Re: Nakh-Daghestanian linguistic family ; Celtic & Afro-Asiatic la

From: John Croft
Message: 2525
Date: 2000-05-24

Earlier in response to the "substrate" language of the first farmers
I
wrote

>>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).

Glen wrote in reply
>But Mallory, like you, fails to offer a valid suggestion for this
>"third source" and fails to go into sufficient detail to support his
>claims. It is an opinion, nothing else. This quote proves nothing at
>all except that Mallory's analysis in this regard wasn't a deep one.
>He was quite understandably busier with a more pressing work
>regarding IndoEuropeans (their language, archaeological evidence,
>cultural and technical evolution, etc), than to be dilly-dallying
>with non-IE languages and hypothetical third sources.
>
>But it should be quite evident that the assumption of a third source
>is needlessly complex when the assumption of influence from one of
>these already existant parties into IE and into other languages is
>available. Semitic or Semitish fits the bill perfectly based on the
>linguistics that you like to sweep under a rug. I use "six" and
>"seven" alot because they are known to be Semitic and nothing else.

He then offered the following
>Indo-European Semitic
>(s)teuro- Tawru "bull" (T = "th" as in "math")
>weino- waynu "wine"

And now Marc Verhaegen copied for us:

> LINGUISTICS:
> Peering Into the Past, With Words
> Bernice Wuethrich
> Prehistorians typically rely on stones, bones, and DNA to piece
together the
> past, but linguists argue that words preserve history too. Two new
studies,
> both based on endangered languages, offer new insights into the
identity of
> mysterious ancient peoples, from the first farmers to early
inhabitants of
> the British Isles.
>
> Archaeologists have long known that some 10,000 years ago, ancient
people in
> Mesopotamia discovered farming, raising sheep, cattle, wheat, and
barley.
> And
> researchers knew that by 8000 years ago agriculture had spread
north
to the
> Caucasus Mountains. But they had little inkling of whether traces
of
this
> first farming culture lived on in any particular culture today.
People have
> migrated extensively through the region over the millennia, and
there's no
> continuous archaeological record of any single culture.
Linguistically, most
> languages in the region and in the Fertile Crescent itself are
relatively
> recent arrivals from elsewhere.
>
> Now, however, linguist Johanna Nichols of the University of
California,
> Berkeley, has used language to connect modern people of the
Caucasus
region
> to the ancient farmers of the Fertile Crescent. She analyzed the
> Nakh-Daghestanian linguistic family, which today includes Chechen,
Ingush,
> and Batsbi on the Nakh side and some 24 languages on the
Daghestanian side;
> all are spoken in parts of Russia (such as Chechnya), Georgia, and
> Azerbaijan.
>
> Nichols had previously established the family tree of
Nakh-Daghestanian by
> analyzing similarities in the related languages much the way
biologists
> create a phylogeny of species. She found that three languages
converge at
> the
> very base of the tree. Today, speakers of all three live side by
side in the
> southeastern foothills of the Caucasus Mountains, suggesting that
this was
> the homeland of the ancestral language--on the very fringes of the
Fertile
> Crescent. To get a rough estimate of when the language arose,
Nichols used a
> linguistic method that assumes a semiregular rate of vocabulary
loss
per
> 1000
> years, and she dated the ancestral language to about 8000 years ago.
>
> Nichols also found that the ancestral language contains a host of
words for
> farming. The Chechen words muq (barley), stu (bull), and tkha
(wool), for
> example, all have closely related forms in the earliest branches of
> Daghestanian, as do words for pear, apple, dairy product, and oxen
yoke--all
> elements of the farming package developed in the Fertile Crescent.
Thus
> location, time, and vocabulary all suggest that the farmers of the
region
> were proto-Nakh-Daghestanians. "The Nakh-Daghestanian languages are
the
> closest thing we have to a direct continuation of the cultural and
> linguistic
> community that gave rise to Western civilization," Nichols says.
>
> Population geneticist Henry Harpending of the University of Utah,
Salt Lake
> City, has just begun the job of unraveling the genetic ancestry of
> Daghestanian speakers and is impressed with Nichols's work. "For
years I
> wished linguists would get in the game. Nichols sure is."
>
> Nichols is now reconstructing the ancestral language, hoping for
more clues
> to the culture of these early farmers. But she has to work fast,
for
the
> three Nakh languages are vanishing. Although there are still about
900,000
> Chechen speakers left, the other two tongues have fewer speakers,
and all
> three are being eroded by war, economic chaos, and Russian
educational
> practices, Nichols says.

It is interesting that Hurro-Urartuean of the Middle East is supposed
to have a genetic link with the same NW Caucasian family.

And Glen
*stu (bull) in NW Caucasian sounds very much like PIE *(s)teuro- to
me. It would seem we have found our third source.... or something
which points towards it. If this is the language of the first
farmers, much of their vocabulary would have been passed to cultures
that learned farming later.

I can remember a previous posting in which I gave the cognates for
Semitic Indo-European
weino- waynu "wine"

in Karvellian, Hurrian and other languages, I wonder if the NW
Caucasian agricultural terms that Nichols is finding also includes an
8,000 years ago first farming tongue.

Marc continues

> More than 3200 kilometers away, another linguist is mining Celtic
> languages--which are also all considered endangered--for clues to
the
> inhabitants of the early British Isles. Artifacts show that the
islands were
> occupied long before Celts from the European continent made
landfall
about
> 700 B.C. But mysteries remain as to their identity.
>
> So Orin Gensler of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary
Anthropology in
> Leipzig, Germany, analyzed Celtic languages, including Irish Gaelic,
> Scottish
> Gaelic, Welsh, and Breton. Once prevalent throughout Europe, these
languages
> are now spoken only in the British Isles and Brittany in France.
Linguists
> have noted surprising grammatical differences between Celtic
languages and
> related languages such as French, while at the same time seeing
striking
> resemblances between Celtic and Afro-Asiatic languages spoken for
millennia
> across a swath of coastal Northern Africa and the Near East.
>
> In a forthcoming monograph, Gensler studied 20 grammatical features
found in
> both Celtic and Afro-Asiatic languages. He sought these linguistic
traits in
> 85 unrelated languages from around the world, reasoning that if the
features
> were widespread, their appearance in both Celtic and Afro-Asiatic
languages
> might be mere coincidence. But if the shared features are rare,
coincidence
> is unlikely. Overall, Gensler found that about half the shared
features are
> rare elsewhere. "I think the case against coincidence is about as
good as it
> could be," he says.
>
> And a closer look at a number of features, including word order,
offers a
> provocative theory for just how the Celtic islanders acquired these
> linguistic traits. In Gaelic and Welsh--and many Afro-Asiatic
languages--the
> standard sentence structure is verb-subject-object. But Celtic
languages
> spoken in Continental Europe in antiquity have the verb in the
final
or
> middle position. The best explanation for the shift to verb-initial
order,
> says Gensler, is that when Celtic speakers made landfall on the
British
> Isles, Afro-Asiatic speakers were already there. As these people
learned
> Celtic, they perpetuated aspects of their own grammar into the new
language.
>
> Although others are interested in Gensler's idea, so far "there is
no
> significant northwest African genetic signature ... in Celtic
populations,"
> says Peter Underhill, a molecular geneticist at Stanford University
in
> California. But in this instance, he adds, the linguists may be
ahead of the
> geneticists, for researchers need more genetic markers before they
can
> confirm or refute Gensler's idea.

It would appear that the mesolithic culture of Spain
(Ibero-Maurasian), which extended from Algeria to the Pyrenees, came
from North Africa. This may have been carried by speakers of an
Afro-Asiatic tongue.

The First Western culture of farmers (adopting the culture from
Cardial fisher-shepherd-farmers) seem to have been a case of a
culture
in which farming technology was adopted by the mesolithic people with
whom an earlier farming people was in contact. Have a look at the
arrows for the maps I posted up on Indo-European Neighbours.

Thanks Mark