Submerged Languages

Does anyone know of some good research into submerged languages of the
ancient world.

By submerged language I mean a language whose only trace is in the
vocabulary of an emergent later language found in the same site after
some invasion, or as a result of cultural fusion.

For instance, in the case of the Pelasgian, I have heard that many
Pelasgian words have entered into Modern Greek. For instance there is
the Palmer theory that many of the -assos- -inthos- words of classic
Greek come from a submerged layer related to the language of the
Lycians (Hittite Lukku). The Greek word for sea - Thalassa - is also
supposedly derived from a submerged language. Does not the presence of
non-IndoEuropean submerged languages in classical Greece (eg
EteoCretian) disprove the thesis of Colin Renfrew that Indo-European
came from Anatolia? Especially since the Anaolian Non-IndoEuropean
Khattic language is found as a submerged language below Indo-European
Neshite (or Hittite). And has there been any work to connect Khattic
with Minoan Linear A? (or Hieroglyphic Hittite with Minoan?).

Further afield there is the case of the submergence of Etruscan beneath
Latin, and the Celtic languages beneath Latin in Gaul. Has anyone any
information in Ligurian? I have seen it labelled as "Celto-Ligurian"
but this seems clutching at straws - is there really any evidence that
it is a Celtic tongue, or even Indo European for that matter...
(perhaps it could be linked to Basque).

David Rohl has recently suggested links between the Sumaerian kingdom
of Aratta, Ararat and the Armenian kingdom of Urartu. They spoke a
language akin to the Hurrian of the Mitanni (the Horite of the Bible).
As another pre-Semitic submerged language, they crop up in many areas.
The story of Noah (Hebrew NHM) seems derived from the Hurrian Hero of
the Flood Tale (NHMZULI), and it has been suggested that there is a
submerged language beneath ancient Sumerian which may be Hurrian
related. Thus while all terms of the city, government, law etc are
clearly Sumerian in origin - the words for agriculture, for various
crafts, various place and city names, and the names of certain gods (eg
Inanna) are non Sumerian. This it has been suggested provide for a non
Sumerian substratum to the population.

Another submerged language is that of the Guti or Kardu (the origins of
the Kurdish people). Today they speak an Iranian dialect, but they
have been living in the Zagros mountains long before Iranian arrived,
speaking the Gutian language which again may be related (I suspect, but
have no evidence) to Hurrian (and perhaps later Kassite and Lualabi
languages.

I don't know if perhaps we can recognise a whole extinct (or nearly
extinct) ancient language phyllum, stretching through a
dialectical-language chain from Susianian in Khuzistan, through Anshan,
Kassite, Lualabi, Gutian, Urartuan, Hurrian, Caucasian, Khattic,
Etruscan, Minoan, EteoCretian, Pelasgian. Perhaps (and I have no
eviidence to suggest anything either way as I don't know if any
vocabulary work or grammar has been done on these submerged languages,
or if anything links them to modern Caucasian, as I have suggested) we
can suggest that the name we could give to the submerged phyllum should
be Japethic (after Hebrew Japeth, or the Greek Iapetos (same name,
again linking pre-Greeks to Phillistines)).

If there is any reality to the extinct Japethic language phyllum
underlying the Afro-Asiatic, Indo-European and Uralo-Altaic language
families of this region, it would seem that their distribution lies in
very well with the spread of the acreamic and early ceramic neolithic
cultures of the middle east. Have we here found the language spoken by
the world's first farmers?

Anyone have any comments?

Regards

John