Again - Intermediates to PIE and Semites

Hi Glen

Welcome back. Surprisingly I found myself missing your ascerbic tongue!

> John, as we have seen with your responses, you have an excellent

grasp of

> archaeology but don't know enough, as you have even admitted, of
> linguistics. If I said "Semites in the Balkans", I apologize. I mean

only

> "speakers of a Semitic dialect" which can be a little different from

the

> connotation of "Semites".
>
> Asserting outright that Semitic speaking peoples could not have been

there

> based on archaeology alone is poor reasoning. There is very much

linguistic

> evidence for a widespread Semitic influence on surrounding languages

and I

> urge you to learn more about Indo-European (as well as Kartvelian)

within

> which Semitic words abound. I could supply a reeeally long list of

Semitic

> IE words that I'm aware of and that other more knowledgeable people

have

> supplied on the Nostratic List of LinguistList, if you like. I plan

on

> putting this online soon on my new site for discussion.

Glen, is it possible that we have this back to front? Could it be that
we have Proto Kartvelian words in both Semitic and PIE? Now this
*WOULD* make excellent sense archaeologically.

> >Glen, is it possible that IE and Semites got the *swekse and *septem
> >from a third (and intermediary) linguistic source - eg. Kartvellian
>or
> >Khattic-Hurrian perhaps. Even from Paleo-Etruscan?
>
> John, give it up. This is a matter of linguistics, not archaeology.
> My rebuttle comes in three parts :P
>
> First and most importantly, Semitic words show up in Kartvelian in

such a

> way that Kartvelian couldn't possibly be such an intermediary source,

this

> is undisputably true at the very least for words like IE "six" and

"seven"

> which preserve admirably the initial consonants in Semitic as if they

were

> borrowed directly. In contrast, the Semitic phonology is twisted

heavily in

> Kartvelian and would make it obvious if Kartvelian were a source. We

might

> better put forth that it is more likely that _Kartvelian_ had an
> intermediary between it and Semitic than IE did.
>
> And Hattic contacts?? John, when you find some Hattic borrowings in

IE, I'll

> believe you, but for here and now, continuing to bring this fantasy

up does

> not make it any less imaginary than it is without a linguistic case

to back

> it up. HurroUrartean, like Hattic, is too far from the IE speakers to

be in

> contact with them and again is science fiction until real borrowings

and

> possible intermediary words are found. These Semitic loans into IE

are quite

> one-on-one both in meaning and phonology, making it seem all the more
> probable that the loans were infused in early IE speech through

_direct_

> trading. This can easily be achieved via boat trips across the Black

Sea and

> is not a shocking hypothesis given that we can reconstruct the word

for

> "boat" in IE.

But Glen, historically, and archaeologically, there were no Semites or
proto-Semites on the shores of the Black Sea at any time from
mesolithic to Persian times. The furtherest north either Semites or
Proto Semitic pastoralists came was northern Mesopotamia and Syria.
From there to the PIE Urheimat in the Pontic (I gather that is your
prefered location) there was a distance of at least 500-1,000 miles and
at least two, if not three language groupings in the middle. Nor did
proto-Semites get through Anatolia or into the Balkans at any stage -
placenames and cultures again do not allow it.

> Second, it is irrational to strive endlessly to explain Semitic words
> through hitherto unknown and unsubstantiated "intermediaries" in

order to

> skirt around the simpler truth of the matter. The words ARE Semitic

in

> origin, there is no doubt. Unless further proof is laid out, the

simplest

> conclusion is a _direct_ Semitic origin. The Semitic speaking peoples

were a

> large part of the ancient economy and were no doubt further spread

out into

> places like northern Anatolia than they appear to be by the time of

writing

> as is evidenced by a volume full of linguistic data. There is no

other

> conclusion without ignoring linguistics altogether.

Glen, if Semitic had got into Northern Anatolia, they would have left
evidence surely. Onomastic evidence in Hittite or Classical place
names. Culturally the Semitic group only appeared in the Middle East
as NW Arabian pastoralists in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B horizon, and
probably contributed heavily to the subsequent Ghassulian culture of
Syria and Mesopotamia. They seem to have been pushed southwards and
eastwards by Halafian (Hurrian) and later Khirbet-Karek (also Hurrian)
peoples. There is no trace of a movement from the area into Anatolia.

> The hypothesis of IE-Semitic relations is well footed in linguistic

fact.

> So, the deduction that a Semitic dialect had simply reached the

environs of

> the Balkans is nothing contraversial. Rather, it could help explain
> obviously seperate Semitic borrowings in Tyrrhenian lgs like Etruscan
> /semph/, /s'a/, /ein/ and maybe /vina-c/ as coming from the west in

Europe.

>
> This is where some archaeology comes in. Agriculture would have

arrived via

> Semitic speaking farmers up towards the N. Pontic from Anatolia and

then

> stopped at some point. Could the Tyrrhenian speakers, at least in

part, be

> the Bug-Dniester culture which served as an early linguistic buffer

zone

> between Western Semitics and IE? Early IE would get its supply of

Semitic

> words from the south. These Southern Semitic people could also be the
> suppliers of hitherto foreign animals like goats (*gheido-), etc.

which

> appear to be of southern rather than western origin.

Sorry mate, the archaeology doesn't compute. From pre-pottery
neolithic stages agriculture did not move from the Semitic into
Anatolia, but rather moved the other way. The emmer wheat grown by the
first farmers in Palestine has just been confirmed to have come out of
Anatolia, against the flow of languages once again. Catal Huyuk and
Halicar were huge settlements in which late Paeleolithic survivals show
they were related to the previous hunter-gatherers of the area (T group
Dene Caucasian Proto-Khattic). Even the period after the Black Sea
disaster (circa 5,500 BCE) when Catal Huyuk was abandonned show a
movement of people out of Anatolia, not of early Semites into the area.

> Third and last, what archaeology could possibly prove _against_ an

early

> intrusion of a Semitic language into the Balkans (as opposed to

Semitic

> _culture_ which is a different matter altogether). You're simply

being

> contradictory for the sake of contradiction.

Sorry Glen, it isn't so.... Not contradictory for the sake of
contradiction at all - just trying to square linguistic with genetic
and archaeological evidence, that is all.

This is beginning to sound like a re-run of our Out-of-Africa
Into-Africa discussion, but applied to the Balkans now instead of Egypt
and the Middle East.

Well, where to now. Is there any way in which we can get Proto-Semites
from the Sinai (their probable Urheimat) to Balkans before PIE split up?

The Semitic culture series seems to go as follows

18-10,500 (Late Paeleolithic-mesolithic - out of Africa) Kebaran
(Nostratic?)

10,500-8,500 (Epipaleolithic-neolithic) - Natufian (also Nostratic)

8,5-7,500 Harifian (proto-Semitics) in the Negev - Prepottery Neolithic
(post Pre Pottery B in Syria and Northern Palestine)

This period saw a worstening of climate. Harifian seem to have
reverted to a nomadic lifestyle, reinforced by Afro-Asiatics from Egypt
across the Sinai. Prepottery Neolithic seems to have been derived from
an amalgam of Natufian and Anatolians (Their obsidian all came from
close to Catal Huyuk, and their grains were Anatolian emmer)

7,500-6,000 Southern Palestine almost totally abandonned to nomadic
pastoralists (the first wave of Semitic spread)

5,950-5,500 Ghassulian pottery I in Northern Syria (the first
non-pastoral early Semitic culture.

5,500 onwards Hassuna and Halaf (Hurro-Urartian in origin)

Now the Anatolian Khattic cultural series goes as follows

18,000 BCE ??? Anatolia seems to have been almost totally unoccupied
during the Ice Age minimum. Upper Paleolithic (T group
Dene-Caucasians) have been found at Antalya cave, hanging on perhaps in
Eastern Anatolia till historic times (proto-Khattic)

13,000-10,000 Belbasi mesolithic (Cilicia only) This does show Kebaran
borrowings and may be derived from that source. Probably Nostratic
speakers (before the great split up of the Steppe or Eurasian you
hypothesise Glen).

10,000-8,500 Beldibi mesolithic (again Cilicia only). This group does
show some connection with Natufian. Only if Natufians were
proto-Semitic (and this date is far too early) could we get
proto-Semitics into Anatolia at this time. As suggested below, Natufian
were probably late Proto-Steppe spreakers.

8000 Haclar (mesolithic) this pre-pottery neolithic culture shows clear
derivation from Upper Paleolithic (i.e. Proto-Hattic)

7,500-5,650 Catal Huyuk (mentioned above)(Asianic-Khattic?)

Sorry Glen... unless the Semites levitated from Syria to the Balkans,
or became invisible or travelled underground, there is no possibility
of getting them into contact with proto-PIE, except through possibly
common origins of Semitic and PIE terms from an intermediary group.
This intermediary group would probably have been those that invented
agriculture and taught it to both the PIE and to the Proto-Semites.
People who probably invented a seven day week and four week to a month
calendar too. People who certainly invented the cultivation of the
vine (shown genetically to have come from Armenia) and introduced it to
Kartvelian, Semitic and possibly PIE all at the same time. Certainly
pre-Semitic (although all Semites adopted the lunar calendar with
alacrity). These people introduced the story of Noah's drunkenness to
the Hebrews. We are back to our pre-Sumerian (Halafo-Ubaidi)
substrata....

> ME (Glen):
> >>Does Pitmann and his buddy actually go into real detail in re of
> >>mythological comparison or is this just archaeology with a little
> >>linguistic fluff mixed in like I'm always afraid of?
>
> John:
> >Glen, you'd love it even more.... Its good geology with a dash of
> >popular mixed up potboiling archaeology and a soupcon of linguistics
> >thrown in for good luck....
>
> Just a soupcon, hunh? I'll keep my money then. :P

It is excellent geology, and good paleoclimatology though. Oh well,
each to his own speciality I suppose. (If you want to follow it I am
sure there is a whole discussion going on on Linguistics net)

Warmest regards

John