[TIED] Re: Celtic & Afro-Asiatic languages

Slow down everybody. First, let me state my credentials. I have a degree in Arabic from SOAS, U. of London. Other than that the only Semitic I know is from my research into my pet subject - Semitic, Egyptian and Greek relations in the Bronze Age. I'm currently living in Sarawak on the island of Borneo, far from any university libraries, and just happen to have with me (why I don't know) my Arabic dictionary.

So, my question as to what's going on was not really rhetorical. I really would like to know. I'm puzzled by Semitic seeming to pop up all over the place. So, in the light of this :

1. Marc

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?

I only came across this "Atlantiker" idea in Rick McCallister's web page a few weeks ago, despite having been born and brought up within 10 miles of Stonehenge. I don't yet know what to think of it.

Celtic - it was you yourself who posted on the similarities between Celtic and AfroAsiatic. Piotr's posting re Raymond Hickey's view specifies Semitic rather than AfroAsiatic. For myself, I had noticed some curious similarities between grammatical constructions in one Celtic language - modern Welsh - and one Semitic language - Arabic. I hadn't really given it any further thought and certainly had not speculated on any generalised Celtic-Semitic ties.

Germanic - I was unaware of this until I looked at Rick McCallister web page.

Greek - all my researches in this area are concerned with a Semitic adstratum, not substratum.

John

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.

Agreed about Phoenician activity in Spain, which I would put back into 2nd millennium. But how does this explain Brythonic, and Gaelic, as mentioned in Marc's original posting? And the adoption of grammatical/syntactical features, rather than just words?

Surely Ibero-Maurusian industry (is industry the same as culture?) is far too early for AfroAsiatic, let alone Chadic-Cushitic-Omotic family - a grouping which I would reject. These three AfroAsiatic language families seem too well differentiated to link them as a subgroup within AA. In fact, there is doubt as to whether Chadic belongs with AfroAsiatic at all. It also seems doubtful that any of these languages ever reached the Atlantic or west Mediterranean coasts.

Berber is found in the right area - the question is when did they arrive there? The Enc.Brit. doubts that Guanche or Iberian are related to Berber, or even AfroAsiatic.

Either way, the connections that have been noted for Germanic and Celtic are with Semitic.

It seems we are having trouble destinguishing Semitic from
Afro-Asiatic.

I assure you I'm having no such trouble.

Glen

This root exists. I think I've come across the Hebrew version with /s/ for
*T (the expected change). I believe the word means "to plough" in Hebrew. I
could swear that there's an Akkadian word /ersitu/ which means "earth". Was
I dreaming? The triliterate is probably more accurately defined as "to
plough".

Perhaps you misunderstood my orthography. I used the upper-case D to denote the "emphatic" d of Daad, as opposed to the dental daal.

There is an Arabic word /?arasa/ meaning "to till the earth".

I'm personally looking for a different Semitic word that looks like
**eru:-Vdu "copper" where **eru: (attested in Akkadian as /eru:/) signifies
"metal" and **Vdu describes the quality of the metal.

Sorry, I can't help. I only have an Arabic dictionary, and single-consonant words beginning with a vowel are a rarity. Normally, even two-consonant words imply a hidden "w" or "y" as the 2nd or 3rd radical.

How about /ward/ coll. pl. /wuruud/ "rose", colour as well as plant (cf. Gk. (w)rodos)

I don't know though if this is native to Semitic.

While I was rummaging around, I thought of this : from Arabic /3ariiD(un)/ - "wide, extensive", Akkadian sound change eliminates 3 (ayin) producing "e" > Eridu - possible?

Finally, thanks to the Riverend (sic) Sterling. I believe James Joyce was an admirer of Victor Bérard, who wrote a masterly work (De l'origine des cultes arcadiens) showing that the archaic Arkadian cults were Semitic in origin. This did not sit well with the Classical academic establishment of the time (1896), but his scholarship was irrefutable. He later wrote two works "Les Phéniciens et l'Odyssée" and "Les Navigations d'Ulysse" in which he hypothesised that behind the Greek Mediterranean lay a Phoenician one, and behind the Greek Odysseus lay a Phoenician Odysseus. This led to his being labelled a "crank", and thus to all his ideas being rejected in scholarly circles.

Cheers

Dennis