Re: Gimbutas

Now what happened to good ol' skeptical Hakan who was really fighting the
(very remote) Nostratic relationship of IE to AA? Suddenly I see you
entertaining a supposed hidden language stuffed up way in Scandinavia that,
unlike Nostratic, has no direct evidence of its existence at all. Your
devil's advocate must be on vacation :)

Almost every article about Germanic languages that I've read has mentioned that Germanic languages contain a large part of non-IE vocabulary, especially words connected with ships. I believed that this would be "old news" to people on this list.

Apparently the book from which I picked my examples (The Major Languages of Western Europe, ed. B. Comrie) wasn't reliable - words like east, west etc. are of IE origin. Thanks to all who have pointed this out. 

My devil's advocate is not on vacation. Right now, he's busy doin' his homeworks, studying Bernal's Black Athena as well as the critical examination of Bernal's ideas in Black Athena Revisited (editors Lefkowitz and Rogers). Expect to hear more from him.

 

Thanks Piotr for recommending Black Athena Revisited! This book is just what the devil's advocate needs and I would never have found it for him myself.

Hakan