Re: [tied] languages documented (Alex) (it was: substratum)

Davius Sanctex wrote:

> I agree with your agreement about my impressions, Alex :-)

pleasure on my side:-) Your impressions have been corelated with the
studium of some byzantinologs which agree the Latin and Greek was never
spoken by the law class.

>
> But there is one point of yours that confusses me:
>
> [alex] The only documented languages in the Old Europa is Latin and
> Greek. The case of the Roman Empire is the only
> one explanation for the linguistic assumption due the fact the other
> languages are not documented. Thus one assume that not being
> documented > we can ignore them lingusitcialy in most points, we can
> explain trough Latin/Greek the linguistic aspects, and there where
> soemthing does not fit, then we can remind about the unknown
> languages which can play the role of the joker now.
> ----
> [davius] But if there are many documents in say Phoenician-Punic,
> Etruscan, Umbrian, Oscan, Celtiberian, Lepontic, Gaulish, ... Aren't
> they documented languages?

Etruscan = assumed non Ie , the inscriptions are not desciphred.
Umbrian,Oscan = seen as Italic Languages, akin to Latin.
I am not aware in how far the celitberian , lepontic are documented.
About Gaulish of France.. there have been opinions ( even from the time
of Cesar) it was related to Latin . At least we know there is a
considerable lexical thesaurus which shows to have very appropiate forms
in Galic and Latin .

Alex