Re: [tied] All of creation in Six and Seven

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Glen Gordon" <glengordon01@...>
wrote:

> Marco:
> >If I'm not wrong, you consider all you can't attest as not

existing.

>
> You're wrong. From what I can gather from another post you just
> made about the "decadence of Science", you seem to think that
> it's not healthy to question things. If we didn't question things,

we'd

> all be in perfect agreement, wouldn't we? :)

I spent almost my entire life in questioning things. Being a
splitter, not a lumper, I analyse every single item with maniacal
precision, and you know it. It is you that want to impose your point
or view naming everything else "ignorance". I began mailing you when
I read a sentence in a site of yours that hurted me: "ignorance is
not an option".

> Occam's Razor forbids me to propose anything that I don't need
> to propose. This doesn't mean that something may not exist. It
> merely means that given my assessment of the facts that are _known_
> and based on the established theories that are deemed reasonably
> probable, this is what I've come up with. If something factual or
> at least credible shows that I'm wrong, then it is for the pursuit

of

> truth that I must modify my view. Science in a nutshell, really.

You apply Occam razor with an extreme nonchalance, shaving off many
evidences.

> >I remember a long discussion about possible IE loanwords in

Etruscan.

> >Transparent borrowings like Etruscan nefts < *nepo:ts were absurdly
> >dismissed by you because you can't prove that Latin nepos:s is from
> >*nepo:ts.
>
> Why are you mispresenting my opinion? The Latin word /nepo:s/ is
> most certainly from *nepo:ts. My arguement though is that while
> Etruscan /nefts/ would seem somehow borrowed from an IE language,
> it doesn't appear to be Latin as we know it because of the /t/. That
> combined with Lemnian /nafotH/ would show that maybe the word
> is a little older (before the arrival of Etruscans to Italy from

Asia Minor)

> or at least from another adstrate besides Latin. Another

possibility is

> that it's a genuinely native word despite the apparent correlation

with

> IndoEuropean.

When I proposed to consider nefts and naphoth as IE loanwords
preceding the arrival of Etruscans in Italy, you simply assaulted me.

> ??? Marco, it's time to give it a rest and stop contorting or

inventing

> things that I've said from personal discussions between you and I.
> That's unfair and inappropriate nettiquette. IE *nepot- exists based
> on plentiful IE data. I never said contrary! However, we can't just
> whimsically claim some IE Language X for these loans. A good case

has

> to be made to show that such a language existed based on many
> non-Latin loans that cannot be anything other than from this
> mysterious language. It's not scientific, rational thinking on your

part

> to insist that Etruscan borrowed from such a mysterious IE language
> that otherwise doesn't seem to be evidenced.

Why whimsical? Diabole Domine, nefts and naphoth are clearly IE!
I know of no other language with this root.

> Additionally, it seems to me that the linguistic picture of Italy is
> adequately reconstructed for this time period, so what language
> per se would /nefts/ come from? What is the exact or probable
> form of the word in that language? The answer has to be more
> definitive than just idle suspicion.

Adequately? What have evidence of substrate IE languages in Latin
words as rutilus < IE *roudh-, cavus besides the regular but rare
covus. We have no independent attestation of this language that some
author calls "Ausonic". It seems to develop IE /dh/ in /t/.
Perhaps you can speak a fluent Elymian or an equally fluent Ligurian.
I cannot, due to scanty or null attestations. Is all this an adequate
picture? Nobody can take it seriuosly.

> >1) You cannot deny the presence of Afro-Asiatic items in IE, so you
> >build up Semitish (as for me, Semitic is sufficient to

explain "six"

> >and "seven").
>
> But you _can't_ deny the presence of a Semitic(-like) language

having

> affected IE! We all agree that *septm is a transparently masculine
> form of the Semitic root for "seven".

Yes, we all agree. It is clearly Semitic.

> Rather you deny the geographical distances that seperate the two
> languages. An intermediary language is logically necessary. Unless

you

> want to join the battered camp that still thinks that IE could

possibly

> have been in Anatolia at the time despite the shotty logic of the
> theory. Joining the likes of Gamkrelidze and Ivanov is ironic

considering

> your quest to be rational and scientific (nb. their unlikely

cognate sets

> for "monkey" and "elephant").

I don't believe in Anatolian origin for IE. I simply dismiss
Gramkrelidze and Ivanov opinions (they are parochial and narrow-
minded). I can only notice the presence of Semitic loanwords in IE.
I don't know where the interaction happened, and trying to locate an
exact place seems to be idle. But I suppose that these Semitic items
were Wanderwo"rter in Neolithic Europe, that may have reached IE
already in the Steppe. In Tocharian copper is named /kuprank/, that
is derived from Cyprus. A Wanderwort from the Mediterranean area in a
remote language sponken in Chinese Turkestan. So it is possible
for "six" and "seven".

> >2) It's useful for your shotty Indo-Tyrrhenian theory to consider
> >every IE-resembling item in Etruscan as native, so you demolish the
> >idea that there are IE loanwords in Etruscan.
>
> As I said, this is just an unfair attack based on correspondances
> between us personally. Since the Forum can't judge our

correspondances

> on mere hearsay, I'd ask you to stop this line of attack. It's

fruitless.

> Let's create a new debate here for everyone to evaluate and forget
> our own.

OK. I will stop this line of attack with this mail.
But is almost equally unfair the end of our personal correspondance.
Many important questions are still opened. For example our discussion
about Basque was abandoned. I notice that the forum Nostratic-L is
paralysed after my last mails. I don't know why.

Best wishes

Marco