Re: Basque/Georgian

In reply to my point

> This would tie in with my theory (supported by Sumerian accounts of
> their own origins), that they came from Bahrein. Ubaid culture had
> spread into the area early on. By the Jemdat Nasr period, Bahrein was
> abandonned to nomads (the arrival of Semites), and protoliterate
> Sumeria was writing in the Sumerian language.

Gerry wrote

> So you're saying that the Sumerians are from Bahrein. Are you
> placing the Ubaid Culture in Bahrein before the Sumerians or are you
> saying the Ubaid Culture is synonymous with Sumerian? And when the
> Semites arrived, did they displace the Sumerians or had the Sumerians
> already left? Also is Sumeria synonymous with Sumer?

I don't see Ubaid as synonymous with Sumerian. Rather I see Ubaid as a
development of the pre-Sumerian substratum peoples. Extending the
cultural realm down the Persian gulf brought them into contact with the
Bahreini aboriginals (Sumerians), who subsequently migrated northwards,
settling first at Eridu, but hardly getting further north than Kish.
As for when the nomads, (probably Semites), they probably also
penetrated Mesopotamia in the north too (where they were to emerge as
Akkadians). Whether they "pushed" the Sumerians out of Dilmun, or the
Sumerians had decamped earlier (as a result of increasing dessication
of the Arabian mainland), I think is too close to call... Perhaps a
mixture of both.

> John: Thus there was a greater distance between the Bahreini Sumerians
> and the Elamite-Dravidian dialect chain, stretching from the Zagros to
> the Indus and possibly beyond.
>
> Gerry: Hmmmm. We're now talking language rather than people?

Gerry - I suspect the answer to this is "both".

> Gerry: YES. Thank you. Do you have more?

Certainly more on a proposed Dilmun/Bahreini origin of the Sumerians -
yes. I'll send more on later if you want.

Warm regards

John