John:
>Isn't too bad... The archaeology seems to hold up pretty well, except
>for your hypothesis about Semitish in the Aegean circa 6,000 BCE... >I
>would suspect that either Pelasgian/Etruscan/Lemnian, or some >relative of
>Khattic were the substrate languages here, not >Semitish...
Well, there is at least some evidence to be seen of Semitish influence on
Etruscan, Germanic, Celtic (so I hear) and Basque. In contrast, I don't see
anything shown to substantiate "Hattic" influence on these languages.
Etruscan or Lemnian are surely far too late and could never have been the
substrate that we're looking for. What a "Pelasgian language" is supposed to
be, if it exists at all, is far more speculative than proposing a Semitish
substrate with features similar to a _known_ language.
As for genetics, I don't believe they could possibly help us in the delicate
linguistic problem we find ourselves here.
>Great to see you pushing the dates back a little and accepting out of
>Africa so handsomely.... ;-)
For now. But social acceptance is irrelevant to Logic. We'll see what the
hotheaded Mr Foote might retort via Gerry :)
- gLeN
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