Harald:
>But is the evidence anything more than the VSO syntactic parallell?
>VSO is typologically the rarest of the SO word orders but it's not
>that rare (If I recall correctly it's about 10%) that it alone can force
>the conclusion of a substrate influence.
There must be some substrate, afais, because we even have Basque
words with AfroAsiatic parallels. Again, those pesky numerals, /sei/ "6"
and /zazpi/ "7", rear their ugly heads and there are other words as
well. I believe /arrano/ "eagle" was another of them. I've been saying
for a while now that there is a numerological connection, that it may
relate to a yin-yang balance with one number representing the male
principle and the other the female principle. Hell, maybe their addition
(6 + 7 = 13) had some significance too but most on this list might be
a little triskaidekaphobic to such an untested notion :P
At any rate, if the numerals were adopted, as I believe, because of
a spread of belief systems from the eastern Mediterranean area, then
we're looking at the neolithic as a likely time frame. However, I
can't see it being much earlier than about 7000 BCE when that
strong mythical influence starts to spread out (at least, as far as
Gimbutas made it sound).
So we scratch out the Minoans, Semites and Egyptians. Unless
Proto-Semitic themselves sailed the ocean, I would have to concede
then that Berber is looking good. However, that would imply to
me that the Berber brought the eastern med. belief systems to
northwest africa. Is there any evidence of this in the archaeology?
Little trinkets maybe with eastern iconography of sorts?
= gLeN
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