John:
>Glen threw down a gauntlet - why can I not leave it there and walk
>away?
Then walk away and you won't be wounded :)
Me say:
>>So far, the how, when and where don't. So be my guest, John.
John say:
>For instance I quote for you in full the Conclusion of James
>Mellaart's "The Neolithic of the Near East" on topics we have been
>discussing what must seem like ad nauseam to the tollerant long
>suffering members of this list.
Yes, indeed. Our poor List members may indeed have become intolerant of your
fat-fingered mispellings and moot half-points that take the reader on a
mystical journey right over a tall cliff. I've read your quote and I see
nothing important here to support your position. It only appears to validate
what I'm saying about a Tyrrhenian language family, similar to IE but not
quite, in this area before Anatolian's arrival. The snippet you offer me
appears to go slightly overboard however in assuming that there was only
_one_ "pre-Greek" substrate throughout all of Southern France, Italy, Greece
and the Balkans. I'd like to hear the evidence of this and it still says
nothing about the supposed Nakh-Etruscan prehistoric relations.
John quotes:
>[...] and one suspects that the major
>contribution was made by the pre-Indo-European language of the
>Minoans of Crete.
Suspects, suspects. Everyone "suspects" nowdays but does anybody know
anything?
>Theoretically at least the survival of a Neolithic language over some
> >three to four thousand years has parallels, and such a possibility
> >cannot be ruled out.
Yawn. Theoretically at least, this is yet more assumption. Wake me when it's
over.
>This hypothesis finds further support in the presence of traces of a
>similar Caucasian substratum in the Balkans, Italy, Southern France,
>areas beyond the Near Eastern Neolithic diaspora,
... And the Caucasian character of this substrate has been determined how?
Or has this also been "suspected" by the author? Sounds like just about any
evidence has been glued together to provide a popsicle-stick house of a
case, using early Basque substrate, throwing in a dash of early Tyrrhenian
substrate (toponyms with "pala" perhaps?) for the whole shabang. The work
almost sounds "extraterrestrial". Has the author ever had any previous
episodes of breakdown, seizures, physical trauma, gluten intolerance,
mercury poisoning, etc?
More from John's painful quote:
>To the east also, some of the
>Caucasian languages contain words similar to those of pre-Greek, and Furnee
>suggests that the number of pre-Greek words usually >explained as Semitic
>were borrowed by and not from the Semitic.
What words? If these terms are already convincingly Semitic, it'll be hard
to show that they are truely derived from a Caucasic language given the lack
of when, where and how. You've lost focus again, dear. Where's the evidence?
In all, the author appears to make many misled assumptions concerning the
magnitude of correlation between archaeological evidence and language
spread. Are you sure _you_ didn't write this, John? I have trouble taking
someone seriously when they careless assume that just because identifiable
cultural markers like agriculture move about that this conclusively shows
linguistic movement. I have mountainous doubts and, again, none of your
precious quote directly relates to how some Nakh-ish language and
"pre-Etruscan" could have ever crossed pathes in a non-science-fiction kind
of way.
Oh my, John, I believe my gauntlet has caused some injury. Do tend to your
wounds and run along. I do hate the sight of proverbial blood :P
- gLeN
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