Dennis wrote
> >So, what is going on here? We now seem to have Semitic
contact/influence/borrowings in Basque, Celtic, Germanic, Greek, NE
Caucasian, Kartvelian, Etruscan. Could it be that there is a Semitic
substratum throughout western and southern Europe, right up to the
Pontic region? Cheers Dennis
Semitic influence here would have come via the Phoenicians. They
were
very active in Spain in pre-Roman times. Rather than Semitic
influence, I think they were talking Afro-Asiatic influence. On the
Basis of Ibero-Maurasian culture it could have been another language
in the Chadic-Cushitic-Omotic family. And then it might have been
later - possibly another language related to Berber, after all the
Guanches crossed to the Canary Islands.
> Very interesting the resemblances between Celtic & Arab (& Spanish?
tendency to VSO). I was thinking of a rudiment of an old sea-faring
culture (or cultures) along the Atlantic Ocean & perhaps in the
Mediterrenean ("megalithic").
>
> If IYO the same Semitic substratum worked on related languages,
it's
difficult to explain why Celtic, Germanic & Greek are so different
IMO, eg, why then are German & Greek not VSO?
It seems we are having trouble destinguishing Semitic from
Afro-Asiatic.
Regards
John