Re: Is Basque IE?

> In my opinion, the resemblance between Basque

and IE personal

> pronouns is best explained by assuming that Basque is a
> Nostratic language, related to PIE but not derived from it,
> superposed on a

Cantabro-Pyrenaean substrate having only one

> nasal phoneme.  This phoneme was usually reflected as *[n],

but > when two examples occurred in successive syllables, the first

> was dissimilated

to *[m].  Hence the pronoun *mi 'I, me'

> (surviving

as such in archaic Etruscan, but in PIE incorporated > into the verbal system) became Proto-Vasconic *ni, but the noun > *menti 'hill, mountain' retained *m...n because the C-P

> substrate allowed this sequence, and Basque has regularly
> _mendi_.  (Note the Tarraconian

place-name Mentissa/Mentesa

> /Mentosa.  The

Nostratic root is likely identical with PIE

> *men- > 'to project' in Latin _mons_

etc.  Or the place-name is > simply of IE origin and no long-range inference is valid

> here.) 
>

Basque mendi has *nothing* to do with IE *men- but with Celtic *bando-/*bendo- 'peak, top'. This is corroborated by the diminutive forms pentoka (L, LN) 'hill', pendoka (G, L) 'sloppy terrain', pendoitz (HN, LN) 'precipice', (Bazt, HN, L, LN) 'slope', mendoitz (LN) 'slope'.

> Thus I disagree with Michelena and others

about */m/ in Proto-

> Vasconic.  Michelena

derives Bq. _mehe_ 'thin' from *mene, this > in turn from *bene.  But other Bq. words like _behe_ 'bottom'

> and

_behi_ 'cow' show no such development *ben- > *men-, so I

> think *men- was a

permissible sequence.

>

Actually, neither behe nor behi had a medial nasal, as otherwise we'll have nasal vowels in Roncalese and/or Zuberoan. Unlike assumed by Academic Vascologists, a velar stop *-k- can also be the source of Basque -h-, as a particular case of Martinet's Law.

 unlike e.g. mihi 'tongue' < *bini.

> 1.  Bq. _aho_ 'mouth, face' probably continues ancient *ano

> (cf. _ahate_ 'duck' < Lat. acc. _anatem_, etc.), so it would go > better with Lat. _a:nus_, and I will refrain from the obvious
> jokes.

>

Once again, there's no nasal here, and we'd better reconstruct *Cabo, with regular lenition of the labial stop before /o/.

> 9.  Bq. _barre_ 'laughter'. 

>

There're also the variants parre, farre, parra, farra, barra. This is a loanword from Hispano-Arabic (cfr. Spanish farra, parranda).

>  40.  Bq. _gizon_ 'man' has a combining form _giza-_ (e.g.

> _gizakote_ 'big hefty fellow', _gizarte_ 'society', _gizatzar'_ > 'big man, giant, brute, cad') which you choose to ignore.  Very > likely _gizon_ continues an ancient

compound (represented by

> the pers. name Giso:n or Kiso:n in Greek letters) of

the

> simplex _giza_ and _on_ 'good', hence 'good man, bonhomme'. 
>

As I told before, gizon is a straightforward loanword from Celtic (Gaulish) *gdonjo- 'man', so there's no place here for on 'good'.

> The

alleged reduction *bo- > *o- is contradicted by _bost_,

> _bota_, _botz_, etc.

>

As Basque has diverse and often contradictory sound changes, we must assume there were several linguistic varieties which interacted in Paleo-Basque (something you implicty acknowledge above).

> 77.  Bq. _su_ 'fire' was originally *sut as we see

from

> _sutondo_ 'proximity to fire'.  The

divinity Sutugius (CIL

> 13:164) was perhaps a god of the hearth.

>

The -t- in sutondo is actually a junction between compound elements when the first ended in a vowel and the second one had no initial consonant.

> 79.  Bq. _txori_, _xori_, diminutives of _zori_ 'fate, luck', orig. 'bird',

>

Actually, 'bird' and 'luck' are *homonymous* word.
 

> Of course, since you have obviously invested

considerable time > and personal reputation into this theory, I do not expect my

> criticism (or that of others) to have any effect.

>

I also see you haven't changed your views in despite of my criticism.

Octavià