Glen wrote
> I've been trying for the longest time to try and sway you from the
confusion
> between the "Semitish" that influenced IE or Kartvelian and the
early
> Semites. Being that Semitish speakers would by logical necessity be
> agricultural, the two are seperate. I don't see how Semitish can't
have
> adopted agricultural techniques and other inventions from Caucasian
peoples
> to the north and then spread that way. You haven't established why
these
> people that you admit are existant in the archaeology aren't
speaking
> Semitish.
Glen, are you saying here that Semitish are not Semites? If not who
are they. Samuel Noah Kramer, the great authority on Sumeriians has
traced a non-Semitic, non-Sumerian substrate language (based on place
names, agricultural terms, livestock, and some divinities (eg.
Innana)
to this substrate language. People on this list suggest Innana is
related to the Khattic divinity Hannahanna. Certainly there is a
movement of linguistic elements between Hurrian areas and Anatolia
that based on archaeological evidence will have gone into deep
prehistoric times.
As for how close this "Semitish" substrata is to Semitic, I can only
quote Malory, (p.150) "unlike comparisons between Indo_European and
Finno-Ugric, the Semitic relations do not really have general
acceptance despite the fact that there are a number of most energetic
supporters of genetic links between the two families..... Indeed, in
a
recent survey of the supposed Semitic-Proto-European loan words,
especially those relating to agriculture and animals, Igor Diakonov
has winnowed out all of the supposed connections except for goat,
wild
cattle and horn, all three of which were probably derived from a
common third source (MY SUBSTRATE LANGUAGE). Now there are, to be
sure, some comparisons that will simply not go away such as Greek
*pelekus, Indic *parasu - 'axe' which is normally set beside Akkadian
pilaqq 'spindle, spike', itself a possible loan from the Sumerian
*balag. This would be a typical 'wander word' moving along trade
routes between the various people from the Aegean to the Indus (GIVEN
WHAT I HAVE WRITTEN ABOUT THE OBSIDIAN TRADE WE CAN SEE HOW THIS
HAPPENED). Similar suggestions have been employed for the possible
similarity between the Akkadian *sarpu, 'silver' and vaguely similar
words in Germanic, Baltic and Slavic. But these, and occasionally
other attempts to get correlations between other Near Eastern
languages are quantatively minute, qualitatively poor, and certainly
do not reflect the inimpeachable evidence we find for the
agricultural
and technological words that were borrowed from Indo-European into
Finno-Ugric. These indicate what intimate conracrs between languages
should look like and this is not at all what we find in the Near
East.... there is no convincing evidence that would set
Proto-Indo-European in direct contact with the languages of the Near
East although it is always possible that a few words may have passed
between these two different families through intermediate languages."
> You of all people seem to insist that migrations from Africa into
the
> northern areas were happening all the time because of scarce
resources and
> population expansion. One needs to have good land to farm. I'm no
farmer but
> I'm guessing that overpopulation would be counterproductive to this
goal.
True, there were migrations from Africa northwards. But with each
successive migration, it would have halted earlier and earlier, as it
had to contend with greater and greater populations already resident
in the area which could easily resist the African "push". A classic
historic example is the attempts by Egyptians to establish "Asiatic"
zones of influence from Dynasty 1 to Pharaoh Necho. In Palestine the
influence was deep and long lasting, in coastal Lebanon it was
intermittent and based on equality of trade relations, in Syria, it
was bitterly resisted, and in Anatolia it had no influence at all,
due
to the resistence of the Anatolian people themselves.
Such a situation would have prevailed from late mesolithic times
onwards. Just as the Egyptians were unable to do it, so would your
Semitish folk. Except for the examples of "wander words" given by
Malory. All other correlations as Malory (a far better linguist than
I) suggests were "probably borrowed from a common third source".
I wrote
> >The linguistic and cultural influence would have been
> >
> > Khattic -----> Yarmukan
> > Hurrian -----> culture
>
> And there's nothing to say that this isn't our Semitish speakers.
Glen, this I believe is at best a "common third source". Yarmukan
culture had no African archaeological heritage later than Kebaran
(circum 15,000 - 18,000 - long before the split up of Afro-Asiatic
that you suggest (10,000 BCE). Yarmukan, whilst it was possibly a
Nostratic tongue, can hardly, on this evidence, have been
Afro-Asiatic "Semitish".
> >Proto-Afro-Asiatic languages at this period would have been
confined
> >to Africa. There is clear evidence for this.
>
> Not linguistically, which is the best evidence one can find when
speaking of
> language. There is a strong difference between "evidence" and "one
of many
> possibilities".
There is certainly evidence if one acdepts what others have been
saying. Enclyclopedia Britannica for instance states
"Some linguists have suggested that the Hamito-Semitic languages are
related to the Indo-European languages..... but most scholars regard
such far-flung genetic ties as unproven and, indeed, hardly provable."
So goodbye Semitish. As Enclyclopedia Britannica states
"by comparing a list of basic vocabulary items, indicate that
the first group to separate from the Common Semitic ancestral
language
was Akkadian (Northern Peripheral group, c. 3300 BC) and the second
was the Southern Peripheral group (second half of 3rd millennium BC).
The Northern Central group had contacts for a long time with the
Southern Central languages, and linguistic division within the North
Central group is dated at the beginning or middle of the 2nd
millennium BC. The relative position of Arabic to the other Semitic
languages is not quite clear, probably because of its uninterrupted
contacts with Aramaic and other nomadic Semitic groups for many
centuries."
If "common Semitish" existed as late as Enclyopedia Britannica
suggests it did, then the various dialects would not have spread far
from their Urheimat by 5,000-6,000 BCE. The chances for them
spreading as far as the Balkans is therefore extremely unlikely.
I wrote
> >The desert shrank to two small areas of the interior. This
period,
>from
> >7,000-8,000BCE saw no Afro-Asiatic language outside this region.
Glen wrote
> After that wild error concerning the date of Proto-Semitic, I won't
humour
> you on this one. Common AfroAsiatic is dated to 10,000 BCE. By
8000-7000
> BCE, AA would most certainly have already splintered into its known
> branches. I find it difficult to swallow that Semitic was still
confined in
> Africa at this point.
Why not? All the other Afro-Asiatic languages were so confined.
Placing Common Afro-Asiatic at 10,000 BCE seems far too early for
what
I have seen. Given that PIE was still a common language by 6,000
BCE,
and that the differences between Cushitic, Berber, Chadic, Omotic and
Semitic are no greater than those that exist between the
Indo-European, to suggest such an early time frame to me seems
unlikely. Particularly since the Saharan Regions (from which
Afro-Asiatic seems to have spread) was an area of common cultural
character until the period I have suggested. Even if it had
splintered into its known branches by 8-7,000 BCE that is not to say
that Semitic had yet left Africa. On the basis that there is no
evidence of any "out-of-Africa" move between Egyptian
Sebilian-Palestinian Kebaran mesolithic, and late Pre-Pottery
Neolithic (after 6,000 BCE), then it would suggest that the post
Yarmukan phase is the first appearance of Semites.
>There are others who appear to take other very
> different views on the origin of Semitic, leading me to believe
that
the
> issue is by no means "evidenced" by the archaeology as you claim.
Bomhard,
> for instance, thinks that Semitic had reached northern and eastern
Syria by
> this time.
Can you quote him for me - as I have been unable to get Bomhard here
in Perth (we live in the most isolated city on the planet).
> >The Chadic group of Afro-Asiatic may have had some origin at this
>period.
>
> Get your facts straight: Remember Proto-AA is 10,000 BCE.
What evidence?
> >Thus there was no Semitic languages spoken before 5,300 BCE
anywhere >north
> >of Southern Lebanon.
>
> This still remains an unproven assertion. Unless you can discuss
the
> linguistic side of the arguement with me, I won't be convinced.
Take up the argument with Encyclopedia Britannica. If Semitic only
started expanding outward from southern Palestine in the period from
6,000 - 5,000 BCE, then there is no way it could have got into the
PIE
zone so early. Mallory and Diakonov would appear to support me, not
you.
> >To find the linguistic elements that are common to proto-Semitic
and
> >proto-IE, therefore, you need a different mechanism.
>
> John, Semitic did not borrow its own number system and there can be
no
> intermediate language that you can supply to explain the linguistic
> influnce. So far you have not supplied it, only going on about
> archaeological pseudo-evidence which will never say anything
conclusive
> about pre-historic language patterns. Sorry, it's not working. You
will have
> to adapt your strategy or discontinue.
You base a lot on the correspondence between Semitic six and seven,
and IE. Yes, I admit Hebrew *sissa (6) and *si'ba (7) do look
suspicious. But Turkik has a number *sekiz (8) and even Malay
*sembilan (9) look similar too. There is also the evidence that
people tend to be a lot more conservative regarding the low numbers
1-5, based on counting on hands, than they do of higher numbers
(6-10). I have seen this in Papua New Guinean linguistics where it
is
best to look for genetic relationships only using numbers 1-5.
Numbers beyond that show all kinds of shifts.
> >Their word for goat, for instance, probably came from the area
where
> >wild pre-domesticated goats had once run wild, the same rain fed
area >from
> >the Zagros to the Tauros Mountains and down into the
Anti->Lebanon.
It is
> >hard to see how Semites, coming from Africa, where >there was no
wild
> >goats,[...]
>
> Then the most rational thing to do is to accept a Middle-Eastern
origin of
> Semitic/Semitish, as Bomhard does for one. This is necessary in
order to
> avoid the unnecessary multiplication of hypotheses such as the
religious
> assumption of a non-Semitic and yet incredibly Semitic-like
intermediate
> language between Semitic and IE. In order to believe the latter,
one
is led
> to battle against all the more accepted Comparative Lx theories.
How
many
> times will you make outrageous errors like "Semitic split at 3300
BCE"
> before you come to accept the best solution both linguistically and
> archaeologically? Smell the coffee.
I was not arguing that Semitic split 3,300 BCE, merely that Akkadian
(the language that travelled furtherest from the Central Semitic
"core" is recognisable only by 3,300 BCE. In fact it cannot have
gone
back before 5,000 BCE as it was only during the Ubaid period (AT THE
VERY EARLIEST) that neolithic agricultural peoples first appeared in
the Southern Iraq homeland of Akkadian. It was only in the Ubaid
period that we get a clear uninterupted cultural contact between the
area of Ghassulian culture and the lower Mesopotamian zone. All
previous cultures worked through intermediaries (Hassuna, Halaf,
Samara, Haddji Muhammed etc). Based on this evidence it is unlikely
that Akkadian split from Proto-Semitic prior to 5,000 BCE.
To my point
> >This construction seems to fit into the proto-linguistic analysis
> >presented for the Afro-Asiatic and Semitic languages in Enclyopedia
> >Britanica. Or are they also wrong, Glen?
Glen wrote
> Leave the analysis to me. :) Your interpretation of the text is
wrong, as
> was your interpretation of the same text that led you to believe
that
> Semitic was as young as 3300 BCE. I have identified the page number
and
> paragraph at which your comprehension took a wrong turn in this
regard, if
> you're interested.
Yes, please...
> >Somehow you have to get your "Semitish" folk of southern Anatolia
and
> >the Balkans "swamped" and to disappear, leaving no evidence in
place
> >names, long before the historic period begins.
>
> If the northern spread of Semitish were only confined within a
millenium
> (6000-5000 BCE), this isn't necessarily odd. In fact, who knows
where some
> of these place names are from. Perhaps they are from languages that
were
> overthrown by Semitish.
>
> Do you have examples of these place names?
2000-1800 BCE Purushhattum, Kanesh and Wahshushana, Hattushash,
Zalpa/Zalpuwa and Kushaurra, Aratta, Kummiya/Qumme, Mount Mashu,
Purushkanda/Burushanda (Purshahanda), Milawanda/Milawatta, Wilusa,
Seha River
>
> Anatolia always had many languages swimming around and moving
about.
It was
> a linguistic hotbed of activity from ancient times. If Semitish was
confined
> to the western coast of Turkey and the Balkans, it could easily be
wiped out
> with one Hattic sneeze and a spread of Tyrrhenian.
How do you propose it got there? Sneeked through the Cicilian Gates
under the nose of Catal Huyuk, or did they cross by sea from
Phoenicia? It is interesting how we have a strange language group,
existing at a time and a place where it shouldn't be, with a culture
that is invisible, travelling through well establsihed language
groups
without leaving a trace in placenames or culture apart from the words
six, seven and goat, that disappears without a trace. And how many
angels can dance on the point of a needle?
>And then there's
that
> flood thing, so alot is happening here, all at once, during this
time.
A bit late for what you are proposing. The flood at 5,620 years
would
have to have happened considerably after the contact you propose.
John