Etruscan and Nakh

Glen

To try and catch up with your recent messages, I've put the reply to
the three I haven't replied to so far into this one, entitled Etruscan
and Nakh, which I think more closely reflects the possible connection
that I think is interesting - rather than Etruscan and NEC.

As I keep saying: Nakh's membership of NEC is not in question (on the
whole). Neither is the current state of our knowledge of Etruscan as
is generally agreed and has been reached so far by the combinatorial
method. I am looking at a set of apparent resemblances that might be
explained by a substrate which principally affected Nakh's ancestor,
rather than other Caucasian languages, and one of the languages
involved in the ethnogenesis of the Tyrrhenians. No genetic inheritance
need be involved for any party.

In a message dated 05/03/01 15:38:31 GMT Standard Time,
glengordon01@... writes:

[Re: [tied] Etruscan and NEC]

> ... But then, do you mean a seperate _third_ party, that affected both
> NEC/Nakh and Etruscan/Tyrrhenian? You're being very vague. How 'bout
> splainin' yourself, Lucy?
>
> First, when exactly?
> Second, where??
> Third, how???

Yes. And Hurrian. More Nakh rather than the whole of NEC.

HEALTH WARNING: This is speculation.

When: I suppose we must be talking about the period 4000-1200BC.

Where: Eastern Anatolia/Southern Caucasus

How: By means of a language of unknown affiliation (i.e. perhaps
genetically related to Hurrian, but not necessarily) which left no
inscriptions and died out. It remained however as a substrate
influence in some areas where it was formerly spoken. One area was
to the north of Kartvelian speakers where it was replaced by Nakh-
Daghestanian. One area to their south, perhaps adjacent to Lydia,
where more languages were in the picture, including IE amongst others,
and where it contributed to Tyrrhenian ethnogenesis. Perhaps a key
event might be the arrival of Kartvelian speakers in the area around
3000 BC, splitting up and shrinking the area of influence of this
hypothetical substrate.

Who: It is interesting that the ancient ancestors of the Chechen are
alleged to be called the Tushba. But there are loads of people
knocking around the area where we know their names and nothing of their
languages. What about Kretschmer's Leleges, whose name may be from the
Nakh for 'neighbour'?

> >How do you think they went to Western Turkey? Car? Aeroplane? Anyway,
> >it was probably even easier in ancient times because of there being
> >less people in the way.
>
> "They"? The Tyrrhenian-speaking population? They would be autochthonous to
> the Balkans.

Sorry. I don't agree. Where is the evidence that the Tyrrhenians were
resident in Europe proper until they hit Italy? (By sea, on the West
coast). Ignore Raetic and North Picene for the moment, as they are
highly problematic.

I meant the Ubykhs as an example of the relatively trivial distance
from the Caucasus to Western Anatolia. And I checked, it couldn't be
train either as there were no substantial railways in Turkey until
after 1918.

> Point is, language can spread amongst a population without anybody moving.
> No trains, no planes, just mouths yipper-yappering constantly.

Yes, but that's not what happened to the Ubykhs. And probably not the
Etruscans either.

> >>>I for one am sure there are a couple of Celtic ones in there.
> >
> >How about comparing 'erikian vepelie' with the Venetic inscription
> >'porai vebelei'. In Manuel de la Langue Venete, Lejeune says the
> >Venetic /porai/ is from *per. Taking the P- off it and adding an
> >ending like -ikian sounds a bit more like Celtic than Tyrrhenian.
>
> Venetic is an Italic language. (??) Why are you comparing Rhaetic to an
> Italic language in order to compare it to a Celtic language??

Because these two inscriptions might constitute a virtual bilingual,
silly! Also, Venetic has an amount of onomastic material in common
with Raetic which helps with interpretation.

> >>>I don't think the sound shift -l < *-i is unreasonable, after all,
> >>>there is evidence for it in archaic Etruscan.
> >
> >How about Lemnian /avis/?
>
> It's related to Etruscan /avils/, quite certainly a more true-to-original
> form. Semivowels don't usually, if ever, become laterals and I can think

of

> no language living or dead where this occured without question. Can you?

The English city Bristol is a local dialect version of an original
*Bristo.

> >>>There is evidence for prenasalisation in a number of Etruscan >>>words.
> >
> >You don't agree with Perrotin's examples, then?
>
> Hmm, it doesn't look like it. I'm admittedly not aware of Perrotin but

then

> I don't read every book on UFO research and crop circles. Since I've never
> seen "pre-nasalization" mentioned in any respectable literature on

Etruscan,

Briefly, he establishes a number of possible borrowings by inserting
a missing -n- or -m-, e.g.

Etruscan /acila/ 'handmaiden' <-> Latin /ancilla/ 'servant girl'.

This might be a nasal vowel in Etruscan unrepresented in writing.
You know, nasal vowel like in French, Polish and umm, Nakh.

In a message dated 05/03/01 21:40:21 GMT Standard Time,
glengordon01@... writes:

[Re: [tied] Greenberg and Nostratic]

> >Any idea that we could approach certainty on a level with that >achieved

in

> >IE studies is a fantasy.
>
> Erh, I disagree. To approach the same level of accuracy of both IE and
> Nostratic at the same time is a fantasy, yes. The achievements of more
> remote stages of reconstruction can only lag behind that of the more

recent

> ones because it is the more remote stages which are indebted to the more
> recent for their very existence - This is common sense. However, there is

no

>
> rational reason to assume that Nostratic in some near or distant future
> cannot achieve the same level of understanding that IE has arrived at
> currently as it stands on a sunny Monday morning in 2001. There is no
> rational reason to assume a limit to human knowledge in itself.

You haven't addressed the point about the disappearance of languages
skewing the results of subsequent reconstructions. Also, the only
reason we are in this happy position with IE is the early attestation
of various daughter branches in writing.

> >In addition, over-concentration on the genetic side of things also >gives

a

> >false picture because it is never all that is going on. >Creoles never
> >happened in ancient history then?
>
> Hmm, seems unlikely if you're talking about "creole" in a non-layman

sense.

> I would have thought that you need some precise conditions for this to
> occur, like, say, mass-slavery of indigenous populations or colonial
> expansion.

No, not necessarily. All you need is language contact and some sort of
material reason for change. Like being outnumbered.

> >It may also well be that Dixon's model applies to IE's relationship
> >with its nearest 'relatives' because of the relatively greater social
> >equilibrium of the historical period in question.
>
> No need stressing out over every wild possibility. It's more logically
> economical to presume that everything worked the same in the past as it

does

> now.

As Piotr points out, it isn't such an unlikely scenario. The
uniformitarian principle says that we should understand the past in
terms of processes that are observable now, not that

> everything worked the same in the past as it does now

A subtle difference.

In a message dated 06/03/01 08:15:53 GMT Standard Time,
glengordon01@... writes:

[Re: [tied] Apple is to Orange as Etruscan is to NEC]

> Ed, to be brutally blunt, your refusal to explain how Nakh and Etruscan can
> possibly be associated with each other is becoming annoying. If you are
> truely interested in a healthy, intelligent discussion, you must state
> succinctly the justification behind your comparison of your Nakh-Etruscan
> comparisons by answering the questions "When?", "Where?" and "How?" in the
> next post, as I have with my own theories.

There is no point in speculation for its own sake, but I have tried
to indulge you as above.

> Further, you appear ignorant
> about simple Etruscan grammar (cf. like the pronominal accusative: /ecn/,
> /mini/, etc)

I was merely underlining that what people refer to as the accusative
exists in only 3 words in Etruscan. Three words doth not a genetic
relationship with IE make. BTW /mVn-/ exists in oblique forms in
Kartvelian, not just IE.


Ed.