Re: Itchy and Scratchy Stops

Glen wrote

> I accept my error in placing the Sumerian language too far north 111

into

> Central Mesopotamia before the intrusion of Akkadian and being

unaware, but

> now acceptant, of a Halaf-HurroUrartian equation as likely (NOT a
> Halaf-Hurrian equation like you stated, BTW).

Thanks, trust you to pick up any tiny error I make - I meant
Halaf-Hurro-Urartuian.

>It is likely, not only because
> of the archaeology and timing but seems evidenced in the actual

Sumerian

> language that a contact with a VascoCaucasian language of the HU

variety

> took place at some point in time. Perhaps we might go so far as to

call this

> the underlying substratum that you imagine so flatulantly as the

invisible

> Asianic language.

Horrah! We are getting somewhere. You may not need to read Georges
Roux after all!

> EncBritt spars against your claim that Urartian is a daughter

language from

> Hurrian and wins the battle. It clarifies that Urartian together

with

> Hurrian are likely derived from a parent language (HurroUrartian)

3000 BCE

> or earlier, NOT from Hurrian itself.

Agreed!

> Chadic is also not in NW Africa away from... well.. from Chad

(hence
the

> name). Nor could Berber ever be so far south into NigerKordofanian

territory

> for reasons linguistical as well as environmental (nb: Dennis'

enlightening

> post).

Glen, I ask you to hold off too quickly on the Saharan movements.
Chadic in historic times is confined to Lake Chad by the aridity of
the desert to the north. At the time frames we are speaking of here,
giraffe, hippos, buffalo and wild cattle roamed the Sahara, Lake Chad
was 20 times its current size, and a chain of lakes ran from Lake
Chad
to west of the Niger, drained by Saharan Rivers running south out of
what is today rocks and sand dune. Archaeologically the hunter
gatherer cultures of lake Chad extended far to the north, and to the
west as far as the gates of Morrocco and Mauretania. And there was a
seemlessness about these cultures of the Southern Sahara.

>Lastly, I won't even bother to speak of your ludicrous
>placement of
> Semitic in Egypt.

Glen, please explain for me how did Semitic start. Afro-Asiatic
peoples got out of Africa somehow - either across the Southern
Straits
near Aden, or else across into Sinai. True Semitic languages could
have developed in Situ and Semites carried Afro-Asiatic into Africa
circa 4,500 BCE, but this does not stand up archaeologically. To get
the Semites into the Sinai and Palestine at the dates you want for
"Semitish" means that they would have had to have crossed somehow and
from where

Either
Halfan (Egyptian) -----> Kebaran (Palestinian)
(24,000-17,000) (18,000 - 10,000)

Fayyumian (Isnian) Egypt -----> Post PPNB nomads (Palestine
(9,000-4,500) (6,000 - 5,300)

Take your pick.

> And for the last time, Azilo-Tardenoisian is a culture but not a

language.

> Shake your head a little and decide whether you want to do a

cultural map or

> a linguistical map. You can't do both and I will not argue with you

on this

> last piece of simple common sense. On a linguistical map, you have

a
choice

> between "Vasconic" (a recognized language group of Basque dialects

plus

> Aquitanian), "undefined" or a credible language group of your own

making

> with a large amount of linguistic-based justification behind it.

Glen, read my post. I said it is an attempt to integrate what we
know
archaeologically with linguistics..... It is not *just* a map of
languages (especially where we don't have names for many of the
languages at the time. What language did LBK Danubians speak for
instance. Piotr wants protoIE, but I suspect another tongue
altogether - not Uralic, Non PIE, Non Tyrrhenian. Perhaps somewhere
in between Tyrrhenian and PIE, and now extinct (like the
Northwestgroup is somewhere between Celtic and Germanic and is now
extinct.

I wrote

> >If Sumerian split about 12,000 BCE we are talking of a split
> >from the emergent Nostratic out of Africa - Kebaran [...] Sumerian
>could
> >have been the first mesolithic culture to occupy Arabia.

Glen replied

> Only if Sumerian is not a Eurasiatic language and a fourth branch

of

> Nostratic, on par with Kartvelian, AA and the rest of Eurasiatic. I

feel a

> synaptic discharge coming on...

Horrah!

I wrote

> >The spread of this culture (Zarzian), to the east, to the west
> >and to the north, gives us an excellent means for the further
> >fragmentation of Steppe.

Glen replied

> Debate on the placement of Steppe anywhere other than the steppe

environs is

> closed.

Why? What evidence? Mesolithic cultures get to the steppe too late
to be of use to the horizons you are talking about as regards the
fission of languages and cultures.

Glen wrote

>It's as ludicrous a topic as Semitic in Egypt or IE in
>Anatolia.

OK, I concede that Semitic developed in the Sinai side as
Afro-Asiatic
speakers of an unkown tongue came in contact with the first farmers
in
Palestine. Some of the AA language must have influenced the
development of Semitic though, for Semitic to be classified AA.

I have never argued for PIE to be Anatolian. A Nostratic from
which pre-Proto PIE may have been. But I want to see your reasons
for
locating "Steppe" on the steppes.

> Lastly, in regards to IE *ereudhos, Sumerian /urud/ and Dennis'

comments on

> my Semitic suggestion, I think I've come up with a decent synthesis

of both

> our views. Perhaps we might set up a Semitic form **eru:-ard.u

"metal of

> earth(-colour)" with accent on the long vowel. The question is

whether *eru:

> is attested other than Akkadian and whether the complete word or

phrase

> survives somehow in later Semitic languages, even as a poetic

phrase
or a

> corrupted word.

Sounds good!

> Lastly yet, I'm starting to speculate on the distribution and

possible

> significance of Mother Goddess figurines to the spread of

VascoCaucasian

> (the DeneCaucasian "T-Group") and Early IE mythology, in contrast

to, say,

> the introduction of agriculture and Baal (Dyeus). I get the feeling

that

> this is yet another arcane dimension and potential substantiation

for

> Semitish-IE relations just waiting to be explored by a peppy, young

girl

> scout like myself... erh, I mean boy scout. Hmmm-hmmm (clearing

throat in a

> manly way).

The Gravetian figures which stretch from France to the Urals (with
related cultures stretching all the way to Lake Baikal, gives an
archaeologically attested string of cultures for exactly such a time
frame, circa 35-25,000 years ago. Glen, god help us, does this mean
that we are on the same side for once ;-0

Regards
John