John:

>What do you make of the arguments of Harald Haarmann (1994),
>in `Contact Linguistic, Archaeology and Ethnogenesis: An
>Interdisciplinary Approach to the Indo-European Homeland Problem',
>Journal of Indo-European Studies 22, 269-288. who concludes "However one
>views this, one thing seems clear: there is no evidence of very early
>contact between IE and Semitic (Haarmann
>1994) and so the IE dispersal either originated elsewhere or took
>place before the first Semitic spread."

I don't make too much of it. I mean, you have to be pretty daft
to ignore something so basic as *septm and *sweks. It's all to
easy to ignore facts you don't like. These two numerals are
securely traceable to Proto-IndoEuropean, and yet if they are
PIE, their blatant similarity to the Proto-Semitic numerals begs
to be examined.

To start with, no IEist has ever provided a satisfactory etymology
for these two numerals within IE itself. Further, they
are only analysable using _Semitic_ grammar. That is to say that
the word *septm within the bounds of IE morphology is an indivisible
root, yet when we compare it to Semitic's correlating root *sab`-,
we see that the IE numeral may be easily connected with the Semitic
masculine form for "seven". The numeral contains two Semitic
suffixes placed in proper Semitic order: *-t- (masculine marker
for numerals) and *-m (to complete the word form). To seal the deal,
"six" and "seven" appear to be big wanderwords for some reason,
even showing up in Kartvelian (also Semitic in origin).

From what I can tell, the numerals may have had a religious
significance and we do also find Middle-Eastern themes in IE
mythology, so this interpretation makes sense. Plus, we know that
IE didn't develop agriculture on their own and a lot of the
agricultural terminology is suspected to be loaned, whether
directly or indirectly, from Semitic. Everything just comes
from the Middle-East.

The reason why the above is said, I think, is because it's true:
There is no evidence of very early [direct] contact between IE
and Semitic. However, IE was surely in contact with some language
that was able to provide Semitic-looking loans. Ergo my solution:
Semitish.

>I understand he proposes the similarities between the two come
>from a third source close to the culture which developed agriculture.

Yes, and you know that I've come to the same conclusion, although
I find it most parsimonious to theorize a Semitic-like language
rather than a completely new one, since there only seems to be a
strong Semitic influence on IE based on the evidence.

>Can you get JIES at all?

Right now, I'm busy trying to establish myself in Vancouver (Yes,
I'm still trying to establish myself in Vancouver!!!!) so when I
find the time, I'll be looking into it.

>I found this at http://www-personal.umich.edu/~piotrm/DIGLOS~1.htm
>which is quite an interesting site.

I like this quote: "One must admit, however, that most of the
toponyms in Southern Mesopotamia are neither Sumerian nor Semitic."
Now, if only I knew what these toponyms were :(


- love gLeN


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