What impact does the following have
on the plausibility of Sumerian's
being Nostratic?
Richard.
--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com,
Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen <jer@...>
wrote:
Like it or not, the assyriologist
Gordon Whittaker of Goettingen has
been
making a strong case for an IE
substratum in Sumerian over the past
decade
or so. The substratum is seen in a
large number of IE loanwords in
Sumerian and in a number of sign
values which make perfectly good
sense as
IE. I understand it to be
Whittaker's thesis that the
Sumerians took at
least part of their writing system
from a neighbouring IE population.
If
correct the discovery adds over a
millennium to the direct attestation
of
IE linguistic material. I have bee
present at two presentations by
professor Whittaker and have been
genuinely impressed and, within the
limits of my judicial powers, quite
convinced that he is basically
right.
Jens
On Tue, 21 Jan 2003, Glen Gordon
wrote:
>
> Miguel:
> >There have been some recent
publications about Sumerian <-> IE
> >borrowings, although I don't
remember the details. My feeling is
that
> >some of them may be cognate, some
of them borrowed (I wouldn't know in
> >which direction). Some of them
may simply be coincidences.
>
> Borrowings between Sumerian and IE
would be like borrowings between
> Proto-Germanic and Dravidian. Not
very likely.
>
>
> - gLeN
>
>
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