Deroubaix Clyv wrote:
Hello,
1. When Gramkrelidze & Ivanov said that
Tocharians reached China by
travelling through
Mesopotamia,
how can they explain that the Tocharians had so many
Finno-Ugric
influences?
2. I've ever heard that Albanian is a restant from
the Illyrian languages,
but when I see the
the Illyrian rooth
that means 'water', I see no connections with the
Albanian word
'ujë'.
Could you give me some linguistic proofs that Albanian is
an Illyrian
language?
1. You should ask THEM. I can't see how on earth
they could explain ANY structural features of Tocharian due to contact with
non-IE languages (which seem to include Uralic and Altaic elements) by
proposing a southern route for it.
2. We know very little about Illyrian proper.
Still, I'm absolutely sure of one thing: if Messapic (as usually assumed)
represents the Illyrian branch, then Albanian can't have anything to do with
Illyrian, no matter what modern Albanians believe. Their belief in autochthony
since time out of mind is a nationalist remedy for the understandable feeling of
territorial insecurity (aggravated by the Kosovo conflict) but it cannot be
substantiated linguistically. A few years ago many educated Poles suffered from
similar complexes regarding our own prehistory. The "homeland" issue is no
longer politically sensitive in this country, I'm happy to report.
I think Albanian is related to the extinct Dacian
(or Getic) languages spoken more or less in what is now Romania (the southern
Carpathian region). If you need any arguments in favour of THAT position, I'll
be happy to oblige you early next year ;-)
Piotr