Re: [TIED] Dennis on Glen (was Hebrew and Arabic)

John,

There's a lot here, so I'll divide my reply in two.

I want to make it clear though that I'm not defending Glen's Semitish hypothesis. He's quite capable of defending himself.

You wrote :

> Semitic languages are generally classified into four

groups

> (a) Northern Peripheral (Akkadian)
> (b) Northern Central

(West Semitic Amorite, Canaanite, Hebrew etc)

> (c) Southern Central

(Arabic)

> (d) Southern Peripheral (Geez and other Ethiopic

tongues)

> If Semites were to travel to the Balkans by 6000-5000 BCE as Glen
> supposes and if Semitic was a language that was to appear early

in

> the
> Middle East with Yarmukan in Palestine, then we could

expect Semitish

> to have been an early one of the West Semitic tongues

of the North

> Central Family.
> Yet in actual practice we find

that the PIE words have more in common

> with Akkadian than with any

other of the Semitic languages.

> Gamkreldze and Ivanov show that the Old

English *adesa, Hittite

> *ates-
> and Sanscrit *-adhiti all mean

axe. On the other hand Greek pelekus

> and Sandscrit *parasu have been

compared to the Akkadian *pillaq-

> meaning "spike", itself a word which

id derived from the Sumerian

> balag, a word which seems derived from the

pre-Sumerian substrate

> language of the Ubaid peoples. There is also the

Akkadian *sarpu

> meaning silver, which has been linked to

proto-Germanic.

The root of the Akkadian word /pillaq-/ exists in modern Arabic /flq/ - "split, cleave". Wouldn't this indicate then that the root is Semitic, not Sumerian? And that, therefore, Sumerian borrowed it from Semitic? And further that the Ubaid pottery people were Semitic speaking?

> Indeed, many of the so-called Semitic loans in PIE have a Sumerian

rather than a

> proto-Semitic origin. Thus proto-IE *reudh (red), has a

similarity to

> Sumerian *urud (copper), which again seems to come to

both languages

> from an unknown third source.

Perhaps Semitic /?rD/ "earth, soil", Arabic /?arD/.

> Thus the Semitic *tawru (ox) has been linked with PIE *(s)tauro, and
> as Glen keeps reminding us Semitic seven *sab with PIE *septm. But
> *tauru also has links with other Near Eastern languages also. The
> same is true of the words for wine. Apparently when one compares the
> so-called "Semitic borrowings, agricultural words are a quarter

of

> all
> the words allegedly shared by Proto-Indo-European and

Semitic."

> (Mallory) But there is another explanation of this fact than

having

> Semitish the language of the first Balkan farmers. It is

unlikely

> that Semitic were already agricultural when they came out of

Africa

> (as there was no evidence of agriculture in Egypt prior to 4,500

BCE

> (too late for Glen's "Semitish")).

Why did the Semites have to come from Egypt? Ethiopia, the presumed Semitic homeland, is also one of the "centres of origin" of agriculture. Given that the lower Nile valley was probably impenetrable marshy jungle, isn't it more likely they came via the grasslands of the Arabian peninsula, bringing their Ethiopian agricultural techniques (and Ubaid pottery) with them?

> Semites learned their agriculture
> from cultures in the Middle

East cultures which were already

> agricultural. It is the reason why

Semitic agricultural terms are

> shared widely with Proto-Elamite,

Karvellian, Hattic and Hurrian.

> They all shared a common technology, a

technology which came probably

> from the rain fed slopes of southern

Anatolia and the Zagros (the

> areas where wild progenators of

domesticated plants and animals were

> most widely found). PIE learned

agriculture from people whose

> technological origins were in the same

area. Thus we find today

> "videorecorder" is a word in Japanese, even

though they have had

> little culture contact with Latin tongues. Such

examples become

> "wander-words" which tend to spread far beyond their

points of origin.

Maybe, maybe not.

> Another example. Proto-IE *kwelkwlo (wheel) has been linked to
>

Akkadian Semitic galgal. But this word seems derived from Sumerian

>

gigir and even Kartvellian grgar. We can therefore suppose, rather

> than

a Semitish-PIE loan occurring in the Balkans, that the

> technology
> of wheels, starting in Southern Mesopotamia, tended to carry

the

> words
> for their use as they travelled northwards, across

the Caucasas.

Again, there is an equivalent Arabic root for Akkadian galgal - /qlql/ vb. qalqala "move, shake, unsettle" which in turn may is related to or derived (4 letter roots usually are) from /qlq/ vb. qaliqa "to totter, be unsteady". So, again, could this be a Sumerian borrowing from Semitic?

So where does this leave us? The examples you have supplied can be attributed to proto-Semitic. This would suggest that Semitic is indeed the source. Perhaps they were also the first farmers. Just because Emmer wheat and such originated in Anatolia, doesn't mean that the people there cultivated it, or even thought of cultivating it first.

Interestingly, while trawling (not "trolling" I assure you) the Internet I found this :

"Until recent decades, the transition to farming was seen as an inherently progressive one: people learnt that planting seeds caused crops to grow, and this new improved food source led to larger populations, sedentary farm and town life, more leisure time and so to specialisation, writing, technological advances and civilisation. It is now clear that agriculture was adopted despite certain disadvantages of that lifestyle (e.g. Flannery 1973, Henry 1989). "

The disadvantages included a poorer diet with less variety, greater susceptibility to famine due to drought, or late rains, and various other natural disasters, greater susceptibility to disease through overcrowding, and a much greater input of effort for less reward.

Now, I would have thought, with all that wheat growing naturally with no effort, why cultivate it? Perhaps it was the influx of Semitic agriculturalists that forced this lifestyle choice on the local people.

So, now on to part II - the Egypt of Ramses II under the cultural and economic domination of Mycenae? Hmmm, doesn't seem likely on the face of it.

I'll be back

Dennis