Re: [tied] Etruscan and Nakh

In a message dated 06/03/01 20:14:55 GMT Standard Time,
glengordon01@... writes:

> Far too vague. A whole slew of things can happen in a 2800-year period.

It's

> also suspicious when one suggests a language smack dab in the bustling
> Middle-East which had completely died out, leaving no trace, not even

clear

> evidence to support one's claim.

Such events happened ALL the time in prehistory.

> >Perhaps a key event might be the arrival of Kartvelian speakers in
> >the area around 3000 BC [...]
>
> Um, 5000 BCE.

But you agree they arrived later than NEC and NWC speakers, at any
rate.

> 1. Cf. Etr. /than/, Nakh /dan/ 'to build'.
>
> Sorry. The word in Etruscan is /tham-/ not */than/ (also /tmia/

"building")

> and, for anyone in IE studies, the connection to IE *dom-

Sorry, yes of course it is. And Hurrian /tan-/. Maybe all of them are
related.

> The Etruscan-IE connection compares only the _imperative_
> endings of the two languages. Nakh doesn't come close

Come up with some matches for the other verb endings. They don't
exactly shout IE at you.

> Look who's stretching things! You had me believe that we were focusing on
> the Nakh branch, not the Lezgian branch.

I'm not saying there is a connection with Lezgian, but if there are
only a few matches, then they could have come from anywhere. Only if
there is a systematic connection can you say they came from IE.

> 5. How about Etruscan /tesinth/ 'overseer', Hurrian /tesh-/ 'elder',
> Nakh /tish/ 'old'.
>
> There's an enormous leap to jump between "overseer" and "old".

There's an even bigger leap from 'to be' to 'about'.

> >Cf. Ingush /shajx/ 'sacred'.
>
> While IE *sek^- and Etruscan /sac-/ are as direct a connection as one can
> find both phonetically and semantically, Ingush looks beaten up in
> comparison. This is all you could find? Ingush is only one Nakh language

and

> there's always the chance of borrowing or coincidence.

Yes, I totally agree. And that applies to you too. Don't get me wrong.
There is a 'connection' between IE and Etruscan. I just don't agree
that there is enough evidence to say that that connection is genetic.
And of course, even if that was the case, it would not preclude
non-genetic influence from elsewhere anyway. Some people say there are
Caucasian roots in Greek, after all.

> That one
> doesn't find /vaj/ outside of Nakh suggests all the more that this word is
> borrowed from an IE language.

The fact that the declension paradigm for /vaj/ is much simpler than
for other pronouns also supports your theory. So there's not an
enormous geographical barrier between Nakh and the rest of the world
then?

> >Sorry. I don't agree. Where is the evidence that the Tyrrhenians were
> >resident in Europe proper until they hit Italy?
>
> Place names. Second, I never included North Picene with this, so why talk
> about it?

Could you elaborate about the place names? I mentioned North Picene
only in case you were going to mention it as evidence of pre-Italic
speakers.

> >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.
>
> They had invented horses by then, I'm sure >:) Point is, this time period
> doesn't compare to prehistory for so many reasons so no need to explain
> further.

On the whole, I think we probably have similar attitudes:

1. Language change is not necessarily accompanied by demic movements.

2. Linguistic/cultural 'diffusion' across vast distances as an
explanation is usually on a par with UFO's, crop circles etc.

However - the point is, how long does it take to get from the Southern
Caucasus to Western Turkey on foot? A year or two, or hundreds of
years?

> >The English city Bristol is a local dialect version of an original
> >*Bristo.
>
> This is one of your worst arguements. You're claiming a regular sound

change

> of [l] > [y] but the above is an isolated occurence caused by _analogical_
> processes, not regular sound changes.

No, I'm claiming [-0] > [-l], which apparently is not an isolated
occurrence, but a regular sound change in this mediaeval dialect of
English.

> >Briefly, he establishes a number of possible borrowings by inserting
> >a missing -n- or -m-, e.g.
> >Etruscan /acila/ 'handmaiden' <-> Latin /ancilla/ 'servant girl'.
>
> Oh, well, in that case, I'll just inject /r/ wherever I please and connect
> Etruscan to Mandarin. How's that? I mean, get real! You're talking
> pseudo-linguistics and I'm not interested.

What is the world coming to? People will be talking about establishing
IE roots by inserting a missing laryngeal next.


Ed.