Re: Greater Pelasgia

From: John Croft
Message: 1625
Date: 2000-02-22

Dennis wrote to my

> This sequence VCCV--- can very easily be derived from C-C-C languages
such as Semitic or Egyptian. One only has to look at all the Arabic
loan words in Spanish : alcalde, alcazar, almohada, etc. etc.
>
> Classical Arabic and modern Egyptian, and I believe also Ancient
Egyptian (I cannot speak for ancient West Semitic dialects) do not
allow any syllable to begin with more than one consonant. Vowel
alternations, which also include "no vowel" as an alternant, and
consonantal prefixes and infixes, can lead to an inadmissible CC-, in
which case a prothetic vowel is added (a prothetic consonant is also
added if necessary, but this is invariably, in Arabic, a glottal stop).
This is in fact the case with the Arabic definite article in the above
Spanish examples - the /a/ is a prothetic vowel, the article is only
really the /l/.

The Semitic examples you propose Dennis all have the -CC- as a prefix.
The examples in Macro-Pelasgian all had -CC- as a suffix.

Regards

John