[tied] Re: Black Athena: The Afroasiatic RootsofClassicalCivilizati

It areas where one language have definite article, more langueges
tend to have it, disregarding language family. It is therefore quite
natural to think about contact influence. In The mediterranean the
AA langueges were firts to have this element, therefore an influence
from AA to IE is probable.

Your examples of other areas having definite article in several
languages is actially going in fabour of my assumption, not against
it.



--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...>
wrote:

>
> On 2006-06-09 01:13, Richard Wordingham wrote:
>
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "aquila_grande" <aquila_grande@>
> > wrote:
> >> In the Eurasian region, the definite article appared first in

the

> >> Near East and rapidly thereafter Greek also got this feature.

Later

> >> Latin/Romance also got it, and then the Germanic languages.
> >>
> >> The Slavonic languages have not yet got this feature, except

those

> >> bordering to the Greek area.
> >
> > The Balto-Slavonic weak adjectives appear to have incorporated an
> > article. The Germanic system of weak and strong adjectives is

also an

> > old system of marking definiteness marking, predating the modern
> > articles, though perhaps not the addition of an article.
>
> What about innumerable other languages which have definite

articles as a

> separate category of words (distinct from demonstrative pronouns

and not

> incorporated as definite suffixes) -- in central Africa, New

Guinea,

> Mesoamerica, and the West Coast to name only the best-known areas

where

> they are common? Although Ojibwe, for example, has both definite
> articles and a two-gender system (not to mention an essentially
> triangular vowel system and VS word-order) the only piece of

indirect

> Semitic influence that can be claimed for the language is its word

for

> 'coffe', Ojib. gaapii <-- Eng. coffee <-- Arab. qahwa (via

Turkish, with

> Italian and other Romance interference) :)
>
> Piotr
>