Change_ (is that the source of your summary?) as "work in progress". Courtesy may be a factor, since they've known each other for ages, and Theo Vennemann is an amiable man as well as being a distinguished linguist with a lot of valuable research to his credit. However, he's been under this Vasconic spell for too many years, and the quality of his forced etymologies only illustrates the sad effects of falling prey to an idée fixe.
Piotr