--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott" <bm.brian@...> wrote:
>
> We all have to rely in part on authorities: no one can know
> everything. Weighing authorities is a rather fundamental
> intellectual skill.
>
> I do not have on hand the evidence or the knowledge of
> Basque historical phonology to make an independent
> judgement, so I must in the first instance rely on expert
> opinion. Larry Trask was a recognized authority on Basque,
> and I've plenty of positive direct experience with the
> quality of his argumentation in an assorment of books and
> on-line forums. I have plenty of negative direct experience
> with the quality of your argumentation. In this case it's
> not at all difficult to decide whose conclusion is more
> likely to be correct, never mind the further evidence of the
> very late attestation of Basque <mintz>.
>
In other words, you've got a *biased* opinion.
Although perhaps you're unaware of this, many of Trask's ideas aren't actually original but adapted from other people, mainly Koldo Mitxelena, the pioneer of modern Vascology. That is, Trask also relied upon others' authority.
Having read his magna opus "The History of Basque", I can say that while he was a good Vascologist, he was also a poor comparative linguist. Apparently, he had an agenda which not only made him negate any possibilty of genetic relationships between Basque and other languages (e.g. Iberian), but also he strongly minimized the influence of Basque in its neighbouring Romance languages, specially Spanish.
I'm afraid the argument of a "very late attestation [in writing]" means little in a language like Basque, whose written tradition is comparetively recent (the first book is from the 16th century). Anyway,
mintz can't be a recent borrowing because it shows nasalization of the initial labial (not to mention the variants with
p-). This would make it at least a word from the Middle Ages.