Re: balsa

From: Octavià Alexandre
Message: 62440
Date: 2009-01-10

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Rick McCallister <gabaroo6958@...> wrote:

>
> Possibly. Given that it shows up in Lusitania and Sardinia,I'd guess that some IE language related to Lusitanian was probably once spoken in Sardinia --probably something close to IE Ligurian, Illyrian, etc. i.e. non-Celtic, non-Italic but fairly closely related to both
>
I wonder how could you reach this conclusion on the evidence of two words which aren't of IE origin!

What really matters here is that in Sardinia there was a language related to Basque and Iberian, that is, a Vasco-Caucasian one. Even more, the Shardan, one of the famous Sea Peoples who gave their name to the island, could have been their speakers. This ethonym seems to be fossilized in Basque sardana 'audacious, daring' (compare Chechen-Ingush sard-am 'curse, malediction').