From: Michael Smith
Message: 37190
Date: 2005-04-14
--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...> wrote:
What's worse, a scholar who "discovers"
> such a substrate may get emotionally attached to his own invention and
> his etymologies become more and more tendentious as a result, see
> Vennemann's Bascoid etymologies for almost everything in Northern Europe.
Piotr, do any of Vennemann's Bascoid etymologies have any merit or are they all
rather suspicious? In a previous post you also made a mention of proposed Illyrian
etymologies (I can't remember if they were hydronyms or topomyns), are any of
these suggestions to be taken seriously in your opinion?
-Michael
> > I don't know what you have
> > against Ukrainian linguistic literature, but why not
> > get over it? They have some pretty good people, and to
> > ignore them as thoroughly as you seem prepared to is
> > not very commendable.
>
> Look here, George, my good fellow ;). How can an active Ukrainophile
> such as me react to this? Why say such unpleasant things when the only
> problem is that I haven't the book to hand? To be honest, whenever I
> open an article by a _Polish_ (or German, British, Italian...)
> hydronymist, I usually learn a lot from it but also find myself in
> disagreement with most of the content. Nobody is omniscient, and the
> authors are often unaware of something which I happen to know and which
> happens to matter.
>
> > Why not get Stryzhak via
> > inter-library loan? Or read Zhelezhniak's study of the
> > Ros' basin hydronyms for starters? That might change
> > your strange reluctance to keep an open mind about the
> > Thrakoid language of West Scythia. I'll stop now, and
> > resume (if need be) after you've read some of this
> > literature (Stryzhak has an excellent
> > bibliography).******
>
> OK, we may postpone it, but let me assure you first that I have never
> meant any disrespect to you or your sources. I only asked for arguments
> and you told me to read the book.
>
> Piotr