Re: [tied] Piotr your expertise needed

----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Smith" <mytoyneighborhood@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, January 09, 2004 3:35 AM
Subject: [tied] Piotr your expertise needed


> Piotr, I'd love to know you're thoughts on the discussion that's
> been going on about the suggested Semitic, Berberish, or another Afro-
> Asiatic language as a pre-IE substrate in northern and western Europe
> and behind Germanic and some of the Celtic languages.
>
> I know you're smart and don't seem to jump to conclusions when
> evidence is lacking, but what do you think the evidence that is
> available suggests?

Sorry, I wanted to respond, but other things kept me occupied. OK, everybody
knows I'm suspicious of explanations involving unconfirmed substrates, and I
remain completely unconvinced as regards Theo Vennemann's "Atlantiker" ideas
(especially as applied to the Picts and pre-Germanic Scandinavians). But, as
I have already admitted, I was quite impressed by the typological parallels
between Afroasiatic and Celtic, which, according to Raymond Hickey, were of
a non-trivial kind and might point to close areal affinities in the past. I
know too little about Berber to speculate if languages related to it might
be the source of such diffused influence, but (para-)Berber linguistic
presence in Europe is not something that could be ruled out a priori. We
know that the Atlantic seaboard was Indo-Europeanised relatively late. This
is especially true of Iberia. The survival of Basque and the documented
existence of several other non-IE languages there in historical times is
proof enough that the area once abounded in residual languages, possibly
belonging to several different families (to be sure, none of the languages
attested so far appears to be Afro-Asiatic). Contact by sea has always been
easy in those parts, so a sprachbund involving coastal European (as far
north as the British Isles) and NW African languages is perfectly thinkable.

By the way, Theo Venneman has a very nice website, with abstracts of his
articles on languages of prehistoric Europe. I don't agree with him at all,
but you might find the site worth a visit:

http://www.germanistik.uni-muenchen.de/theoretische_linguistik/vennemann.html

Piotr