Re: Reconstructed Substrates (was: Bart; was: Ligurian)

From: Bhrihskwobhloukstroy
Message: 69824
Date: 2012-06-17

2012/6/12, dgkilday57 <dgkilday57@...>:
>
>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Bhrihskwobhloukstroy
> <bhrihstlobhrouzghdhroy@...> wrote:
>>
>> 2012/6/8, dgkilday57 <dgkilday57@...>:
>> >
>> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> W dniu 2012-06-07 03:19, dgkilday57 pisze:
>> >>
>> >> > Thus the river Druantia in Liguria Transalpina (now Durance) can be
>> >> > equated with Skt. Dravanti: 'Running (River)' f. from *drew-n.tih2,
>> >> > with
>> >> > the same Lig. innov. absent from Celtic. Likewise the smaller rivers
>> >> > Drance (*Druantia) in Kt. Wallis, and Durance in De'p. Manche, with
>> >> > Drouance in De'p. Calvados, Normandie. That is, Greater Liguria
>> >> > stretched across Gaul until it was split by Gaulish invasion and
>> >> > expansion from the south (cf. Liv. 5:34).
>> >>
>> >> Would it include today's northeastern Poland and the River Drwe,ca <
>> >> *drUvoNtja, one of Torsten's favourites? (no trace of *dreu- in
>> >> Balto-Slavic, and absence of Grimm's Law excludes a Germanic
>> >> intermediary).
>> >>
>> >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drw%C4%99ca
>> >
>> > It looks that way. Artemidorus did say that the Ligurians once ranged
>> > all
>> > the way to the Northern Ocean. Earlier I attributed this remark to
>> > misunderstanding on A.'s part of how far north Worms-am-Rhein is, but
>> > perhaps he was spot on.
>> >
>> > DGK
>> >
>> Bhrihskwobhloukstroy:
>>
>> So Your Ligurian is, like d'Arbois', Dottin's, Philipon's and
>> Kretschmer's, an IE Old European stratum like Pokorny's
>> Veneto-Illyrian.

> DGK:
> Yes. However, I do not believe in lumping Venetic (with its [h] and [f])
> together with Illyrian. I think Macro-Illyrian (Illyrian proper,
> Macedonian, Paeonian, Messapic, Japygian, probably Rhaetic and Belgic)
> belongs with Lusitanian in an "Illyro-Lusitanian" node.

> Bhrihskwobhloukstroy:
>> As I've many times pointed out, I'm find such hypotheses very
>> attractive. I constantly try to fit them all in a maximal frame; I'm a
>> kind of a collectionist of these theories.
>> I've noticed that I can found new hypothesis in this perspective
>> simply out of one and the same language: 1) In the territory and
>> linguistic documentation of language X (of IE descent), I look for an
>> ethnonym Y without any linguistic affiliation; 2) I choose a
>> place-name that can be geographically associated with this ethnonym;
>> 3) I take into consideration the PIE etymology (if any) of this
>> place-name; 4) I try to find if it can be modified (especially with
>> regard to ablaut) in order to have a similar etymology, maybe from the
>> same root and in any case a sufficiently straightforward one, but with
>> a different diachronic phonology (Y) as opposed to the one of the
>> locally attested language X; 5) I apply diachronic phonology Y to
>> every name of X I can; 6) the area of the names with which I've
>> succeedingly applied diachronic phonology Y is identified with the
>> ancient territory of the linguistic stratum named after the ethnonym
>> Y. In X You can read 'Celtic', 'Germanic', 'Baltic', 'Slavic',
>> 'Greek', 'Armenian' and so on; in Y You can read 'Sorothaptic',
>> 'Latial-Ausonian'/'Palaeo-Umbrian', 'Pelasgian', 'psi-Greek',
>> 'Themematic', 'Greltic' and so on.

> DGK:
> That sounds like a straw-man procedure.
>


Bhrihskwobhloukstroy:
I am my own straw-man; I was really describing my procedure and I
cannot see any other one in order to obtain new substrates. It's based
on what Eichner has labeled "etymolgical procedure": Equation with PIE
proto-forms directly continued by attested forms in IE languages and,
on the basis of such proto-forms, construction of a diachronic
phonology; the alternative method (of the "tentative reconstruction
postulates") is the blind application - like in the "minimalist"
section of my approach - of formerly (through etymological procedure)
established sound-laws.
If Your method differs from anything I've written, I'll be very
interested in learning it!


>> What I have to add in order to get a complete picture is to
>> examine the opposite possibility, a minimal amount of language
>> substitutions. (Alinei's Continuity is in no way minimalist on this
>> point, because it takes Pre-Latin languages as superstrata, therefore
>> implying a double language superposition - their arrival and their
>> death). There's a limit beyond which one's Reductionism is patently
>> falsified (e.g. in the case one should try to deny Illyrian or
>> Thracian or Continental Celtic); before that very boundary, I think
>> it's our duty to find out the minimalist approach. It doesn't mean
>> it's right; it suffices that it be both possible and extreme. I can
>> myself construct the opposite extreme, applying to each name of X the
>> method I've just exposed.

> DGK:
> Your opposite extreme requires indecent liberties with ablaut and other
> matters.

Bhrihskwobhloukstroy:
A Romance-speaking scholar could have signed a statement like that.
Ablaut has precise rules; anything outside them would be out of the
language system, but You can't seriously maintain that I'm violating
ablaut rules.
The opposite extreme position would be the typical Neo-Latin one:
only attested words can exhibit ablaut patterns, but nothing outside
them can be generated. You seem to tend to such a position, i.e.
ablaut as a no more productive strategy. (I can't imagine "other
matters" in which I can license myself "indecent liberties", so I
reply only to Your argument about ablaut.)
Note, however, that when we discuss about ablaut we aren't referring
to Ligurian, but to PIE: e.g., *bho:rg'h-ah2 or *g'enh1/2-o:wah2 are
PIE transposits, at morpho-phonological level they have to be analysed
as PIE - not Ligurian - formations; the specific Ligurian and Celtic
contribution is just on phonological level: *bho:rg'h-ah2 > Barga:,
*g'enh1/2-o:wah2 > Gena:wa:. I'm sure You wouldn't deny ablaut was
productive in PIE. Maybe You'd contend I don't know the details of the
*norm* (as a concrete realisation of the system) of PIE ablaut: If You
know them, I'm ready to learn, as above!

> DGK: One could equally well construct English etymologies for every
> place-name in the United States. For example, Hoboken (N.J.) could be
> analyzed as *hobo-ken 'tramp-knowledge', i.e. a good place for a tramp to
> get a handout, since tramps share knowledge of such places. This would
> disregard the evidence pointing to a dialectal Dutch etymology as 'high
> beeches'. English dictionaries are very large and can easily accommodate
> such analyses for virtually any place-name, just like your Celtic
> procedure.
>

Bhrihskwobhloukstroy:
You've chosen an amusing example of formally perfect ambiguity
between a Dutch and an English interpretation (I thank You for the
explanation, since to my ears Ho[og]-boken is of course much more
close to anything familiar - like Hochbuchen - than American English
hobo). It demonstrates that:
i) competing interpretations are possible;
ii) a Western European one is always possible with any non-Amerind,
non-Na-Dene, non-Eskaleut US name;
iii) on the North-East Coast, English and Dutch interpretations are
historically justified (evidently not only because of colonization,
but also as a consequence of later immigration);
iv) in this particular case, the Dutch interpretation is more
intuitive than the English one.

This maybe reveals the model You love. European colonization of North
America is a powerful model for Eurasian prehistory, but I hope You'll
concede it isn't the only possible one. In fact, the application of
Your example to Cisalpine Gaul leads to following conclusions:
i) competing interpretations are possible (therefore please take my
interpretations into consideration as well; as already said, I've
always taken Yours and Kretschmer's ones into consideration);
ii) a IE etymology is always possible and there isn't anything
comparable to Amerind, Na-Dene or Eskaleut in Central and Western, for
the simple reason that no pre-IE people and language is explicitly
documented in the vast area between Rhaetia, Etruria, Basque Countries
and Pictland (of whatever affiliation such languages may be, <mi
nemetie> and similar instances don't permit any Etruscan etymology of
Ligurian names);
iii) in Cisalpine Gaul, a Celtic etymology is always justified, a
Venetic one (the closest parallel to a Dutch etymology for a US
place-name I can imagine in this concrete situation) may at least be
searched, but a non-Celtic Ligurian is by no means paralleled by Dutch
in America: Dutch colonists and immigrants from Holland and
neighbouring areas are well attested and moreover Dutch and Flemish
are widely documented languages in Europe, while the very existence of
a Ligurian language with non-Celtic innovations is just the result of
a possible interpretations - among other ones - of the onomastic
material of (pre-)Roman Liguria;
iv) therefore, no matter how more intuitive a non-Celtic etymology of
a Ligurian place-name can be (with respect to a Celtic one), it will
never reach the status of a Dutch etymology in the US, but at least
the status of an etymology through a non directly attested and never
uncontroversially documented Germanic - e.g. German - dialect (just to
give an example: the hypothetical Rhineland pre-stage of Yiddish).
Sure, if such etymologies through a controversial Germanic dialect
(like Rhineland pre-Yiddish) are systematically more straightforward
than English (and Dutch, rest-German, Scandinavian and so on) ones, it
becomes more probable that such a dialect really existed and was at
the origin of these names (like the hypothetical IE substrate in
Northern Africa), but I permit myself to affirm that I still have to
find such a systematically higher straightforwardness of Kretschmer's
and Your etymologies of Ligurian place-names (not to speak of
Transalpine place-names in uncontroversially Celtic territories!) as
opposed to my reconstructions of PIE transposits through independently
assured and areally always possible Celtic diachronic phonology.
(Sorry for German length of sentences...)

Next in thread: 69827
Previous message: 69823
Next message: 69825

Contemporaneous posts     Posts in thread     all posts