Re: [tied] Ah, look at all the lonely languages

----- Original Message -----
From: Gerry
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, June 08, 2003 10:17 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] Ah, look at all the lonely languages


> Yet Basque isn't a lonely isolated language and fuels the Basque
separatist movement.
It _is_ a linguistic isolate, and politics has nothing to do with that.

> The Basque language is an inflected language whose origin is still
somewhat puzzling. The fact that it is not an Indoeuropean language, and
shows no ressemblance to languages in neighbouring countries, has led to the
formulation of a variety of hypotheses to explain its existence. Owing to
some similarities with the Georgian language, some linguists think it could
be related to languages from the Caucasus.

Those who believe in a Basque/Georgian relationship don't deserve to be
called linguists, IMO.

> Others relate the language to non-Arabic languages from the north of
Africa.

Meaning Berber? That's as absurd as the Georgian connection.

> One of the most likely hypotheses argues that the Basque language
developed "in situ", in the land of the primitive Basques.

The ancestors of the Basque-speakers must have lived in Iberia for a long
time. No-one questions that.

> That theory is supported by the discovery of some Basque-type skulls in
Neolithic sites, which ruled out the thesis of immigration from other areas.

But Basque is a language, not a skull shape. Nobody really knows what
language was spoken in and around the Basque Country during the Neolithic,
and the hypothesis that it was some stage of pre-Proto-Basque is unprovable,
even if not impossible.

> Many think it is a very old language because there are words, such as that
for axe ("aizkora" or "haizkora") for example, that have the same root as
the word rock ("aitz" or "haitz").

The fact that OE seax 'knife, short sword' (the favourite weapon of the
Seaxe or Saxons) is possibly related to Lat. saxum 'rock' doesn't mean that
the Saxons have lived in England since the stone age.

>>> IOW, could Sumer perhaps have been a "city of the gods" (or even of the
untouchables)?

>> I don't think I understand this question.

> I'm simply trying to pull out of the atmosphere some reasons why a
language becomes (or remains) an isolate. Guess another answer could be
"aliens from outer space".

If you mean that linguistic isolates may have been planted on earth by gods
from space, it doesn't seem to be a good topic for this group. There must be
e-groups devoted to alien abductions, Lost Civilisations and cranky
para-religious movements out there.

Piotr