Re: IE, AA, Nostratic and Ringo

In one place, you quote E.J. Furnee as giving 5 to 6 thousand. I have seen
various numbers given ranging from 25 to 50 per cent. Either way, it is
sizeable, given the antiquity of the Greek texts available.

- - -

In fact, the non-IE element of the Greek lexicon pervades all aspects of the
language, in particular objects, concepts and activities concerned with an
advanced civilisation - civil and social administration, the military,
weaponry, religion (myths, buildings and paraphernalia, rites), social
amenities (e.g. baths and drainage), abstract concepts (glory, bravery
etc.), philosophy and the sciences, building (particularly in stone), the
arts, trade and trade goods (gold, ivory, cloth, cereals). In addition to
this is almost the entire repertoire of names of gods and mythological
heroes, as well as toponyms and city names.
The result is that Ancient Greek seems to resemble somewhat medieval
English, in that IE provides the core day-to-day nouns, verbs, pronouns,
prepositions, while just about everything else comes from non-IE sources,
whether it be direct loans, calques or concepts.

 

(Dennis Poulter 21 July)

 We are usually told that "everything began with the Greeks" - they invented science, philosophy, architecture, mathematics, art, etc. I've even heard this at university. During my university studies (I studied the history of ideas) the influence on Greek philosophy and science from Egypt or other countries was hardly mentioned. But if most of the Greek words for these activities are borrowed, then the picture changes considerably. The Greeks must have been much more dependent on other cultures than what is widely known. Does anyone here know more about this - from whom did the Greeks borrow this? Could you give any specific examples of words and concepts being borrowed?

 

Also, if 25-50% of ancient Greek is of non-IE origin, what about Latin? Does anyone know (roughly) how much of that language is considered to be of non-IE origin? For Germanic, I remember reading somewhere a figure of 30% - is that figure correct?

As for culture, I refer to Herodotos - all religious practices and the name
of practically all the gods came from Egypt. Even if he is exaggerating, and
one wonders why he would want to, there still must be a large kernel of
truth for his writings to have ever gained acceptance with his
contemporaries.

(Dennis Poulter 25 July)

Could you give any evidence for this? To me, the names as well as the personalities of Athena, Zeus, Hera and other members of the Greek family of gods seem very different compared to Egyptian gods.

Hakan Lindgren