Re: Ligurian

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Bhrihskwobhloukstroy <bhrihstlobhrouzghdhroy@...> wrote:

>
> I'm a Eurasianist (i.e. I desire a political Union between Western
> Countries, Russia, China, India, and Islamic Countries); I'd Enemy N°
> 1 in a Republican environment...
>

If you allow me a little joke, I could think you've got a political agenda like the people who promotes PIE as a kind of new esperanto: http://dnghu.org/

> Between Alinei's theory and my own one there's more difference
> than between mine and Yours (e.g. for this specific point under
> discussion: You classify Ancient Ligurian as an Indo-European language
> for its own, of 'centum'-kind, with */bh/ > /b/ and so on; I as a
> Celtic language, that is with exaclt these features, just adding
> locally restricted dephonologization of */p/; Alinei thinks that
> *Ancient* Ligurian was an 'Italid' - in his words - language,
> Indo-European and centum but with */bh/ > /f/ - as in *Bhertor >
> Fertor, now Bisagno [Genoa] - quite like Kretschmer's Venetic, based
> on the same example)
>

The labiodental result from the series III labial corresponds to Villar's Italoid aka Coromines' Soroptaptic aka DGK's Illyro-Lusitanian.

> Facts:
> 1) In Ireland there are place names of the structure Áth 'Ford' + X
> (Paradebeispiel: Áth Cliath); O'Rahilly in 1943 has detected an older
> layer with posponed -ad (where /d/ < */t/ regularly in post-posttonic
> position)
> 2) OIr. áth < PIE *h1iah2-tu-s 'passage' (√*h1iah2- 'go' < √*h1ei- 'go')
> 3) In Western Romance Countries there's a toponymic layer with final -at
> [...]
> 4) There are regular correspondences between Irish and Romance
> names, e.g. Áth Bó = Bobbiate, Áth Carr = Carate, Áth Caoin = Cenate,
> Áth Cliath = Cedate, Áth Cúile = Cugliate, Áth Fearna = Vernate, Áth
> Garbháin = Garbagnate, Áth Lóich = Locate (old Leocade), Áth Malain =
> Malnate, Áth Nó = Novate [still transparent], and many more
> [...]
> 6) Pre-Roman inscriptions in the area of -ate-names are *only*
> Lepontic and Gaulish, therefore only Celtic (other linguistic layers
> can theoretically have been present, but till now one has not found
> any contemporary evidence of them)
>
> Working hypothesis: -ate = OIr. áth 'ford'
> [...]
> Consequences
> 1) -ate-names mean indeed 'fords'
> 2) they really correspond to Irish áth-phrases and -ad-compounds
> 3) they are made of Celtic lexemes
> [...]
> 11) since those 'Mediterranean' *river*-names can be etymologized
> through IE lexicon (and Celtic diachronic phonology) and alternative
> etymologies (e.g. Basque ones) are either much weaker on phonological
> ground or (more often) lack at all, those river-names cannot be
> considered as relics of pre-IE languages
>

Very interesting. The Celtic word would explain Basque ate 'door' (secondarily also 'mountain pass') with a semantic shift comparable to Latin portus (m.) 'ford', porta (f.) 'door'. However, from the Roncalese forms bede, beri 'portal', we must presume an initial labial *F- instead of *y- in the Celtic protoform *Fa:tu- 'ford'.

This would destroy the etymology proposed by Matasovic and other specialists, but it would point to a relationship with *pent-, although not in the mainstream model (i.e. std sound correspondences).

> This is the first time in the History of Linguistics that one can
> *linguistically* demonstrate that PIE has been spoken in a specific
> place. (Note that this doesn't mean that PIE wasn't spoken in other
> regions; it only means that these regions belonged to the PIE Homeland
> - be it the precise Urheimat or not, in any case it was during the PIE
> phase and not later)
>

Hardly that. It demostrates the inadequacy of the conventional PIE model.