Re: Catching up again...

Glen wrote

> After

accepting

> this, we must take note of two important dates - the date of IE

split and

> the date of earliest wine-making which as far as I know is around

the same

> general time as agriculture, isn't it?

No, the making of wine is significantly after the beginnings of
agriculture. It is currently accepted as being some time around 5,500
BCE, and is associated with Flannery's "Secondary Products
Revolution", which occurred significantly after the first flush of the
neolithic in the Middle East (circa 8,500 BCE).

These two dates provide the
time

> frame [6000-4000 BCE] within which the "wine" word was either

borrowed into

> IE, or the word began its spread into surrounding languages like

Kartvelian

> and Semitic like you speculate.

Given the nature of the Middle East at that time, it is quite possible
that "weino-" began as a Wanderword, that spread with the technology
of winemaking, long after neolithic technologies were established
throughout the Middle East, Anatolia and Old Europe.

Thus

> >Playing the devil's advocate, this option is not crazy at all: did

or

> >did not the words "potato", "chocolate", "tomato", "maize", etc.
> >spread AGAINST the flow of colonizers coming OUT of Europe into the
> >Americas INTO Europe?

Really is quite possible, as these words spread when the foodstuffs
that they referred to were incorporated into European agriculture and
horticulture.

> The Semitic version *wainu (Hebrew yayin) has no IE suffix attached

to it

> like a nominative *-s or anything, nor do we find this imaginary

suffix in

> Kartvelian. Ergo, it can't credibly be from IE. Plus, Semitic is a

couple

> thousand years older than IE. This being so, we have a word *wainu
> reconstructable for this language that dates much earlier than IE's

*weino-.

Your statement that Semitic is a couple of thousand years older than
PIE I find interesting. Have you got documentary proof of these Glen.
Or are you working by Glottochronological systems? The splits within
Semitic (from Akkadian to Proto-West Semitic etc, don't allow dating.
In fact early Akkadian is fairly close to Proto-West Semitic
indicating a split of at most a few thousand years prior to the first
appearance of Akkadian names circa 2,600 BCE).

> However, you'd be pleased to know that the online American Heritage
> dictionary says the following (http://www.bartleby.com/61/10.html):
>
> "The words for many other agricultural products may provide clues as

to

> the original homeland of the Semites, though this is a matter of
> conjecture and dispute: they were acquainted with figs (*tin-),

garlic

> (*m-), onion (*baal-, replaced in Akkadian by a Sumerian word), palm
> trees (*tamr- or *tamar-; see tmr), date honey (*dib-), pistachios
> (*bun-), almonds (*aqid-), cumin (*kammn-; see kmn), and groats or
> malt (*baql-), as well as oil or fat (*amn-; see mn). The early
> Semites cultivated grapes (*inab-) growing on vines (*gapn-) in
> vineyards (*karm- or *karn-), from which they produced wine (*wayn-,
> akin to Indo-European words for wine and probably a loanword in
> Proto-Semitic as well)."

The kind of culture you have just described here Glen appeared in
Palestine only with the transition from Munhata to Ghassulian culture
5,500 BCE. Again, secondary products revolution. None of these crops
are found cultivated any earlier than that. It was this phase that
established the key to the Mediterranean economy that effectively has
lasted for thousands of years in places like Lebanon, Syria and
Palestine.

> On the one hand, the paragraph is careful to only mention a

connection

> between the Indo-European and Semitic terms. On the other hand, it

gives

> doubt to Semitic origins of the word. On yet a THIRD hand, we might

call

> into doubt the opinions of the entire article when, more than once,

the

> author proudly attributes many Semitic terms to IndoEuropean loans!

Given that most of the West Semitic terminolgy comes from the Ugaritic
inscriptions of the late Bronze Age - there is a possibility of IE
loans (Via Mitanni and Hittite intermediaries).

This would explain

> Miguel:
> >Which numerals are you referring to? The Kartvelian numerals are:
> >
> >1. *s'xwa- (Svan es^xu) / *ert- (Geo. er(t)-)
> >2. *jo(:)r- (Svan jo:ri, Geo. (v)or-)
> >3. *sam- (Svan semi, Geo. sam-)
> >4. *os'txwo- (Svan wos^txw, Geo. otx-)
> >5. *xwis't- (Svan woxwis^d, Geo. xut-)
> >6. *u(k)s'wa- (Svan usgwa, Geo. ekvs-)
> >7. *s^wid- (Svan is^gwid, Geo. s^vid-)
> >8. *arwa- (Svan ara, Geo. rua-)
> >9. *c'xra- (Svan c^xara, Geo. cxra-)
> >10. *as't- (Svan jes^d, Geo. at-)
> >20. *oc'- (Geo. (v)oc-, Megr. ec^-)
> >100. *as'ir- (Svan as^ir, Geo. as-)

too. Proto-Euphratean seems to have come from the
Proto-Hurro-Urartuean area, so there is ample possibility of these
influence flowing into Semitic from multiple sources at multiple
periods.

Regards

John