Basque linguist J.M. Elexpuru discusses today at Noticias de Álava[es] the possibility that the lost pre-Romance language of Sardinia could be related to Basque, following the steps of Catalan linguist Eduardo Blasco Ferrer, who just published a book titled Paleosardo, le radici linguistiche de la Sardegna neolítica (Paleo-Sardinian, the linguistic roots of Neolithic Sardinia).
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| Ruins of a Sardinian nuraghe |
Sardinia belonged to the Carthaginian Empire since the 6th century BCE and then passed to the Roman one in the 3rd century, remaining since then in the Romance linguistic area. However little is known of the history of the island before, except the famous nuraghe forts (similar to SE Spanish motillas) and that it was colonized (after some ill-known Epipaleolithic episode) within the Cardium Pottery culture in the Neolithic, probably from Central Italy.
However Dr. Elexpuru synthesizes this way the position of Blasco Ferrer:
... there was a migration from the Basque area in the Mesolithic (8000-5000 b.C.) which settled the island. There were surely other flows later on. Genetic research on mitochondrial DNA have revealed that haplogroup V, originary from the Basque-Cantabrian area, is very high in the central region. The language carried by the settlers, named Paleo-Sardinian by linguists, was the one spoken through all the Neolithic and Bronze Age in the island and still survived for some centuries to Roman domination in the central region, which was known as Barbaria. In some parts of the island the density of pre-Roman toponyms is well above 40%.
He concludes mentioning some of the river and settlement names that are quite obviously Vasconic:
- River names: (h)aran, ardi, baso, berri, bide, ertz, goni (goi), gorri, iri, istil, iz, lats, lur, mando, on, orri, (h)osto, (h)otz, (h)obi, (i)turri, ur, zuri.
- Village names: Aritzo, Ardaule, Asuni, Goni, Loiri, Luras, Olzai, Orgósolo, Ortueri, Osini, Turri, Ulassai, Uras, Uri, Urzulei...
I must say that all this would make better sense if Iberian and Ligurian could be somehow integrated in the picture. One reason is that haplogroup V is now known to be much more frequent and probably original not from the modern Basque Country nor even Gascony but from farther East: Catalonia probably. However now and again there are other rare or somewhat common lineages that appear shared between Iberia and/or the Basque Country and Sardinia (and sometimes also North Africa).
One of the most common ones is Y-DNA I2a, a West Mediterranean and Pyrenean clade extremely common in Sardinia, which, if of Neolithic origin, would be the only such lineage quite frequent among Basques. But it could also be pre-Neolithic.
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| Frequency of Y-DNA I2a, from Rootsi 2004 |
For the record, it was discussed earlier in this blog (also here) the striking similitude of Basque and Sardinian (and some other European) carnival performances, all this in relation to the apparent paleo-European veneration of the bear and the continentally widespread shared root for this animal (hartz in Basque, almost the same in proto-Indoeuropean).
Also for the record I must mention that, in my not so humble opinion, the very word Sardinia seems to have a Basque etymology. Obviously it is derived from the pan-European word sardine but this term only makes etymological sense in Basque: sarda (fish school) + -gin (suffix of doing/making < egin) + -e/-a (nominative declension, like the article "the"). It needs of a loss of a syllabe (would make sardagina) but I still think it's plausible that sardine (and hence Sardinia) means school-doer or school-maker in Basque or a related language from old.
Whatever the case it is extremely difficult to deny the Basqueness of the toponyms listed above, even if I am sure that soon someone will come and contest such obviousness, based not on common sense but on twisted and ill-explained elaborations.
But what I still do not have fully clear is in which direction the Vasconic language spread. Of course the default hypothesis of an expansion from the Franco-Cantabrian region makes good sense but it is difficult to completely discard a Neolithic spread of the language family in the context of Cardium Pottery culture (and loosely related Atlantic ones, including Megalithism).
I also think that this Vasconic substrate is not something peculiar of Sardinia and that anyone who looks around with a keen eye and a half-decent knowledge of Basque language can't but stumble once and again on Basque-like toponimy all around the western half of the continent.
Article found via Ostraka Euskalduna[eu]
Also for the record I must mention that, in my not so humble opinion, the very word Sardinia seems to have a Basque etymology. Obviously it is derived from the pan-European word sardine but this term only makes etymological sense in Basque: sarda (fish school) + -in (suffix of doing/making < egin) + -e/-a (nominative declension, like the article "the"). So I believe that sardine (and hence Sardinia) means school-doer or school-maker in Basque.
ReplyDeleteNot only this is the kind of pseudo-etymology a dilettante would make, but also the word 'sardine' is completely unrelated to Sardinia.
This ethnonym is almost certainly related to the Shardan, one of the Sea Peoples quoted by Egyptians. Interestingly enough, this word is itself found in Basque sardana (L) 'daring', a word which has been unnoticed by Vascologists and comparative linguists. It looks to be related to Chechen-Ingush (a NEC language) sard-am 'curse, malediction'.
"Of course the default hypothesis of an expansion from the Franco-Cantabrian region makes good sense but it is difficult to completely discard a Neolithic spread of the language family in the context of Cardium Pottery culture (and loosely related Atlantic ones, including Megalithism)."
ReplyDeleteYour amivalence is well founded, in my opinion.
Suppose that your instincts that Cardium Pottery was largely a cultural shift (with the demographic foundation of Vasconic regions being set earlier on in the Epipaleolithic), rather than a predominantly a demic one in the Neolithic itself, are correct. Cardium Pottery is still precisely the kind of major cultural upheaval that one might expect would lead to a language shift. Indeed, it was probably a more dramatic cultural change than those that gave rise to a shift to Indo-European and Hungarian languages respectively in Europe, and to Arabic in many places where it is spoken.
Also, interactions at greater distances within the Cardium Pottery region might be more coherent at longer distances to sustain the original unity (particularly by the time that Sardinia's settlement attests to the development of functional short distance sea travel).
At the very least, one would expect heavy borrowing of Cardium Pottery terms from that archelogical culture's source culture's language for Neolithic technologies, even if local words for other things could have been different.
It also seems plausible that those local words would themselves would have some similarities from common Epipaleolithic era language roots, and from interactions of wide ranging hunter-gatherer groups that would produce areal borrowings, particular for terms for things not found locally.
Similarly, to the extent that there were creolizations, one would expect independent creolizations including a Cardium Pottery language to have more than random similarity to each other, because people of the same language family whose languages are creoling with another language are likely to change in the same ways due to factors like easy of pronunciation and grammatical constructions that are easier or harder for new language learners to preserve. This is what was seen in the era of European colonization when creoles developed independently of each other.
"This ethnonym is almost certainly related to the Shardan,"
ReplyDeleteWhy?
"This ethnonym is almost certainly related to the Shardan"...
ReplyDeleteThis has been speculated about but it is not demonstrated in any way, specially as all other Sea Peoples are from the Eastern Mediterranean, mostly Greeks and other Indoeuropeans from Anatolia (Lycians). Hence a connection with the would-be capital of Lydia, Sardes, is much more likely.
In any case, even if the Egyptian-mentioned Shardan ethnonym would refer to Sardinians, it would explain nothing of its etymology nor the etymology of the word 'sardine'.
"in Basque sardana (L) 'daring', a word which has been unnoticed by Vascologists"...
It was certainly unknown to me but let me remind you that sarda also means pitchfork (> sardeska: meal fork, "small pitchfork", retaining the Aquitanian dim. "-sko"), a rustic weapon. I have wondered if this "land" meaning of Basque "sarda" might be related to the "fish school" one, specially as the trident (a type of fork) was typically the tool and weapon of fishermen, notably in the Mediterranean.
Sarda in this "fork" meaning is obviously related to sartu (to go/come/get in, to enter, penetrate, introduce) in a clear case of haplology: sartuta (introduced) > sarta > sarda, and of plain Basque etymology.
"It looks to be related to Chechen-Ingush (a NEC language) sard-am 'curse, malediction'".
Too remote and different in meaning to seduce me as truthful. Looks amateurish... :p
"Your ambivalence is well founded, in my opinion".
ReplyDeleteThanks, I find difficult to take sides in this Neolithic/Paleolithic dichotomy. I clearly sympathize (find most likely, almost impossible to question) a Paleolithic origin for the genetic aspects of the debate. But languages can be easily changed, unlike genes... so a Neolithic flow is very possible.
"Cardium Pottery is still precisely the kind of major cultural upheaval that one might expect would lead to a language shift".
Yes indeed. But there was never any Cardium Pottery as such in Atlantic Europe (other than South Portugal). Not even Epicardial. So we still need of a secondary process to explain a linguistic penetration into the Atlantic.
Megalithism could be that one even if, again, it is a cultural rather than mainly demic process. But then Portugal, rather than Eastern Iberia (proto-Iberians) or even SE France (proto-Ligurians), should be the origin of the second wave. It makes difficult to posit a link towards Sardinia (which is so strikingly Vascoid that those toponyms could well belong to the Basque Country itself and nobody would raise an eyebrow).
So I am more and more wondering about the role of what is now SE France (proto-Ligurians) in the Chassey and derived periods (all them of strong Megalithic content). Chassey culture was in strong symbiosis with the North Italian culture of La Lagozza, what may help to explain the Vascoid elements in Italy, specially in the non-Megalithic North, and also the existence of a single unified Ligurian culture across the Alps (refuge area obviously) in proto-History.
Pre- and post-Chassey cultures did influence Aquitaine and Dordogne, so it is a clear candidate for a Cardial linguistic flow from East to West, other than Portugal.
However the nuraghe are most clearly related to SE Iberian cultures, what in turn makes these Sardinian elites (as the nuraghe motte-&-bailey are clearly aristocratic forts) closest relatives, at least in construction techniques, from Iberians, rather than Basques. But Iberian and Basque archaeological cultures are essentially unrelated in direct terms (some contact at the Ebro and Pyrenees in the late Iron and that's about it), so mediating cultures, either in Portugal or Occitania are needed.
So the question marks are many and could be more easily explained maybe if Vasconic languages had a Neolithic origin somehow. But still, from 3500 BCE (arrival of Neolithic to the Basque area) to the Romanization of Sardinia, there are three millennia, more than what separates all Romance or Germanic languages from each other. So such strikingly Basque toponyms must mean an even more recent interaction of some sort or a highly conservative language (as happens in Iceland for example, another remote island).
You say that Cardium Pottery Neolithic "was probably a more dramatic cultural change than those that gave rise to a shift to Indo-European and Hungarian languages respectively in Europe, and to Arabic in many places where it is spoken".
ReplyDeleteThe processes are not really comparable because all those you mention are elite warrior (aristocratic) invasions and farmers are not such thing. What I relate more with is with the Asutronesian expansion in ISEA, which was a farmer expansion it seems. However it is difficult to evaluate how comparable both processes are.
Vast areas of Italy and SW Europe were not colonized, and that is specially true for SE France (Occitania), where colonies are totally lacking except near Monaco. Also we lack for a clear explanation on how the Mediterranean language migrated to the Atlantic, more so if we have to explain not just Basque and Aquitanian, which may be "forced" into relations with the proto-Ligurian area, but all of Venneman's Vasconic zone (which demands Megalithism and hence a central role for Portugal, if it has to be explained in Neolithic terms).
"At the very least, one would expect heavy borrowing of Cardium Pottery terms from that archelogical culture's source culture's language for Neolithic technologies, even if local words for other things could have been different".
This and the rest you say (about creoles for example) is indeed a good explanation of vocabulary similitudes between Iberian and Basque, if we do not subscribe to the hypothesis of shared phylogeny. The relations between Basque and Iberian all seem limited to individual words rather than grammar, what is proper of sprachbunds and substrates/adstrates rather than both languages belonging to the same family.
The debate remains open, at least for me.
As the Austronesian case has come out in my last post, I want to use it to underline the incredibly dumb oversimplifications that people, notably some geneticists but also from other disciplines, trying to reconstruct European Neolithic processes fall into some times.
ReplyDeleteIn the Austronesian case, the Lapita culture admixture scenarios and the "slow boat" process was carefully considered and, as most scholars involved were not personally affected (they were not Austronesians themselves) they could keep the head cold and think more or less objectively.
In Europe it is too often the other way around: most involved scholars are either European or of European ancestry and also of Indoeuropean language. And while many, most hopefully, do try to stay calm and laid back and look at all angles of the matter, some do not and these typically manage (why?) to grab the sensationalist headlines in the press and "popular" blogs like Dienekes' or Razib's.
These biased researchers like the infamous Patricia Balaresque (just a recent example) manage, with the help of some press and some reactionary bloggers to incredibly distort the perception of what actually happened or may have happened in European prehistory, very specially in the Neolithic.
French restrictive laws on genetic testing do not help at all anyhow.
"This ethnonym is almost certainly related to the Shardan"...
ReplyDeleteThis has been speculated about but it is not demonstrated in any way, specially as all other Sea Peoples are from the Eastern Mediterranean, mostly Greeks and other Indoeuropeans from Anatolia (Lycians).
But Etruscans (aka Tyrsenoi/Tyrrhenian), originary from NW Anatolia, were also one of the Sea Peoples and they later came to Italy.
In any case, even if the Egyptian-mentioned Shardan ethnonym would refer to Sardinians, it would explain nothing of its etymology nor the etymology of the word 'sardine'.
It's rather obvious the word 'sardine' has nothing to do with this ethnonym.
"in Basque sardana (L) 'daring', a word which has been unnoticed by Vascologists"...
It was certainly unknown to me but let me remind you that sarda also means pitchfork (> sardeska: meal fork, "small pitchfork", retaining the Aquitanian dim. "-sko"), a rustic weapon. I have wondered if this "land" meaning of Basque "sarda" might be related to the "fish school" one, specially as the trident (a type of fork) was typically the tool and weapon of fishermen, notably in the Mediterranean.
Haye you even heard of homonymous words? One thing is sarda 'pitchfork' and another is its homonymous meaning 'group, flock; fish school', which is merely a variant of the more common saldo (the shift-ld- > -rd- is rather common in Basque, as in colchón > kurtxoin.
Sarda in this "fork" meaning is obviously related to sartu (to go/come/get in, to enter, penetrate, introduce) in a clear case of haplology: sartuta (introduced) > sarta > sarda, and of plain Basque etymology.
This is simply absurd. The verb sartu is formed from a root *sar- and the verbal suffix -tu, very frequent in Basque and ultimately borrowed from Latin.
"It looks to be related to Chechen-Ingush (a NEC language) sard-am 'curse, malediction'".
Too remote and different in meaning to seduce me as truthful.
Admittedly, there must have been a meaning shift, but in any case they aren't so "remotedly" related as you think.
Looks amateurish... :p
This is precisely what I think about your 'fish school', 'pitchfork' pseudo-etymologies.
Unless you claim that the Teresh are the Ertuscans, there's no mention of them among the Sea Peoples. It is possible that the Teresh could be the Etruscans, the Sherden the Sardinians and the Sekelesh the Sicilians... but this is difficult to prove, really. Notably the Sherden are well documented in Egypt (as they eventually became part of the Pharaoh's guard and they wore characteristic horned helmets, wielding the most advanced hand weapon of the age: the Naue II type sword.
ReplyDeleteIf you could document that either (or preferably both) such defining elements are found among the archaeology of Bronze Age Sardinia, your claim would be more solid. I am not aware of any such finds in Bronze Age Sardinia and hence I consider your claim unlikely (not impossible but not to be a pillar of any further argumentation, as it is not proven at all).
"It's rather obvious the word 'sardine' has nothing to do with this ethnonym".
I do not think so: the similitude is so obvious and the root sar- repeats once and again through all the Basque vocabulary potentially related to fishing: sardine/-a, sarda (in both meanings) and finally (I just noticed) sare: net! And then there is the island... and that Catalan dance, the sardana (no idea how it may be related but it is highly suspicious).
"Haye you even heard of homonymous words?"
Sure. But homonymy must be demonstrated.
"... the more common saldo"
Never heard of it. Sounds to salda: soup, an obvious Latin Borrowing.
You need to twist the reality of words once and again to fit your ideas. This is no occasional fixing but a systematic vice you have, what makes me suspicious of your argumentation more and more.
"The verb sartu is formed from a root *sar- and the verbal suffix -tu, very frequent in Basque and ultimately borrowed from Latin".
What is "borrowed form Latin": sar- or -tu?
(Highly skeptic in any case).
"This is precisely what I think about your 'fish school', 'pitchfork' pseudo-etymologies".
I am an amateur so you should not be surprised. But I do not claim that A meaning a is related to B meaning b, what is the most insultingly obvious case of amateurism, so typical of all the lists comparing Basque and Basque, Basque and Ainu, Basque and your-favorite-odd-tongue...
Much less just because it is proto-North-Caucasian, a language family that nearly nobody recognizes to exist at all and, as far as I can tell, looks more like a recurrent fetish than anything useful at all in order to explain Basque language and the obvious and widespread Vasconic substrate all around.
By systematically resorting acritically to PNC you are denying yourself the freedom to explore the Basque language, the Vasconic substrate, the languages potentially related to Basque such as Iberian (and even Caucasian languages, why not?)... on their own right. And you are trying to impose those authoritarian and seemingly capricious ideas on the rest...
My "amateurish" etymologies at least are genuinely based on Basque and not exotic Orientalist fantasies.
Erratum: "Basque and Basque" should read "Basque and Berber".
ReplyDeleteUnless you claim that the Teresh are the Ertuscans, there's no mention of them among the Sea Peoples. It is possible that the Teresh could be the Etruscans, the Sherden the Sardinians and the Sekelesh the Sicilians... but this is difficult to prove, really.
ReplyDeleteI disagree.
It's rather obvious the word 'sardine' has nothing to do with this ethnonym".
I do not think so: the similitude is so obvious and the root sar- repeats once and again through all the Basque vocabulary potentially related to fishing: sardine/-a, sarda (in both meanings) and finally (I just noticed) sare: net! And then there is the island... and that Catalan dance, the sardana (no idea how it may be related but it is highly suspicious).
These are just similar sounding words but etymologically unrelated words.
"Haye you even heard of homonymous words?"
Sure. But homonymy must be demonstrated.
On the contrary, you're constantly quoting examples of them :-)
"... the more common saldo"
Never heard of it. Sounds to salda: soup, an obvious Latin Borrowing.
Try Elhuyar Hiztegia: http://www1.euskadi.net/cgi-bin_m33/DicioIe.exe (this is the online edition, I'm quoting from the printed one)
saldo. iz. 1. (GN/Ipar.) Multitud, grupo de personas; grupo de animales, rebaño, manada, piara; [arrainak] banco. 2. (Z) (izen-sigtagmaren aurrean) Montón, cantidad grande; abundancia.
"The verb sartu is formed from a root *sar- and the verbal suffix -tu, very frequent in Basque and ultimately borrowed from Latin".
What is "borrowed form Latin": sar- or -tu?
The Basque verbal suffix -tu is in fact a Latin borrowing.
Much less just because it is proto-North-Caucasian, a language family that nearly nobody recognizes to exist at all and, as far as I can tell, looks more like a recurrent fetish than anything useful at all in order to explain Basque language and the obvious and widespread Vasconic substrate all around.
For practical purposes, Starostin's NC is more or less the same thing than Vasco-Caucasian.
It's ironical you criticize so much Vasco-Caucasian and yet proclame there's a "widespread Vasconic substrate" which only crackpots like Vennemann see in their own imagination.
I am an amateur so you should not be surprised. But I do not claim that A meaning a is related to B meaning b, what is the most insultingly obvious case of amateurism, so typical of all the lists comparing Basque and Basque, Basque and Ainu, Basque and your-favorite-odd-tongue...
I'm affraid you've got little understanding of how historical linguistics really works.
There's no problem in being a self-teaching person, but you must read a lot of books in order to grasp the inners of such a complicated subject as historical linguistics.
By systematically resorting acritically to PNC you are denying yourself the freedom to explore the Basque language, the Vasconic substrate, the languages potentially related to Basque such as Iberian (and even Caucasian languages, why not?)... on their own right.
You should be aware it has taken me several years of research and lots of hard work before reaching to the conclusion that Starostin's PNC is actually close to the common anecestor of Basque and many other languages, most of them only surviving as substrate loanwords.
And you are trying to impose those authoritarian and seemingly capricious ideas on the rest...
I'm not an authroritarian but in fact a highly cooperative person. This is precisely why I'm here, giving some you valuable information for free. :-)
Well dude, unfortunately the amount of time you spent trying to arrive to your Vasco Caucatian hypothesis is not relevant, what matters is the consensus it generates among scholars. And yours generates none. Nice try anyhow. Sorry.
Delete"I disagree".
ReplyDeleteFeel free but it'd be nice if you could prove it or at least support your lack of doubts with some supporting indicators. There is absolutely nothing.
All Sea Peoples that can be identified are Indoeuropeans from the Aegean or Eastern Mediterranean (Danaan, Lukka, Peleset/Philistines, Alashiyans/Cypriots, etc.) so it is logical to search for the rest in the same area unless there is some evidence saying differently. The Teresh for example could well be Troyans or Tyrians, while the Sekelesh could well be Cilicians and the Sherden could be related to Sardes or to Sidon... Or to any other place whose memory has been lost. What are the Meswesh for you, for instance?
"The Basque verbal suffix -tu is in fact a Latin borrowing".
How? I can't even imagine how that can be, specially with Latin verb infinitives ending in -ere and such (> Sp. -ar, -er, etc.)
"For practical purposes, Starostin's NC is more or less the same thing than Vasco-Caucasian".
Starostin's NC is not generally accepted. It's as valid, AFAIK as Starostin's Nostratic, etc.
...
...
ReplyDelete"It's ironical you criticize so much Vasco-Caucasian and yet proclame there's a "widespread Vasconic substrate" which only crackpots like Vennemann see in their own imagination".
I do not criticize "so much" Vasco-Caucasian. I do in fact think that there is a link with NE Caucasian (never seen any evidence relating NW Caucasian, so I tend to ignore this distinct family) but I find your systematics very much lacking:
1. Starostin's North Caucasian is not widely accepted (because it lacks a solid demonstration)
2. you love to propose Basque-Iberian derivations based on Starostin's PNC, which is not a valid reference: proto-languages are not valid references unless your work with them extends once and again to living languages: you never mention this word in Lezgian or Abkhazian, it's always PNC and always via Iberian, when the relation between Basque and Iberian has not been solidly demonstrated either.
So it's a lot of building on thin air. Try working with real words of real living languages if you want to persuade me.
Instead the obvious Basqueness of so many toponyms (and other substrate elements) is pretty much convincing in their own merits. Truth defends itself, stubbornly so.
For example Nostratic and Dene-Caucasian are crackpot theories that have fallen in discredit because they were built without sufficiently good enough systematics (and based on total misunderstandings of Eurasian prehistory). The same is probably true with North Caucasian, a conjectural super-family or family that everybody finds unlikely (except Starostin himself).
You think Vennemann is a "crackpot", well I think Starostin is instead. So we are even now.
"You should be aware it has taken me several years of research and lots of hard work before reaching to the conclusion that Starostin's PNC is actually close to the common anecestor of Basque and many other languages, most of them only surviving as substrate loanwords".
I'm willing to concede that you MIGHT be right. But AFAIK none of your work is published in any format (academic, self-publication or anything but a fragmentary inconsistent collection at your blog). Maybe if instead of falling once and again into pitched battles you'd publish (I do not care if it's no peer-reviewed because I'll judge your work on its own merits, not authority backing) and defend your theories with a bit less of arrogance (arrogance with new theories is totally "crackpotish", let me tell you) and more of respect, i.e. "this is what I think and it is because of this and that, judge yourself" - instead of "I am absolutely right and any alternative idea is crackpot junk - don't expect to even comprehend why" - maybe then somebody would listen to what you have to say.
But you also have to listen to the rest. That's basic Machado: "your truth, not the truth"...
"This is precisely why I'm here, giving some you valuable information for free".
You are giving your opinions for free and I appreciate that generosity but you are also very much entrenched in your opinions, and that is what I find authoritarian: you are so persuaded of your own truth that all dialogue becomes futile.
"The Basque verbal suffix -tu is in fact a Latin borrowing".
ReplyDeleteHow? I can't even imagine how that can be, specially with Latin verb infinitives ending in -ere and such (> Sp. -ar, -er, etc.)
What about Latin participles? ending in -tum?
I do not criticize "so much" Vasco-Caucasian. I do in fact think that there is a link with NE Caucasian (never seen any evidence relating NW Caucasian, so I tend to ignore this distinct family) but I find your systematics very much lacking:
1. Starostin's North Caucasian is not widely accepted (because it lacks a solid demonstration)
Starostin's PNC is mostly based on NEC, a comparatively small group with a large internal variation. This is the reason why I think his reconstruction must eb actually closer to the actual Vasco-Caucasian.
2. you love to propose Basque-Iberian derivations based on Starostin's PNC, which is not a valid reference: proto-languages are not valid references unless your work with them extends once and again to living languages: you never mention this word in Lezgian or Abkhazian
Simply because comparing "living" languages like these ones isn't right thing to do. This is precisely why proto-languages are used instead.
it's always PNC and always via Iberian, when the relation between Basque and Iberian has not been solidly demonstrated either.
You sound like these academic folks you despise so much. Come on!
Instead the obvious Basqueness of so many toponyms (and other substrate elements) is pretty much convincing in their own merits. Truth defends itself, stubbornly so.
The big problem with toponyms is that, unlike common words, they have no meaning attached to them. Don't forget also ancient toponyms often are distorted due to imperfect transmission through different languages. The net result is too much noise to be distinguishable from random similarities.
Also while "working within Basque" you tend to link similar sounding but sematically unrelated words like sarda 'pichfork' with his homonymous meaning 'group, flock', which I've demonstrated it's a mere variant of saldo. What can we expect of such kind of "comparisons"?
You think Vennemann is a "crackpot", well I think Starostin is instead. So we are even now.
The problem of Vennemann is he takes perfect IE words which are somewhat similar to Basque and then he pretends they come from a supposed "Vasconic" substrate.
For example Nostratic and Dene-Caucasian are crackpot theories that have fallen in discredit because they were built without sufficiently good enough systematics (and based on total misunderstandings of Eurasian prehistory).
Yes, I agree with you.
The same is probably true with North Caucasian, a conjectural super-family or family that everybody finds unlikely (except Starostin himself).
As a said before, Starostin's NC is more or less the same thing than Vasco-Caucasian, so we'd better forget about his original formulation, right?
But you also have to listen to the rest. That's basic Machado: "your truth, not the truth"...
Do you know what the word machado means? It's the Portuguese word for 'axe', a tool for chopping off what isn't useful.
"What about Latin participles? ending in -tum?"
ReplyDeletePrecisely, that it is a participle to begin with. You are here forcing a Latin reading of something that either is genuinely Basque or has some other origin. It's not your fault only: there used to be a shameful school of Basque linguists claiming every other word and toponym, often with no reason at all, was Latin. You are just another victim of a biased system.
"... because comparing "living" languages like these ones isn't right thing to do".
Neither I nor most serious linguists (not that I am one but I agree with them here) will agree: proto-words are just hypothesis not facts.
If you choose, for convenience, to work with proto-words, you must be a thousand times more careful and double check once and again.
"You sound like these academic folks you despise so much. Come on!"
Hahaha! That's for two reasons: (1) I am discussing with an academic person (you) and (2) I do not despise academics in general, just some of them at worst (or more correctly certain academic vices surely).
I take quite seriously the consensus of the Academia, specially where I have no or just a very slight idea. A problem may be to be certain which is the consensus (and if it does exist) and if this one sins of excessive caution (what may be true in some cases).
"The big problem with toponyms is that, unlike common words, they have no meaning attached to them".
Some toponyms are indeed distorted and of obscure meaning but others are transparent. The ones listed in this entry for rivers are all with clear modern Basque meaning and I can also identify meaning in many of the village toponyms, and where I'm in doubt (probably because of my own ignorance), they are way too similar to Basque surnames to be just coincidence.
"The net result is too much noise to be distinguishable from random similarities".
I see no noise in the extensive list provided by Elexpuru: it's transparent. Naturally for someone who is likely to claim that Turri cannot be Iturri but some wacko PNC word via Iberian... well... claiming noise is highly convenient.
Of course it can also be Romance for "towers". This one is indeed unclear and one would need to know the local geography to decide in either the Vasconic or the Romanic way.
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ReplyDelete"Also while "working within Basque" you tend to link similar sounding but sematically unrelated words like sarda 'pichfork' with his homonymous meaning 'group, flock', which I've demonstrated it's a mere variant of saldo. What can we expect of such kind of "comparisons"?"
That comparison is so highly tentative that I have only proposed in this particular discussion and never before. Let's recapitulate:
My main thesis in this aspect is that pan-European (?) word sardine (sardina or sardine in Basque) is of Vasconic etymology by mean of sarda (fish school) + -in (suffix of doing, "doer", "maker" - a well known suffix) + -a/-e (basic nominative declension).
And I say that this word "sardine/-a" is ancestral to the toponym Sardinia.
The Sardinian autochthonous name Sardigna or Sardinnya makes perfect sense with Basque phonetics as -in- makes always -ign- (Italian/French script) or -iñ- (Spanish script) or -iny- (Catalan or Sardinian script).
As appendix to this thesis I have noticed that other words potentially related to fishing such as fork (sarda) and net (sare) share the root sar- (also in the word to introduce: sartu, which may be root of sarda -fork- in fact but hardly of the rest). BUT I am uncertain about their correlation and you may well be right it is just a coincidence. Just that I tend to be suspicious of coincidences and hence I must mention this strange coincidence.
"Starostin's NC is more or less the same thing than Vasco-Caucasian, so we'd better forget about his original formulation, right?"
I'd honestly prefer if you'd use proto-NWC or proto-NEC independently, as the correlation of these two families is at the moment highly conjectural. I'd also prefer if you would not need to force all connections via some sort of Iberian funnel but that you could establish a direct Basque-PNEC (for example) connection, consistently along many words (parts of a Swadesh list for example) and grammar, and then also contrast it with real words in Lezgian, Chechen or whatever (so we are reasonably sure that proto-words are not fictional elements but real stuff). Finally I'd appreciate if the meaning of words does not systematically change, no finger-stick or fish-water alleged "cognates", please, at least mostly not.
"Do you know what the word machado means?"
Nope but I know that I wrote the verse wrongly, totally changing the meaning. My bad. It is in fact: "your truth not, (but) the truth"...
Do you know what the word machado means? It's the Portuguese word for 'axe',
ReplyDeleteKannada word for axe, sickle is 'maccu'. Just a coincidence, I suppose.
Precisely, that it is a participle to begin with. You are here forcing a Latin reading of something that either is genuinely Basque or has some other origin.
ReplyDeleteWhich one?
It's not your fault only: there used to be a shameful school of Basque linguists claiming every other word and toponym, often with no reason at all, was Latin. You are just another victim of a biased system.
Well, I've criticized myself many wrong Latin etymologies proposed by Vascologists, but in this case I'm quite sure they're right.
Neither I nor most serious linguists (not that I am one but I agree with them here) will agree: proto-words are just hypothesis not facts.
Proto-languages (there's no such thing as "proto-words") are nopthing more than a useful tool for comparative purposes. It's a pity some people tend to forget this.
"You sound like these academic folks you despise so much. Come on!"
Hahaha! That's for two reasons: (1) I am discussing with an academic person (you)
Sorry, but I've already told you I'm not an academic guy.
Some toponyms are indeed distorted and of obscure meaning but others are transparent. The ones listed in this entry for rivers are all with clear modern Basque meaning
Once again, toponyms have no "meaning" attached. What do you see is they resemble to Basque words. They might be related or they might not, and other things being equal, it's more likely they aren't.
And I say that this word "sardine/-a" is ancestral to the toponym Sardinia.
This is simply ABSURD. Yours is a good example of why anybody without a specific training (either formal or informal) can't just jump in and make "etymologies".
Of course it can also be Romance for "towers". This one is indeed unclear and one would need to know the local geography to decide in either the Vasconic or the Romanic way.
The word 'tower' comes from Latin turris, accusative plural turres, so there's no doubt it's Romance. This is also valid for your "Vasconic" torre in Basque.
The Sardinian autochthonous name Sardigna or Sardinnya makes perfect sense with Basque phonetics as -in- makes always -ign- (Italian/French script) or -iñ- (Spanish script) or -iny- (Catalan or Sardinian script).
ReplyDeleteYou seem to ignore a basic fact of Romance languages. The original Sardinia had a "yod" j which palatalized the precedent nasal into ɲ hence giving Sardiɲa. This has nothing to do with its ortographic representation, which in Basque happens to be -in-.
As appendix to this thesis I have noticed that other words potentially related to fishing such as fork (sarda) and net (sare) share the root sar- (also in the word to introduce: sartu, which may be root of sarda -fork- in fact but hardly of the rest). BUT I am uncertain about their correlation and you may well be right it is just a coincidence. Just that I tend to be suspicious of coincidences and hence I must mention this strange coincidence.
There's no "coincidence", only that these words happen to be similar sounding, nothing more.
I'd honestly prefer if you'd use proto-NWC or proto-NEC independently, as the correlation of these two families is at the moment highly conjectural.
For practical purposes, Starostin's PNC is mostly based on proto-NEC, so in the framework of the Vasco-Caucasian hypothesis, all the other families (thus including NWC) are more or less remotedly related to NEC.
I'd also prefer if you would not need to force all connections via some sort of Iberian funnel
I don't know exactly what you mean, but I suppose you refer to Martinet's Law and Mitxelena's Proto-Basque, aren't you?.
but that you could establish a direct Basque-PNEC (for example) connection, consistently along many words (parts of a Swadesh list for example) and grammar, and then also contrast it with real words in Lezgian, Chechen or whatever (so we are reasonably sure that proto-words are not fictional elements but real stuff).
I'm affraid that wouldn't work. :-)
I also remind you that reconstructed isn't same than "fictional".
Finally I'd appreciate if the meaning of words does not systematically change, no finger-stick or fish-water alleged "cognates", please, at least mostly not.
I'm affraid that contrarily to what you think (and this is one of the reasons I insist you should get a training), meaning shifts happen all the time. To name a classical example, Spanish trabajo, Catalan treball mean 'work' despite their Latin ancestor tripāliu(m) was a torture instrument. Interesting, isn't it?
As I said earlier, you've got still a lot of things to learn, so please be a bit less arrogant. :-)
"Kannada word for axe, sickle is 'maccu'. Just a coincidence, I suppose".
ReplyDeleteIt may well be a borrowing from Dravidian. In this case I'd leave the matter in Octavià's more erudite hands but it does not look to me like Machado as Port. axe has a Romance origin. The only Romance correlate I can think of is 'macho': male, and machete, which Wikitionary suggests to be related with macho but it's probably not.
I'd think that we are before a case of borrowing into Portuguese from Dravidian and then into other languages from Portuguese ("machete" only). Makes sense, right?
"Which one?" - 3500 years ago there was not a single speaker of Indoeuropean West of the Rhine, the possibilities are just wide open. If you do not think it is an internal Basque trait, you can think for example of a Tartessian borrowing or whatever else (Ligurian, paleoscandinavian, paleobritish, paleobelgian, paleo-central-iberian, paleo-NW-Iberian, paleo-North-African, paleo-Italian, paleo...)
ReplyDeleteBut it does not need to be Latin. Claiming Latin when it's obviously not the case is intellectual laziness and a lack of imagination.
"there's no such thing as "proto-words""
You are using proto-words all the time. There are of course proto-words and they are characterized by carrying an asterisk ('*') before them (usually).
"... are nothing more than a useful tool for comparative purposes"...
Precisely. They are a convenient tool, not evidence.
"I'm not an academic guy"...
Academic enough for me. You do have an academic title at least, right?
I still appreciate your effort to mix with the plebeians and share with us. :)
"toponyms have no "meaning" attached".
Something like Aritzo may mean nothing to you but to me means clearly The Oak - in an inclusive or neighboring sense possibly (re. Basque declension -ok). Similarly a toponym like Kingston means 'King's Town' and a toponym like Buenos Aires means 'Good Airs' and Rio de Janeiro means 'River of January'.
Toponyms have meanings indeed, even if sometimes we may not understand them anymore.
People name (and rename) places because of a reason, and that reason is not some sound they fancy (at least not in most cases) but something that makes sense to them. Hence when the river Urbel (Burgos) got its name, the namers meant Blackwater (a common toponym also in other languages), etc. If Basque would have been lost we would not be able to decipher this one anymore but in this case we got lucky.
"This is simply ABSURD". [Sardigna = Sardinia < sardina = sardine]
Why? They sound identical and naming an island by a fish makes total sense, specially if the namers belong to a fishing culture that just discovered the island or that used to go there to capture such fish.
We have the historical example of the Island of Bacallao (Cod Island), which was of course Newfoundland (the name did not stick but it might have). And there is Cape Cod in Massachusetts, etc. There were places names on whales (Balea Baia, now Red Bay in Labrador, also Walvis Bay in Namibia), on turtles (Galapagos islands), on eels (Anguilla), etc.
So why would it be absurd to name a once remote island on its sardine fisheries?
"your "Vasconic" torre in Basque".
"My" what? I never made such claim. Please look for some other culprit.
"The original Sardinia"...
The Latin variant "Sardinia" (preserved in English but not in Romances interestingly enough) is probably not the original but just the Latin version of a much older name. An older name that had the palatal nasal, as in Basque "sardina" (and Sardinian, Italian, French, Catalan, Spanish... names for Sardinia) which could not be reproduced in the classical Latin sound array and was hence represented by "ni" much like Catalunya is represented in English (which also lacks the palatal nasal) as 'Catalonia'.
This is so self-evident that I feel insulted intellectually to have to explain it. The palatal nasal is common in all SW Europe, Italy, the Western Balcans (and maybe other places I do not know about) and is surely a pre-Latin feature that penetrated Vulgar Latin but that was only expressed in written form later on.
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ReplyDelete"This has nothing to do with its ortographic representation, which in Basque happens to be -in-".
This is not any mere ortographic representation it is a sound shift caused when I and N collude in the IN order. I only know of a single exception to this rule, which is the name Ainhoa (the silent 'h' is there for a reason). I do not know which is the specialized name for this kind of conditional sound shift (well, palatalization obviously) but it is soemething that happens in Basque with both N and L (Basque il = Sp. ill, Por. ilh, Cat. iny or Serbocroat ilj). Notice that the I vowel does not disappear, so it is not a mere ortographic indication: the I is pronounced always but also alters N or L before them.
Eneko will always sound EN- and not EÑ- but its Spanish equivalent Iñigo will sound IÑ- even if written Inigo, as long as you follow Basque pronunciation rules. The use of Spanish Ñ in Basque is trivial because it always happens after I unless it's a loanword and N after I sounds like Sp. IÑ. Still some people use it anyhow.
"There's no "coincidence", only that these words happen to be similar sounding"...
That is a coincidence. Please check the meaning of this word in your dictionary, it derivates from 'to coincide' which means to be similar in some aspect (space-time but also qualities or attributes).
"For practical purposes, Starostin's PNC is mostly based on proto-NEC"...
Good to know but not too serious IMO. If you have two component families, the average of both should be intermediate not more similar to one than the other. I can't think of any reason (other than laziness) to give more weight to one than the other. They both should weight exactly the same.
"I don't know exactly what you mean, but I suppose you refer to Martinet's Law and Mitxelena's Proto-Basque, aren't you?"
I guess so. All I know is that you always claim that some word comes from PNC via Iberian something. This is as good as connecting with Na-Dene via Lezgian: I could not care less. One item is the Basque-Lezgian connection and another item is the Lezgian-Dene connection (assuming they do exist at all). This may seem silly but it is important for reasons of methodology.
"I'm affraid that wouldn't work. :-)"
I'm afraid (with a single F, btw) that this demonstrates that your theory doesn't hold a reality check and hence needs a more careful work or be discarded.
"I also remind you that reconstructed isn't same than "fictional"".
It is the same as conjectural or hypothetical, as in not real but speculative. I'd say that calling them "fictional" may be a bit over the line but not as disparaged as you would think. 'Speculative' at the least.
"I'm affraid that contrarily to what you think (and this is one of the reasons I insist you should get a training), meaning shifts happen all the time. To name a classical example, Spanish trabajo, Catalan treball mean 'work' despite their Latin ancestor tripāliu(m) was a torture instrument. Interesting, isn't it?"
I know that these things do happen on occasion. But what you cannot do is to assume that they happen at your convenience. Hence, just for caution, they must be discarded when doing lexical comparisons (unless you can be as certain of the evolution as happens in the example here). This is not the case with Caucasian or pre-IE Western European languages so please, for your own sanity, abstain.
It is the same as conjectural or hypothetical, as in not real but speculative. I'd say that calling them "fictional" may be a bit over the line but not as disparaged as you would think. 'Speculative' at the least.
ReplyDeleteI'd apply the word "fictional" to your PIE-Basque comparisons. If you think reconstructed proto-languages are irreal, then you should include also PIE.
I know that these things do happen on occasion.
No, they actually happen much nore often than you do.
But what you cannot do is to assume that they happen at your convenience.
If you assume semantic shifts are arbritrary, the you're simply wrong.
Hence, just for caution, they must be discarded when doing lexical comparisons (unless you can be as certain of the evolution as happens in the example here).
I don't think you're in a position to give me such "advice". :-)
My own advice is you must still read a lot and learn many things before adventuring yourself in historical/comparative linguistics.
Your "theory" which links Sardinia with sardine is simply ridiculous and doesn't deserve further comment.
The Latin variant "Sardinia" (preserved in English but not in Romances interestingly enough) is probably not the original but just the Latin version of a much older name.
ReplyDeleteAny good book about the subject would tell you that Latin had no palatal sounds, so Romance ones derive from some combinations such as nj. That's all.
Please don't get this as a persona offence, but your ignorance of simple facts like this is paramount.
[Meaning changes along sound changes and geographic cultural migrations] "actually happen much nore often than you do".
ReplyDeleteMaybe but then they are like the absolute god of certain Zoroastrian sect: you cannot say anything about it, nor worship it.. as god it is pretty much useless even if philosophically pretty.
By using such stretching at your convenience you fall in the worst pit of linguistic amateurism. See for example this article for a good criticism. Also see this awful article for a good laugh when reading how Basque and Ainu "are related" (a total hoax or hallucination on high grade mushrooms).
Specially I'd like to call your attention to comparisons like the ones which follow, which are not too different of what you do:
Siko (to be born) - Zikoina (stork) o.O
Tasum (illness) - Eritasun (illness) [-tasun is a nominalizing Basque suffix, like English -ty, or -ness]
Ona (father) - Onartzaile (authority)
["authorizer" actually]
Kotan (many) - Kote (village) [AFAIK kote does not exist in Basque but even if it existed...]
Etc, etc. It's all that extremely weird, yet the author dares to claim afterwards:
"For anyone having read the list, the connection should be utterly obvious"...
Or rather not. Much less if you actually speak some Basque (I imagine it's the same for Ainu-speakers).
So please, Octavià, do not do that. Remember that you are almost always easier to fool than most other people.
"If you assume semantic shifts are arbritrary, the you're simply wrong".
I'm not assuming anything but they may well be chaotic indeed ("arbitrary" implies intentionality "chaotic" implies the natural flow largely stochastic flow of things). You seem to be wishing to apply Newtonian (or Cartesian) logic but that is an obsolete way of thinking. With discrete Newtonian physics, we'd have no satellites for example. We cannot keep ourselves restricted to 19th or even 18th century way of doing things.
"I don't think you're in a position to give me such "advice". :-)"
I do not care what you think when you go arrogant and dismissive.
"Your "theory" which links Sardinia with sardine is simply ridiculous and doesn't deserve further comment".
ReplyDeleteIt is a sound theory and you have only been able to attack it with what would seem seizures of rage and insultitis but not a single argument.
First lesson of nonviolence: "convencer, no vencer" (persuade, not win). If you want to persuade you need to be pedagogical (invest time and well structured efforts) and also to show interest your counterparts by listening (not just in a formal way but paying attention and admitting they may be right). Often anyhow you will have to agree to disagree (normal) but that's no reason to go into emotional rampage or stupid arguments on who has the last word.
"Any good book about the subject would tell you that Latin had no palatal sounds, so Romance ones derive from some combinations such as nj. That's all".
I must disagree. I think that these sounds are from the pre-IE substrate via Vulgar Latin. It's not any modern evolution but pronunciation trends that existed already in antiquity.
"Please don't get this as a persona offence, but your ignorance of simple facts like this is paramount".
I do think it is a personal attack but regardless... I know of the theory that claims that the palatal nasal in romances is an evolution from NN. But it's very possible that reality is very different (including maybe an NN that was read as Ñ in classical or at least vulgar Latin). You cannot judge sounds subtleties only by letters. For example one would think that Madrid is pronounced like madrit by how it's spelled but in fact it's more like madrith. There are worse cases, Cádiz is pronounced Káii by the natives.
So now imagine how would Latin be pronounced from Bulgaria to Morocco in the "year zero". Talking about an homogeneous Latin before Roman expansion is probably correct to some extent (though probably Roman Latin had a lot of Etruscanisms and Sabinisms, surely mocked in Alba Longa) but since Rome began expanding... this cannot be anymore the case in spite of all the efforts by the Roman state (and then the Catholic Church) to keep a standard frozen in time and space.
You seem to be wishing to apply Newtonian (or Cartesian) logic but that is an obsolete way of thinking. With discrete Newtonian physics, we'd have no satellites for example. We cannot keep ourselves restricted to 19th or even 18th century way of doing things.
ReplyDeleteWow! You're confusing logic with Newton's Gravitiy Theory! Have you ever been to school, Maju?
"Your "theory" which links Sardinia with sardine is simply ridiculous and doesn't deserve further comment".
It is a sound theory
No, it's simply absurd.
and you have only been able to attack it with what would seem seizures of rage and insultit is but not a single argument.
On the contrary, I've pointed you the existence of Basque sardana (L) 'daring' and that sarda 'group, flock' is a variant of saldo, but you prefer to ignore these facts and stick to your crackpot theory.
First lesson of nonviolence: "convencer, no vencer" (persuade, not win). If you want to persuade you need to be pedagogical (invest time and well structured efforts) and also to show interest your counterparts by listening (not just in a formal way but paying attention and admitting they may be right).
I wonder if you will ever be able to convince anyone of your 'sardine' theory. :-)
"Any good book about the subject would tell you that Latin had no palatal sounds, so Romance ones derive from some combinations such as nj. That's all".
I must disagree. I think that these sounds are from the pre-IE substrate via Vulgar Latin. It's not any modern evolution but pronunciation trends that existed already in antiquity.
Them I'd politely request you to provide the evidence which supports that.
I know of the theory that claims that the palatal nasal in romances is an evolution from NN.
Not exactly. The group nn (actually a geminate consonant) evolved to a palatal ɲ ONLY in some Romance languages (e.g. Spanish, Catalan) but not in others like Galician-Portuguese.
But it's very possible that reality is very different (including maybe an NN that was read as Ñ in classical or at least vulgar Latin).
I'm affraid this isn't possible (see above). But AFAIK the group nj (i.e. n+yod) became a palatal nasal in all Romance languages.
You cannot judge sounds subtleties only by letters. For example one would think that Madrid is pronounced like madrit by how it's spelled but in fact it's more like madrith.
Wow! You say one thing and then you contradict yourself in the next phrase. Do you know what the International Phonetical Alphabet (IPA) is? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet
You should be more grateful to me as I'm teaching you for free. :-)
"Have you ever been to school, Maju?... No, it's simply absurd"...
ReplyDeleteKeep it up in the way of sound argumentation. ;)
"Do you know what the International Phonetical Alphabet (IPA) is?"
It's not in my keyboard (yes I know, so?)
"You should be more grateful to me as I'm teaching you for free. :-)"
Get lost you arrogant prick, you are teaching nothing... just wasting my time. :(
This is not any mere ortographic representation it is a sound shift caused when I and N collude in the IN order. I only know of a single exception to this rule, which is the name Ainhoa (the silent 'h' is there for a reason). I do not know which is the specialized name for this kind of conditional sound shift (well, palatalization obviously) but it is soemething that happens in Basque with both N and L (Basque il = Sp. ill, Por. ilh, Cat. iny or Serbocroat ilj). Notice that the I vowel does not disappear, so it is not a mere ortographic indication: the I is pronounced always but also alters N or L before them.
ReplyDeleteI'm affraid you're confusing the etymological origin of some palatal sounds with their ortographic representation. While in some cases they match, in general they don't. For example, Basque oilo 'hen' is usually pronounced as oʎo in despite the palatal comes from the usual Romance evolution of Latin ll (e.g. Spanish pollo /póʎo/ < Latin pullu(m)).
Eneko will always sound EN- and not EÑ- but its Spanish equivalent Iñigo will sound IÑ- even if written Inigo, as long as you follow Basque pronunciation rules.
The old form was Enneko, where nn simplified to n in Basque but evolved to ɲ in Spanish.
The use of Spanish Ñ in Basque is trivial because it always happens after I unless it's a loanword and N after I sounds like Sp. IÑ. Still some people use it anyhow.
Take for example Latin Hispania > Spanish España, which in Basque is written as Espaina. Here the use of the digraph in is a mere ortographic convention to represent the palatal nasal.
"Do you know what the International Phonetical Alphabet (IPA) is?"
ReplyDeleteIt's not in my keyboard (yes I know, so?)
But you still can make "copy & paste" with it!
"You should be more grateful to me as I'm teaching you for free. :-)"
Get lost you arrogant prick, you are teaching nothing... just wasting my time. :(
You also owe me an apology for being so stubborn and rude. :-)) Violence is not welcome!
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete"You also owe me an apology"...
ReplyDeleteDo I?
"Violence is not welcome!"
Am I punching your nose? WTF, "violence"?!
"Take for example Latin Hispania > Spanish España, which in Basque is written as Espaina. Here the use of the digraph in is a mere ortographic convention to represent the palatal nasal"
It is pronounced differently than in Spanish: the I is pronounced, even if slightly. It is an ortographic convention but also alters the sound of the original Spanish sound because in Basque there is no Ñ without I before it.
"Also deleting my earlier post"...
I have not deleted anything.
It went to spam, now it's back.
ReplyDelete"You also owe me an apology"...
ReplyDeleteDo I?
Yes, for calling me "arrogant prick". :-)
Am I punching your nose? WTF, "violence"?!
You know words can be used as a weapon. This is called verbal violence.
It is pronounced differently than in Spanish: the I is pronounced, even if slightly. It is an ortographic convention but also alters the sound of the original Spanish sound because in Basque there is no Ñ without I before it.
OK, but please notice this doesn't imply the origin of this sound was a group jn (i.e. yod+n) and much less than it predated Latin.
I have not deleted anything. It went to spam, now it's back.
OK, the matter is settled.
1. Verbal aggression may be nasty but it is not strictly violence. Violence is always physical. You cannot coerce someone or cause him/her death or true physical pain with mere words.
ReplyDeleteFor example: police is violence but TV is not, even Tele5 can only be that nasty because you can always turn it off.
2. You have been making personal attacks since many posts ago. I have been containing myself. You also provoked Arnaud in the other debate with base PAs until he went mad and I had to banish him. You are not any nice person but rather what in colloquial terms is said "a bitch": someone who is not so much interested in the truth as into "victory" (dancing over someone else's corpse). I'm very much aware even if I tend to give second opportunities and I have not commented till now.
3. You earned the "arrogant prick" epithet by acting immaturely and pretentiously, not just here. It is you who should apologize for behaving that way, for being insultingly arrogant, for looking shamelessly for personalized fights.
4. It's my blog, you are the guest. I have not deleted anything... yet. But you better behave.
1. Verbal aggression may be nasty but it is not strictly violence. Violence is always physical. You cannot coerce someone or cause him/her death or true physical pain with mere words.
ReplyDeleteI disagree, because spoken words are physical enough.
For example: police is violence but TV is not,
But violence in films is still violence.
even Tele5 can only be that nasty because you can always turn it off.
Tele5 is a good example of TV-trash (I'm not sure how to translate Spanish telebasura into English).
2. You have been making personal attacks since many posts ago.
I've pointed out you should be a little less arrogant before making so stupid theories (e.g. the 'sardine' one). I also remind you a few months ago you recognized yourself you weren't a linguist. I hardly think that telling you the truth (i.e. you have no expertise on historical linguistics) can be considered as a "personal attack".
You also provoked Arnaud in the other debate with base PAs until he went mad and I had to banish him.
Arnaud has an impressive historial as a troll so I tried to warn you before it happened the unavoidable.
You are not any nice person but rather what in colloquial terms is said "a bitch":
As we say in Spanish, me la suda, amigo.
Have a nice time.
someone who is not so much interested in the truth as into "victory" (dancing over someone else's corpse).
ReplyDeleteI'm not interesting in killing anyone (even in a metaphoric way), as I'm also against ALL forms of violence (either from police or ETA, for example).
Look: when you say, for example:
ReplyDelete"Your "theory" which links Sardinia with sardine is simply ridiculous and doesn't deserve further comment".
... you are using 'verbal violence' because you frontally refuse to discuss the pros and cons of my theory. And that's what you have done through all the discussion: disqualifying instead of debating with content.
It's 'infantile' in the negative sense of the word: immature, emotional and not constructive.
You have not put a single argument forward against it, just dismissed it as outlandish, even if everything seems to fit in.
...
But in any case your (or mine or whomever's) "verbal violence" is never true violence because you can generally escape it unlike what normally happens with physical violence and because any damage is "moral" and not "material".
If you think otherwise, unable to differentiate between different "violent" forms, degrees and even justifications, you probably will just justify violence eventually.
But you are not a nonviolent character in any case (probably not anybody is, violence is part of our nature: only facing this we can face violence in realistic terms): you are too aggressive and emotionally reactive to be such thing.
...
"I hardly think that telling you the truth (i.e. you have no expertise on historical linguistics) can be considered as a "personal attack"".
Insisting on that instead of putting forward alternative arguments or specific criticisms is clearly at ad hominem attack, a disqualification that you use once and again instead of reasoning, debating, explaining, criticizing the theory as such. As you seem unable to make any specific criticism of the sardine-Sardinia theory, you attack its author instead, what is lowly and self-disqualifying (mind you).
It's I guess ok if you declare that scepticism on my qualifications now and then... You know I do not care much. But what is not acceptable is that you do that instead of debating. If you cannot or do not wish to debate the theory as such, you can always drop the conversation (nobody forces you to stay in). If you think that comment format is not good enough for your exposition, you are welcome to change it (email, write an entry in your blog...) But what you can't do is to replace the debate by PAs.
As you seem unable to make any specific criticism of the sardine-Sardinia theory, you attack its author instead, what is lowly and self-disqualifying (mind you).
ReplyDeleteI've already make some "specific criticisms" which you appear to ignore:
- The words you think are etymologically related because they sound similar such as sardina, sarda and so on are no semantically connected in any way.
- There's a Basque word sardana (L) 'daring'.
- Basque sarda 'group, flock, fish school' is a mere variant of saldo.
- You also hold (without any supporting evidence) that palatal sounds (and more specifically, the palatal nasal) are pre-Latin.
Let's see: nothing in all such "criticisms" seems duly founded or with clear implications to me:
ReplyDelete"The words you think are etymologically related because they sound similar such as sardina, sarda and so on are no semantically connected in any way".
My whole point is that they are (probably) connected. Simply shaking your head and saying "no" is no argument against it.
"There's a Basque word sardana (L) 'daring'".
Maybe but if anything it looks related to the other meaning of sarda: fork, and the possibly related verb sartu: to enter, introduce, get in, penetrate. I tried to address this point earlier.
It'd be interesting to know how do you think the -(a)na suffix got there and how this word is relate to the famous Catalan folk dance of the same name. But in any case it seems quite meaningless, something only potentially connected to the whole matter.
"Basque sarda 'group, flock, fish school' is a mere variant of saldo".
Or vice versa or they are not related at all. As I said before I never heard of "saldo" earlier, except in the Spanish version meaning something like "remainder" (accountancy). Saldo would seem more related to the verb sal(du), to sell and may well have a totally different etymology.
By the way, I just noticed another odd Basque-English apparent cognate: sal(-du) - to sell. How interesting!
"You also hold (without any supporting evidence) that palatal sounds (and more specifically, the palatal nasal) are pre-Latin".
This is only a side debate but I'd think so. Otherwise how would you explain the widespread extension of such sounds all through Romance speaking areas - specially when Latin did not have such sound (but Basque does)?
To summarize, I'd say that your only real point is that "saldo" alternate word (all the rest does not matter) but arguing that sarda comes from saldo is inconclusive: the words would seem potentially related but the meanings do not overlap (saldo is for cattle and sarda for fish).
ReplyDeleteHowever it'd be interesting to explore other possible meanings of the root sar- and the maybe related root sal-, which, verbally, mean to get in and to sell respectively, as we have already seen.
Other interesting words in sar- are sari (prize, treasury, payment) but specially several of marine zoology. Following my dictionary:
- sardatun: tuna which goes in school (atun = tuna in Spanish and sometimes in Basque too)
- sardoi: large and dangerous sea fish
Also sardai (long stick used to pull down hazelnuts or other fruits), maybe related to sardana?
I'll leave it at this because I cannot explore the whole matter on my own limited resources. But the potential connections are interesting, including the somewhat obscure origins of Catalan sardana dance where the Pyrenees meet the Sea: at the Empordá district.
"The words you think are etymologically related because they sound similar such as sardina, sarda and so on are no semantically connected in any way".
ReplyDeleteMy whole point is that they are (probably) connected. Simply shaking your head and saying "no" is no argument against it.
You're again twisting my words, Maju. If I had said simply "no", you'd be right, but I said these words have no reasonable semantic connection.
"There's a Basque word sardana (L) 'daring'".
Maybe but if anything it looks related to the other meaning of sarda: fork, and the possibly related verb sartu: to enter, introduce, get in, penetrate. I tried to address this point earlier.
Sorry, but I think you wholy missed the point.
It'd be interesting to know how do you think the -(a)na suffix got there
I don't think there's no such suffix.
and how this word is relate to the famous Catalan folk dance of the same name.
To the best of my knowledge they're homonymous words.
"Basque sarda 'group, flock, fish school' is a mere variant of saldo".
Or vice versa or they are not related at all. As I said before I never heard of "saldo" earlier, except in the Spanish version meaning something like "remainder" (accountancy).
Have you got a Basque dictionary? I've already quoted the corresponding entry, but I'm going to repeat it in this case you have it missed:
saldo. iz. 1. (GN/Ipar.) Multitud, grupo de personas; grupo de animales, rebaño, manada, piara; [arrainak] banco. 2. (Z) (izen-sigtagmaren aurrean) Montón, cantidad grande; abundancia.
As I told you before (and I'm tired of having to repeat myself), the shift l > r is quite common in Basque, even in loanwords such as colchón > kurtxoin.
By the way, I just noticed another odd Basque-English apparent cognate: sal(-du) - to sell. How interesting!
Iberian śali- (> Basque sari 'payment') is a quite common word in inscriptions. And although a connection with Germanic *saljan 'to sell' is possible, this is far from sure.
"You also hold (without any supporting evidence) that palatal sounds (and more specifically, the palatal nasal) are pre-Latin".
This is only a side debate but I'd think so. Otherwise how would you explain the widespread extension of such sounds all through Romance speaking areas - specially when Latin did not have such sound (but Basque does)?
In the case of the palatal nasal, I've already told you it originated from the evolution of consonantic groups like nj (n+yod), jn (yod+n) and in some languages also nn (geminate n). Other palatal sound have a similar origin.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteTo summarize, I'd say that your only real point is that "saldo" alternate word (all the rest does not matter) but arguing that sarda comes from saldo is inconclusive: the words would seem potentially related but the meanings do not overlap (saldo is for cattle and sarda for fish).
ReplyDeleteNot really, as saldo can also refer to fish. So your argument isn't valid.
You must also be aware no serious linguist would claim a word meaning 'fish' or 'fish school' is related to another one meaning 'fork', and much less any of them is related to the ethomnym Sardinian. Of course, you're free to think otherwise but I don't think you would ever be able to convince anyone.
"If I had said simply "no", you'd be right, but I said these words have no reasonable semantic connection".
ReplyDeleteAnd where is the difference. I am saying that they DO have a reasonable semantic connection and you say that they do NOT have it without further explanation of any sort. So it's a simple NO in the end.
"Sorry, but I think you wholy missed the point".
I'm trying to explain where that "(L) sardana" dialectal form may come from. In any case it's obviously not related to sarda/-ina in the marine sense of the word it seems to me.
And you are again just shaking your head anyhow.
"I don't think there's no such suffix".
Two negations in English make an affirmation but I believe you made an error and meant "I think there's no such suffix", right? (Just for clarification)
Without the suffix how do you think that sardana might be related to sarda and sardina?
"To the best of my knowledge they're homonymous words".
What does "sardana" mean in Catalan? AFAIK nothing.
"Have you got a Basque dictionary? I've already quoted the corresponding entry... [arrainak] banco" [Sp. for school]
That last meaning does not come in my dictionary, only the one meaning group of sheep or other such cattle.
But whatever.
"the shift l > r is quite common in Basque"
Not so common: I'm not aware that aldi (time, occasion) and ardi (sheep) are related for example and I find hard to think of other examples. You mention Sp. colchón > kurtxoin but that is NOT an internal Basque sound shift but a borrowing.
And as linguist you are committing an error here, I believe, because the reason for the sound shift is that in this word, LT(X) would be nearly impossible to pronounce. Even in Spanish the L tends to be eclipsed (ko'chón) - so it's a very bad example. In Spanish itself there is a dialectal tendency to migrate the L into R, infamously popularized by that advertisement of certain pillow, pronounced "armoada". This may have in fact an Arab origin because in Arabic al- and ar- are also often interchangeable.
So it's very possible that this kurtxoin thing has the phonetic mutation imported from Spanish and not being any Basque specificity.
...
"Iberian śali- (> Basque sari 'payment')"...
ReplyDeleteIf I sell something to you, you (the purchaser) are the one paying me, right?
Unsure but whatever.
"And although a connection with Germanic *saljan 'to sell' is possible, this is far from sure".
It looks very much likely: same sound, same meaning, same Vasconic geography... ;)
And the Iberian and PG phonetics are so identical, well just as Basque and English ones! Too much of a coincidence not to be for real.
This is the kind of fish I love to get in my net. :D
"In the case of the palatal nasal, I've already told you it originated from the evolution of consonantic groups like nj (n+yod), jn (yod+n) and in some languages also nn (geminate n). Other palatal sound have a similar origin".
Sure, why not? But why did they appear in all the area not just in certain spots. Why this is not something dialectal, when formal Latin had nothing of it?
The only answer can be that the tendency to produce such a sound was widespread before Latin in all the region and trespassed into it.
"jn (yod+n)" is exactly the Basque reason for the palatal nasal, the same as "jl (yod+l)" is the Basque reason for the palatal lateral approximant (somewhat less widespread but still common enough).
"Sorry, but no serious linguist would link a word meaning 'fish' or 'fish school' with another one meaning 'fork'".
ReplyDeleteThat is not what I am saying: I am relating fish school (sarda) with sardine (sardina).
Don't jump to where it does not belong. I have in a separate argument (but it seems you do not see the difference) pointed out that there is a number of words potentially related to fishing that share the initial syllabe sar-, what is suspicious. But that's another story. Better do not mix, please.
And where is the difference. I am saying that they DO have a reasonable semantic connection and you say that they do NOT have it without further explanation of any sort. So it's a simple NO in the end.
ReplyDeleteThe thing is the one who proposes anything (you in this case) has to provide evidence to support his/her thesis. In comparative linguistics, a good way to prove things is by showing parallels, that is, reliable examples of such "connections" in other languages.
I'm trying to explain where that "(L) sardana" dialectal form may come from. In any case it's obviously not related to sarda/-ina in the marine sense of the word it seems to me.
Of course they aren't, as this word is isolated in Basque. Fortunately, at times you seem to regain sanity. :-)
Without the suffix how do you think that sardana might be related to sarda and sardina?
I don't think they're even remotdely related.
arrainak] banco" [Sp. for school]
That last meaning does not come in my dictionary, only the one meaning group of sheep or other such cattle.
Then your dictionary isn't good enough (a bad starting point to study Basque). Mine is Elhuyar, which costed me around 40€.
"the shift l > r is quite common in Basque"
Not so common: I'm not aware that aldi (time, occasion) and ardi (sheep) are related for example and I find hard to think of other examples.
I forgot to say intervocally.
And as linguist you are committing an error here, I believe, because the reason for the sound shift is that in this word, LT(X) would be nearly impossible to pronounce.
Why so? I've no difficulty in pronouncing it myself.
Even in Spanish the L tends to be eclipsed (ko'chón) - so it's a very bad example.
Really? Where did you get that form? Surely not from Tomás Navarro Tomas' (aka TNT) Manual de pronunciación española, a classical handbook.
In Spanish itself there is a dialectal tendency to migrate the L into R, infamously popularized by that advertisement of certain pillow, pronounced "armoada".
Yes, that's right.
So it's very possible that this kurtxoin thing has the phonetic mutation imported from Spanish and not being any Basque specificity.
Interestingly, this form belongs to the Lapurdian dialect.
Anyway, you haven't disproved my point that sarda 'group (of people), flock (of cattle), school (of fishes)' is a variant of the more common saldo.
Sure, why not? But why did they appear in all the area not just in certain spots. Why this is not something dialectal, when formal Latin had nothing of it?
ReplyDeletePerhaps because Vulgar Latin had already a tendence towards palatalization even if Classical (or "formal) Latin didn't have them.
The only answer can be that the tendency to produce such a sound was widespread before Latin in all the region and trespassed into it.
Hardly that, given the enourmous linguistic diversity of the areas (please notice I'm using the plural) covered by Latin.
That is not what I am saying: I am relating fish school (sarda) with sardine (sardina).
Something which can be easily disproved, givem the existence of Basque saldo.
Don't jump to where it does not belong. I have in a separate argument (but it seems you do not see the difference) pointed out that there is a number of words potentially related to fishing that share the initial syllabe sar-, what is suspicious.
I see affraid expressions like "suspicious" or "curious" are typical of amateur linguists.
But in order to prove meanings such as 'fish', 'fork' or 'enter' are related you need to draw parallel examples in other languages. This is what a serious linguist would do.
"The thing is the one who proposes anything (you in this case) has to provide evidence to support his/her thesis. In comparative linguistics, a good way to prove things is by showing parallels, that is, reliable examples of such "connections" in other languages".
ReplyDeleteThis criticism may be valid and constructive, as it would push me to look for such parallels. In the course of this discussion I have already illustrated how the use of fish names to call islands or other fishery-related localities is common in many languages. So that Sardinia comes from sardine is very possible and hard to argue against (following your own line of reasoning) even if my proposed Basque etymology for sardine would be wrong.
More difficult to demonstrate in the way you say is the etymology:
sard(a)-in-a
Actually you could have dealt a death blow to my whole reasoning if you attacked it at its weakest point: the -in suffix.
This suffix does not exist and I only notice now. The real "doer" suffix is -gin and therefore if I am correct, it implies:
sarda-gin-a
where haplology of /-ag-/ has happened. Probably the examples I was thinking of -in as doer (such as okin or buztin) already have that haplology and that's why they are quite rare.
I can't think of examples in other languages but I do not speak languages that make such composite words (semi-agglutinative) so that's normal. But surely the Blackfoot have a lot of such examples, as must the Chechens.
"Of course they aren't, as this word is isolated in Basque. Fortunately, at times you seem to regain sanity. :-)"
For all that is worth, it is you (not me) who has brought the Lapurtar sardana word. WTF!
"I don't think they're even remotdely related".
Then why did you even mention it. Does trying to drive other people crazy look like a sound logic to you?
"Why so? I've no difficulty in pronouncing it myself"
I do.
"Where did you get that form?"
That's how I pronounce "colchón" unless I force the L in, as if I would be spelling out.
I do not care what the Real Academia says, I care about how real street speech goes. Languages are not frozen in any manual but alive and diverse.
"Interestingly, this form belongs to the Lapurdian dialect".
Lapurdians do not pronounce the R anymore, they say G as in French.
"Anyway, you haven't disproved my point that sarda 'group (of people), flock (of cattle), school (of fishes)' is a variant of the more common saldo".
Saldo is not "more common". It's a rare word that probably only exists in dictionaries by now. I never heard it before, though it is indeed registered. To mean sheep flock you say artalde, or just talde (team). I really never heard saldo neither in Biscay nor in Navarre. But I do not live immersed in Basque so I may miss local variants indeed.
"Perhaps because Vulgar Latin had already a tendence towards palatalization even if Classical (or "formal) Latin didn't have them".
ReplyDeleteThat's exactly my point. Vulgar Latin is a creole (or even several of them) and as all creoles it is deformed (or reformed) by the substrate languages.
"Hardly that, given the enourmous linguistic diversity of the areas (please notice I'm using the plural) covered by Latin"
Not so big if all the region (covered not by Latin but Western Romances) was Vasconic prior to the IE and Etruscan invasions, as has been argued often. However this Vasconic substrate condition would also apply to the British Islands and even all the Germanic area (per Venneman and my own explorations) so it does look like it is an evolution happening in Italy before the expansion of Vulgar Latin out of the peninsula.
Ligurian influence anyone?
"I see affraid expressions like "suspicious" or "curious" are typical of amateur linguists".
ReplyDeleteYou know I am an amateur linguist, don't come with that again.
Suspicious and curious are in any case valid statements. I'll let the professional linguists to do the rest of the research... unless I happen to stumble onto something first.
"But in order to prove meanings such as 'fish', 'fork' or 'enter' are related you need to draw parallel examples in other languages".
I am not going to spend any energies defending that. I do not even believe too seriously that they are related, just that it is a suggestive line of exploration because it is suspicious and curious and a most unlikely coincidence.
BUT I do not think that Basque/Vasconic must follow the rules of Indoeuropean languages and I do not know much about other families. So I cannot draw such parallels but that does not mean they do not exist.
I just say that there are too many words that strangely share the initial syllabe sar- And that some are related to the profession of fisher (others are not instead).
Anyhow, for example sare (net) and sarda (school) may be easily related by function because one (the net) captures the other (the school). Sardina also falls in that category as it's the most common fish to gather in large schools in this part of the world.
Now, if sarda (fork) is also related or not is more difficult to tell. My first guess is that it is related to sartu instead but maybe all the words mentioned here are (sarda-school enters in the sare-net/trap), while the sarda-fork enters into the flesh or the hay.
How did these words actually evolve? I'm hinting at it but I cannot prove because I do not have a time machine to go back 5000 years and film people speaking and fishing.
"I don't think they're even remotdely related".
ReplyDeleteThen why did you even mention it. Does trying to drive other people crazy look like a sound logic to you?
My point is Basque sardana 'daring' is related to the ethnonym Sardinian, which in turn was one the Sea People.
I take your 'sardine' theory a mere joke so I won't refer anymore to it.
I do not care what the Real Academia says, I care about how real street speech goes. Languages are not frozen in any manual but alive and diverse.
This would be your own dialect or idiolect, not the standard variety (the one which Academy promotes).
Lapurdians do not pronounce the R anymore, they say G as in French.
Do you know the difference between phonology and phonetics? Perhaps a look into Wikipedia (as you don't like to read books) would help clarify your ideas. :-)
Saldo is not "more common". It's a rare word that probably only exists in dictionaries by now. I never heard it before, though it is indeed registered. To mean sheep flock you say artalde, or just talde (team).
Yes, I think the words (t)alde and saldo are likely related, although I don't currently know their etymologic whereabouts.
I really never heard saldo neither in Biscay nor in Navarre. But I do not live immersed in Basque so I may miss local variants indeed.
AFAIK, saldo is unknown in Biscayan. Azkue quotes it as being found in northern dialects besides
Arakil, Baztan and Roncalese (Gipuzkoan is labelled with a question mark).
Vulgar Latin is a creole (or even several of them) and as all creoles it is deformed (or reformed) by the substrate languages.
I'd add ".. of Latium, the area where Latin was originated. :-)
Not so big if all the region (covered not by Latin but Western Romances) was Vasconic prior to the IE and Etruscan invasions, as has been argued often. However this Vasconic substrate condition would also apply to the British Islands and even all the Germanic area (per Venneman and my own explorations) so it does look like it is an evolution happening in Italy before the expansion of Vulgar Latin out of the peninsula.
Sorry, but this is highly unlikely and utterly unprovable.
I am not going to spend any energies defending that. I do not even believe too seriously that they are related, just that it is a suggestive line of exploration because it is suspicious and curious and a most unlikely coincidence.
Then you're recognizing your theory is a kind of joke made by an amateur. :-)
BUT I do not think that Basque/Vasconic must follow the rules of Indoeuropean languages
But you should know word meanings aren't arbritrary in ANY language.
I just say that there are too many words that strangely share the initial syllabe sar-
Because they happen to sound the same (homonymy), but this doesn't imply they have to be related.
Anyhow, for example sare (net) and sarda (school) may be easily related by function because one (the net) captures the other (the school). Sardina also falls in that category as it's the most common fish to gather in large schools in this part of the world.
I'm affraid this kind of reasoning falls below the standards of historical/comparative linguistics. That is, if this has to be examinated at the University, you won't pass it.
"My point is Basque sardana 'daring' is related to the ethnonym Sardinian, which in turn was one the Sea People".
ReplyDeleteUh? And it's related via the sardana dance too (at least it is by the Med)?
I find that relating it to sarda (fork), sardai (stick) and sartu (get it) make much more sense.
"I take your 'sardine' theory a mere joke so I won't refer anymore to it".
I'm not even sure why you are then debating it. I am not joking at all: it is a quite reasonable theory considering the total identity of sound, the well documented examples in other languages of islands named after fish and the abundance of Vasconic toponymy, linguistic fossil and Basque-like traditions, not to mention the Ibero-Sardinian connection in construction techniques of the Bronze Age, etc.
If you are not interested in my theories I do not know why you even bother posting anyhow.
"This would be your own dialect or idiolect, not the standard variety (the one which Academy promotes)".
What the Academy says is irrelevant if you do not know that you are not linguist but academic. Languages are living and highly diverse things.
"Do you know the difference between phonology and phonetics?"
No and I don't really care, smartass. I know how pronunciation is and that should be enough.
"I think the words (t)alde and saldo".
Could be but talde (team) is not the same as alde (side, part, zone), so you still would have to explain a T>S plus an E>O sound change, all of which looks quite irregular to this amateur.
In particular the E>O and the O>A final vowel sound shifts that you propose are kind of abnormal, really, more so for such a vocalic language as Basque where this kind of change can totally mean a radical change of meaning.
"I'd add ".. of Latium, the area where Latin was originated".
So you think that Vulgar Latin originated in Latium? That makes no sense to me. If that would be the case, when Romans learned to write in Etruscan alphabet they would have written in Vulgar Latin, not classical.
I mean... that's just obvious: when you create a written language you adapt it to the real thing, which is always oral. This is invariable.
"Then you're recognizing your theory is a kind of joke made by an amateur".
Not at all. I'm very serious about all I say and your provocations are getting annoying.
If you have nothing useful to say, please shut up.
"... word meanings aren't arbritrary in ANY language".
What do you mean by this? Whose theory is this one? Are we resurrecting Chomsky or something here?
"Because they happen to sound the same (homonymy), but this doesn't imply they have to be related".
The problem is that they do not just share a syllabe but they also seem to share some basic general meaning. Homonymy is possible but not the only available solution.
You cannot positively demonstrate it is homonymy.
"I'm affraid this kind of reasoning falls below the standards of historical/comparative linguistics".
Per Wikipedia "Comparative linguistics (originally comparative philology) is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages to establish their historical relatedness".
That is not what I am doing. I am working all the time within a single language: Basque. So WTF!
And I do not care if I pass or not the exam at the University because I do not play that boring game anymore. That's for people who want to be bureaucrats, at least that's how it works in the state of Spain in most cases.
My point is Basque sardana 'daring' is related to the ethnonym Sardinian, which in turn was one the Sea People".
ReplyDeleteUh? And it's related via the sardana dance too (at least it is by the Med)?
I don't think so, but it makes sense the word 'daring' to be related to an ethnonym of Bronze Age warriors (Shardan).
I find that relating it to sarda (fork), sardai (stick) and sartu (get it) make much more sense.
Not at all. As I said a hundred times, in the frist place sarda 'group, flock, fish school' is a mere variant of saldo. Also sarda, sardai have no plausible relationship with sar-tu.
All you've got is a bunch of words which sound similar but semantically unrelated.
"Do you know the difference between phonology and phonetics?"
No and I don't really care, smartass.
Why do you keep insulting me? It's not my fault you ignore such a basic facts. BTW, your reaction is a childish one. :-)
I know how pronunciation is and that should be enough.
The phonetic realization of the phoneme /r/ in Lapurdian(i.e. how it's actually pronounced) is irrelevant for the etymology of the word kurtxoin.
Not at all. I'm very serious about all I say and your provocations are getting annoying.
I see you have no sense of humour at all. I guess this must be typical of Basques. :-)
You're also arrogant enough to be an amateur linguist.
"... word meanings aren't arbritrary in ANY language".
What do you mean by this? Whose theory is this one?
I remind you said that "I do not think that Basque/Vasconic must follow the rules of Indoeuropean languages". But Basque is still a language, don't forget it!
Are we resurrecting Chomsky or something here?
He's alive AFAIK.
Could be but talde (team) is not the same as alde (side, part, zone),
Of course not, I was referring to the variant alde 'flock' without initial stop.
so you still would have to explain a T>S plus an E>O sound change, all of which looks quite irregular to this amateur.
I don't think one is derived from another, but possibly they've got a common ancestor.
So you think that Vulgar Latin originated in Latium?
Yes, that's right. Of course, it had many local dialects following the language expansions.
That makes no sense to me. If that would be the case, when Romans learned to write in Etruscan alphabet they would have written in Vulgar Latin, not classical.
Perhaps you don't know that even Classical Latin evolved quite a lot from the time of the first inscriptions (around 500 BC) to the end of the Roman Empire (around 400 AD).
I mean... that's just obvious: when you create a written language you adapt it to the real thing, which is always oral. This is invariable.
Not at all. Writing is a convention which can be made as artificial as it's needed (of course within certain limits). See for example Euskera Batua.
The problem is that they do not just share a syllabe but they also seem to share some basic general meaning.
No, they don't. And the problem is don't even you realize this.
You cannot positively demonstrate it is homonymy.
On the contrary, the burden of proof is on you! This is where comparative linguists gets into action.
That is not what I am doing. I am working all the time within a single language: Basque. So WTF!
Unfortunately, Basque isn't isolated from the rest of the world, so I'm affraid your point
of view is totally hopeless.
"it makes sense the word 'daring' to be related to an ethnonym of Bronze Age warriors (Shardan)"...
ReplyDeleteWarriors documented in Egypt alone (as Sherden probably but hard to say because Afroasiatic scripts tend to ignore vowels, so ShVrdVn or Sh'rd'n)... please! You are self-deluding yourself: how would that ethnonym reach to to Bayonne? The impossible carambola Viking connection or what?
More so when there are so many similarly sounding Basque words beginning with sar- and sard-.
"As I said a hundred times, in the frist place sarda 'group, flock, fish school' is a mere variant of saldo".
Just repeating something does not give you the reason. You still need to demonstrate this claim.
"Also sarda, sardai have no plausible relationship with sar-tu".
How come I think otherwise? Why do I think that forks (sarda) are designed to be introduced (sartu). Sardai would be related to sardana, as it's all about beating... be it the hazelnut trees or the hell out of someone.
"Why do you keep insulting me?"
Because you keep insulting me with your academic presumptuousness and arrogance.
"... your reaction is a childish one".
I'm trying to close this debate and you keep reopening it with pointless and repetitive one-liners. It's annoying.
So annoying that I'm going to close comments for this thread.
"The phonetic realization of the phoneme /r/ in Lapurdian(i.e. how it's actually pronounced) is irrelevant for the etymology of the word kurtxoin".
Don't you still find extremely odd that a Spanish loanword ended up in Labourd and only there?
And then you are making it the central pillar of your argumentation or lack of it thereof.
"You're also arrogant enough to be an amateur linguist".
In this you are right, admittedly.
"But Basque is still a language, don't forget it!"
Of course.
"He's alive AFAIK".
For me he died when I read his second or third book and noticed he repeated himself all the time.
But I won't enter to judge his linguistic theories, which are questionable in any case and have been criticized in central aspects by respectable experts.
For example the term "linguistic imperialism" has been thrown against his Anglocentric ideas. All languages are not English nor are Indoeuropean. In fact they are typically something else and work differently.
Just tell me of a single IE language that marks relevance as Basque does by altering the SVO order appropriately. Or tell me of a single IE language that synthesizes the indirect object's properties in the verb, as Basque does.
The problem of any linguistic theory created by a person who only speaks Indoeuropean is that it will almost for sure be IE-centric. Linguists should be taught Chinese and Arabic and other three or five languages most of which should not be IE (IDK: Yoruba, Quechua and Basque for example) but instead they are taught Greek and Latin... how are they going to decodify their minds if they only know Indoeuropean?
"Of course not, I was referring to the variant alde 'flock' without initial stop".
ReplyDeleteDoes that even exist? Ok, if your dictionary says so, who am I to argue! Just surprised... but as someone said when shown an Iberian text from Murcia: "not from Ondarru but maybe from Lekitto"... there is always a more chaotic dialect just beyond the hill.
"Perhaps you don't know that even Classical Latin evolved quite a lot from the time of the first inscriptions (around 500 BC) to the end of the Roman Empire (around 400 AD)".
By 300 BCE Rome was already nearly all Italy and by 150 BCE it had conquered all the Western Mediterranean and part of the Eastern one. So Rome stopped being just Rome or just Latium very early in that time span. You cannot consider the evolution of specially a non-literary language(s) such as Vulgar Latin to be something happening anymore only (or at all) in Latium. It happened all around where Latin was spoken.
Otherwise is like pretending that Spanish is only evolving in Burgos province and what happens in Seville, Mexico or Buenos Aires does not matter. That is not an acceptable viewpoint. I find annoying to be brought to discuss this point at all, much more with someone who claims to be a linguist (and therefore should know better).
"Writing is a convention which can be made as artificial as it's needed (of course within certain limits)".
Let's see: when the Young Turks invented the new Turkish alphabet, they tried to make it as close to actual pronunciation as possible, when Croatian alphabet was created the same rule applied, also for Basque alphabet, for Vietnamese alphabet and for Chinese alphabet. Of course the conventions vary somewhat but the whole point is to make writing as close to the spoken standard as possible.
But after centuries of this standard being implemented, the divergence between spoken and written language (in absence of synchronization efforts as the one done for Portuguese recently) grow bigger and bigger. And English is a good example of this disconnection between written and spoken language.
"On the contrary, the burden of proof is on you!"
I'll leave it as hypothesis... it's more than enough for my ambition.
"This is where comparative linguists gets into action".
Comparing what with what? Basque with Basque?
...
test
ReplyDelete2nd test
ReplyDeleteI wrote something and tried to post it but wasn't logged in, so I had to log in, then it didn't allow me to post that same message again, but it did allow me to post the previous "test" message. I think the anti-spam might have recorded my previous attempt to post, and when I tried to copy/paste it a 2nd time, after loggin in, it though that I'm spamming, so it wouldn't let me post that specific text.
Son of a ...!!!
ReplyDeleteIt won't let me post the message either, even if I insert random lines in between. I'm going to have to rewrite the post. Unbelievable.
Another failure! I tried replacing all the s letters with z. Jesus Christ. I really am going to have to rewrite the post.
ReplyDeleteAfter smoking a marijuana joint, I can only feel love for all the human beings, and that includes you, Maju. :-)
ReplyDeleteI'm also grateful to one of my ex-girlfriends who's helping me a little emotional support right now. :-) :-)
Even as you know very little of historical linguistics, it's nice to converse with you.
"it makes sense the word 'daring' to be related to an ethnonym of Bronze Age warriors (Shardan)"...
Warriors documented in Egypt alone (as Sherden probably but hard to say because Afroasiatic scripts tend to ignore vowels, so ShVrdVn or Sh'rd'n)... please! You are self-deluding yourself: how would that ethnonym reach to to Bayonne?
Please don't let be carried by such preconceived ideas. Linguistic evidence comes first and suggest these people might have played a role on Basque/Vasconic ethnogenesis. That is, they possibly spoke a Vasconic language, perhaps an ancient form of Iberian. After, we don't know for sure where did the Iberian warrions come from. Perhaps they sailed from Sardinia to some point near the Pyrenean area, because they met for sure Gauls and probably also the IE-Ligurians from the Mediterranean area.
Are you getting a 503 random error? I have got two such errors recently but it seems my posts got through. :/
ReplyDeleteInteresting, I wrote the post a 2nd time, then copy/pasted it from a txt file to the window and it didn't allow it. So now I'm thinking the anti-spam measure is looking at wether I'm copy/pasting.
ReplyDelete"This is where comparative linguists gets into action".
ReplyDeleteComparing what with what? Basque with Basque?
Basque and other languages, of course.
Are you getting a 503 random error? I have got two such errors recently but it seems my posts got through. :/
I thing he's pretending to be "nice" but in fact he's spamming under your nose. Ha, ha, ha!
Octavià: linguistic "evidence" doesn't necessarily come first nor it proves anything of any sardana warriors being key to Basque ethnogenesis.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad that you could explain your pre-conceptions in so few words but that does not make them less preconceptions nor more correct.
Archaeological evidence comes first usually and there is no archaeological evidence hat could support such ideas.
Argiedude: what you say is most strange, really. It is not that there is broken HTML code or that the text is longer than 4K characters, right?
ReplyDeleteWould it be classified as spam, it would land in the spam folder and I'd see it. But there is nothing of that. :(
I thing he's pretending to be "nice" but in fact he's spamming under your nose. Ha, ha, ha!
ReplyDeleteYou're really weird.
...........
Maju, no, it wasn't giving me 503 errors, it was telling me we are unable to process you're request at this time, but it always happened when I copy/pasted text, when I wrote directly in the window it always came through on the first attempt.
Octavià: linguistic "evidence" doesn't necessarily come first nor it proves anything of any sardana warriors being key to Basque ethnogenesis.
ReplyDeleteI disagree. We must explain somehow this word reached to Basque. And of course, your hypothesis it has something to do with the Catalan dance sounds me kind of absurd. :-)
Archaeological evidence comes first usually and there is no archaeological evidence hat could support such ideas.
I'm affraid archaeology is unable to tell us which language spoke ancient people, at least directly.
"I thing he's pretending to be "nice" but in fact he's spamming under your nose. Ha, ha, ha!"
ReplyDeleteDon't be stupid: Argiedude is a great guy. One of my most appreciated readers (and occasional contributor).
Oh, sorry. I should have ask you whether you trusted the guy in the first place. I'm so ashamed of myself. :-(
ReplyDeletePS: Joint's highs often have annoying side-effects.
"We must explain somehow this word reached to Basque".
ReplyDeleteOMG! There are a dozen genuine Basque sar-, sard- or sarda- words that can be the origin of that sardana. What's your problem? Don't you have a life?
"Joint's highs often have annoying side-effects".
ReplyDeleteJust don't feel too bad about it and go enjoy it with your ex... or something. ;)
(Otherwise we are going all to get crazy)
I think a careful etymological analysis of loanwords in Basque might help me to support what I said in my earlier post.
ReplyDeleteOMG! There are a dozen genuine Basque sar-, sard- or sarda- words that can be the origin of that sardana.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, none of them could be a candidate.
Why do you abertzaleak are so close-minded and stubborn not to look outside the Basque world (sorry for the off-topic, I'm not going to make love to my ex, if you thought that).
Why don't you compare these sard- with other languages. Maybe you'll get a surprise!
What's your problem? Don't you have a life?
I'm affraid not outside my little world. :-(
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteYou are pushing things a bit too much Octavià. Last warning.
ReplyDeleteI think I'll try again tomorrow. [If this message comes through...]
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteSo it's very possible that this kurtxoin thing has the phonetic mutation imported from Spanish and not being any Basque specificity.
ReplyDeleteI don't think so, because the Spanish dialects where coda l is pronounced like r are very far from the Basque Country. Notice also that the forms kurtxoin and kulxoin have u instead of o like kol(t)xa, kolxoi(n), making unlikely a direct loanword from Spanish.
In addition, Spanish colcha, colchón don't appear to be native, and a French etymology has been suggested (although I need to study it before I'm sure).
Whatever the case you have this single example of "kurtxoin" and no other in spite of your claim of such consonantic shift (l>r) being very common. The exception does not make the rule, not even in linguistics.
ReplyDeleteKoltxa is linear from Sp. colcha.
Whatever the case you have this single example of "kurtxoin" and no other in spite of your claim of such consonantic shift (l>r) being very common.
ReplyDeleteI said very common intervocally. The other example of a shift l+consonant to r+consonant is saldo ~ sarda.
Koltxa is linear from Sp. colcha.
ReplyDeleteIt actually could be the other way around. :-)
Colcha is Ibero-Romance: attested in Castilian and Galaico-Portuguese. My family that has no female roots in that area never used that term, which I have learned from descendants of immigrants.
ReplyDelete"The other example of a shift l+consonant to r+consonant is saldo ~ sarda".
This is the matter of debate, it can't be evidence when it's what we are discussing about.
You have failed to provide examples of this allegedly "very common" sound change. Your seriousness is in question.
Colcha is Ibero-Romance: attested in Castilian and Galaico-Portuguese.
ReplyDeleteThis still doesn't imply the Basque words were borrowed from Spanish. The actual etymology is also disputed.
You have failed to provide examples of this allegedly "very common" sound change.
As I said before, intervocallic -l- in Proto-Basque or Latin borrowings almost invariable shifted to -r- in Basque. This is the "very common" shift to which I've referred.
Your seriousness is in question.
Look who's talking! :-)
Azkue's dictionary (written in 1905-06), records Roncalese koltxa 'pincushion' and Bizkayan koltza 'sideboard (of a cart); cage hanging from the ceiling for keeping some foods' (not sure if this is the same word).
ReplyDeleteLhande's dictionary (1926), specific of northern dialects has kurtxoin (L) 'small quilt; blanket, rug; matress', kulxoin (L) 'matress', kolxa, kolxe, kolxoi, kolxoin (LN, Z) 'bedding object (matress, pillow, blanket'.
My thoughts from yesterday. I suppose this is a much discussed idea, but anyhow, after reading Maju's speculation regarding a Sardinian connection with Basque, it caught my attention how the known locations of Basque and the Tyrrenean language family (Etruscan, Rhaetian, Lemnos) have a tendency to be found in obviously isolated out-of-the-way places, where older traditions are more likely to persist. Could it have been that Basque and Tyrrenean, and presumably Iberian also, were the ancient widely spoken languages of Europe, with Basque/Iberian in the trans-Alpine region and Tyrrenean from Italy to at least the Aegean? The diffusion of Indo-European would have left, by 2000 years ago, only a few scattered shreds here and there of the former languages, with a tendency for these shreds to occur in isolated places like the Rhaetian Alps, Sardinia, and Lemnos island.
ReplyDeleteThe post came through, thank God. I didn't do anything different, so yesterday's problem was just one of those days that things don't work.
ReplyDeleteArgiedude, the language of Lemnos is due to a recent immigration of Etrusks (see Carlo De Simone) and that ancient Sardinian and Etrusk were linked has been written in many books by Massimo Pittau. That these peoples were linked and were the R1b carriers I have supported from many time.
ReplyDelete@Octavià:
ReplyDelete"Look who's talking!"
But I do not go around telling people I am their better once and again. If you do then... well, shit happenz!, as they say.
I hope it's a good humility lesson. Cheers.
As for the origins of the word colcha, I doubt they matter here. It'd be at best a unique isolated example of your "very common" claim. One isolated case does not make anything "very common".
@Argiedude:
ReplyDeleteGlad you could finally post. :)
Yesterday I also had many internet annoyances, including several 503 "service unavailable" errors by Blogger comments. In many cases my messages were lost too but then I tried again and it worked... so... :?
"... Maju's speculation regarding a Sardinian connection with Basque"...
In this case it is not MY speculation: it is that of a formal linguist (Blasco Ferrer), reproduced by another academic (Elexpuru) in several important Basque newspapers (it was later published in Gara as well). I mostly just echoed them.
The only part that is mine (and speculative too) is the one suggesting a Vasconic origin for the words sardine and Sardinia.
"Could it have been that Basque and Tyrrenean, and presumably Iberian also, were the ancient widely spoken languages of Europe, with Basque/Iberian in the trans-Alpine region and Tyrrenean from Italy to at least the Aegean?"
At some moment there is something of this of course. But I rather think that Tyrsenian (Etruscan) arrived to Italy roughly at the same time IE did. One reason to suspect this is the apparent Vasconic substrate found in Italy, which cannot be attributed to Etruscan (really not Vasconic at all, as far as I can tell).
I also think that talking of one or few languages in Europe at any prehistorical moment is misleading. In Europe, West Asia, etc. there must have existed in most periods a huge amount of languages of very diverse language families (even if you could in theory push them into many less superfamilies) Where we see few families nowadays is, no doubt, product of recent expansiveness by certain ethno-cultural groups (IE, Semitic, Niger-Congo, Sinitic, Austronesian, Turkic, etc.)
Actually, in order to explain the apparent widespread presence of Vasconic in pre-IE West Europe (extended concept), we need to think of an expansion scenario when all those areas would be homogenized, be it Paleolithic or Neolithic. We can't just say Vasconic is Aurignacian... it would not be apparent anymore.
"The diffusion of Indo-European would have left, by 2000 years ago, only a few scattered shreds here and there of the former languages, with a tendency for these shreds to occur in isolated places like the Rhaetian Alps, Sardinia, and Lemnos island".
What the Vasconic theory states is that the remnants are many more and much more common than that: a widespread residue under an Indoeuropean layer that is quite thinner than we usually admit.
But I am not seriously considering Tyrsenian as pre-IE in Italy. Rather para-IE (parallel to IE).
@Gioello:
Nonsense. Etruscan looks from all corners (linguistic, genetic, archaeologic, historic, cultural) to be of Aegean origin.
I know you love Italy to be the heart of everything but we must be realistic. Italy before the Etruscans was a very backwater place, continuously receiving influences from West and, specially, East. Only whith Etruscans and, of course, their Roman step-heirs Italy became a more central place in Mediterranean and European affairs.
This does not mean that Italy may not hold residues of the Paleolithic settlements of Europe, when the North must have played a central role at times... but we have to work hard to discern the many layers that accumulate in Italy's genetic and archaeo-cultural formation.
@Maju
ReplyDelete“I know you love Italy to be the heart of everything but we must be realistic”.
I think that I don’t love Italy more than you love Basque. Perhaps you have seen that everybody loves his fatherland (Jews Ancient Israel, Dienekes Greece, Celts France or Britain etc.).
Mine are scientific arguments, but it is very hard to discuss with you of linguistics or other, for this I often avoid to attend in your discussions. I wrote to Argiedude, whom I didn’t hear from many times and I esteem like in the past. I think having criticized (practically destroyed) the paper of Brisighelli et alii about the Etruscan mtDNA and you should know the papers of Carlo De Simone which demonstrated that the inscription from Lemnos has come from Italy and not the way around. But we should speak of proofs and it is very difficult to do it here.
The book of Massimo Pittau is La lingua dei Sardi Nuragici e degli Etruschi, Editrice Libreria Dessì, Sassari, 1981.
Of course I have some doubts too. A word like “thilighelta” “lizard”, if we take “lighelta” linked with Latin “lacerta”, could us think for this “thi-“ to a link with the Berber languages. A word like “berro” “ship” , that we find in many Alpine dialects, and present in Arab of Sicly “ghebejjer”, could us think to a substratum all around the Mediterranean Sea etc etc.
See Alfredo Trombetti, Elementi di glottologia, Bologna 1923, p. 126:
“a) Basco barro einjaeriges maennl. Schaf – b) Valtellina barro capro, bar ariete, montone, Milan. bera pecora, Canav. berro, Provenzale mod. berro montone, Albanese ber pecora, ecc. – c) Georg. exbari montone? “.
As you may know Gioello, I have 25% recent (20th century, fully traceable) Italian ancestry. Also, as you may know as well, I do not say Basques have any particular role in the European genesis but rather an informative but residual one. Occitans and Gascons are actually much more important surely however less well researched.
ReplyDeleteFor me it's not a matter of "fatherlands" or whatever but one of reality. And reality is that, if you know anything of Italian archaeology, between the LGM and the Etruscan (or rather Roman) period, it is quite marginal, save maybe in its role within the Cardium Pottery Neolithic.
That does not only happen to Italy: it happens with different timelines to the Franco-Cantabrian region (so important in the late UP but so secondary in the Neolithic and later on), it happens to Iberia except in the Copper-Bronze Age period, it happens to Northern Europe before the High Middle Ages. Most places in the world are not in a perpetual "golden age" but rather the opposite. They have their moments but that's about it.
So it's important to acknowledge all that. I'm fucking tired of people who come to me saying that this or that part of the world is the navel or the dark hole of human reality: it is not. Not even China is!
The historical and prehistorical reality of any single place on Earth is bound to be mediocre for most of the time, maybe even all time. And that is also the case of the Basque Country and that is also the case of Italy.
But each one with their peculiarities.
Respect to your etymologies I do not have an opinion.
As for the origins of the word colcha, I doubt they matter here. It'd be at best a unique isolated example of your "very common" claim. One isolated case does not make anything "very common".
ReplyDeleteI wonder if someday you'll be able to read me well. I said that: As I said before, intervocallic -l- in Proto-Basque or Latin borrowings almost invariable shifted to -r- in Basque. This is the "very common" shift to which I've referred.
Did you get at last it or perhaps you need I translate it into Spanish?
My thoughts from yesterday. I suppose this is a much discussed idea, but anyhow, after reading Maju's speculation regarding a Sardinian connection with Basque, it caught my attention how the known locations of Basque and the Tyrrenean language family (Etruscan, Rhaetian, Lemnos) have a tendency to be found in obviously isolated out-of-the-way places, where older traditions are more likely to persist. Could it have been that Basque and Tyrrenean, and presumably Iberian also, were the ancient widely spoken languages of Europe, with Basque/Iberian in the trans-Alpine region and Tyrrenean from Italy to at least the Aegean?
ReplyDeleteThe Vasco-Caucasian hypothesis states that these as well as other extinct languages are descendants from the ones spoken by Neolithic farmers from Anatolia. Cardial pottery in West Mediterranean would be have been one of these culttures.
Of course I have some doubts too. A word like “thilighelta” “lizard”, if we take “lighelta” linked with Latin “lacerta”, could us think for this “thi-“ to a link with the Berber languages.
Interestingly, there's an instance of this ti- article in Basque: tilista, dilista 'lentil'. In European languages (e.g. Latin lens, lentis) this happens to be a Wanderwort, whose ultimate origin is probably Afrasian.
"Did you get at last it or perhaps you need I translate it into Spanish?"
ReplyDeleteRetreating foe: silver bridge... just don't charge back across it, ok?
"Interestingly, there's an instance of this ti- article in Basque: tilista, dilista 'lentil'. In European languages (e.g. Latin lens, lentis) this happens to be a Wanderwort, whose ultimate origin is probably Afrasian"
Ok with the Cardium Pottery shared origin of lens/lenticula and dilista. It's obviously NOT a Latin loanword but a shared substrate element or wanderwort if you wish.
But it does not look to me like Arabic 3áras (related to Persian 'aras) or other East Mediterranean nouns like Greek fakí, sud-Caucasic osp(-i), or Turkish mercimek and yasmık could be related. Neither Russian or Polish have related names either only the Latin (and derived) and Basque words are apparently related and, yes, it is a probably a case of Cardium Pottery word.
So, unless you can produce evidence of this word being related to Afroasiatic, I must disdain your claim.
Neither Russian or Polish have related names either only the Latin (and derived) and Basque words are apparently related
ReplyDeleteWrong. Slavic has *lę̄tjā: http://newstar.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/response.cgi?single=1&basename=/data/ie/vasmer&text_number=++7629&root=config. There're also cognates in Baltic and Germanic.
and, yes, it is a probably a case of Cardium Pottery word.
I'm not so sure, but at least it's a Neolihtic Wanderwort.
So, unless you can produce evidence of this word being related to Afroasiatic, I must disdain your claim.
How arrogant you are! You even resort to a literary word to express your dislikeness for my theories.
Anyway, there's Semitic *ʕadaʃ- 'lentil' http://newstar.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/response.cgi?single=1&basename=/data/semham/semet&text_number=+735&root=config, which can be analyzed as a prefix *ʕa- and the actual root *daʃ-. I guess the initial stop shifted to l- in the European words.
"Slavic has *lę̄tjā"
ReplyDeleteProto-words are cheating.
I said Polish and Russian not Slavic in general.
Considering that Hungarian has a Latin-derived term (lencse), it is likely much of SE Europe have it too, Slavic or not. It seems that at least Slovene does have a Latin derived term: leča, very similar to the one you mentioned and probably the origin of hat figuration.
"There're also cognates in Baltic and Germanic".
Not cognates: clear loans from Latin (lens or lenticula): Norwegian linse, German linse, English lentil (via French lentille), Swedish lins, Latvian lesis.
Unless you want to argue that the loss of -n- in the Baltic and Slavic variants indicates a distinct Balto-Slavic origin... but looks a bit odd that only a letter is missing and otherwise it's identical to the Latin variant.
If this would be the case, then we could not anymore argue for a Cardium Pottery origin of the word because this difference would require a divergence in Central Europe, where Balto-Slavic evolved without doubt. In that case, there would be proto-WIE *les, possibly a borrowing from the "Danubian" substrate.
But did Danubians even cultivate lentils at all? Is it not rather part of the Mediterranean package (certainly in the Cardium Pottery package, together with cereals, sheep and goats). Hmmmm...
"How arrogant you are! You even resort to a literary word to express your dislikeness for my theories".
"Disdain"? I meant "dismiss" but my English is not so perfect, so I confused both words (lapsus linguae?)
The meaning is the same more or less.
"... there's Semitic *ʕadaʃ-"
How does this relate with lens and dilista? There's not even an L. :/
Proto-words are cheating.
ReplyDeleteBut reconstructed forms are based on actual words.
"There're also cognates in Baltic and Germanic".
Not cognates: clear loans from Latin (lens or lenticula): Norwegian linse, German linse, English lentil (via French lentille), Swedish lins, Latvian lesis.
I don't think they were borrowed from Latin.
Unless you want to argue that the loss of -n- in the Baltic and Slavic variants indicates a distinct Balto-Slavic origin...
Actually there's no such "loss" as the vowel became nasalized.
"... there's Semitic *ʕadaʃ-"
How does this relate with lens and dilista? There's not even an L. :/
Please read my last carefully. Remember the silver bridge?
I read your previous and you say "the actual root *daʃ-"
ReplyDeleteIt still does not look at all like lens or the mentioned conjectural proto-WIE *les. It would require at least a d>l change what in a three phoneme word is quite extreme (33%), not to mention that the other phonemes are not really exact matches either.
Anyhow why you remove "ʕa" from the protoword - you say it's a prefix, but why? Because it is convenient?
I think you are again forcing stuff without sufficient justification.
"I don't think they were borrowed from Latin".
Care to argue why? If you are correct, as I said before, it implies a shared proto-WIE and Basque word.
But still needs to explain why most Slavic languages lack it, specially the critical (central to explain Slavic and even Balto-Slavic) Polish language.
I read your previous and you say "the actual root *daʃ-"
ReplyDeleteIt still does not look at all like lens or the mentioned conjectural proto-WIE *les. It would require at least a d>l change
Which can be found in languages like Latin (e.g. lingua instead of **dingua) or Proto-Basque.
Anyhow why you remove "ʕa" from the protoword - you say it's a prefix, but why? Because it is convenient?
Because it's also found in other Semitic words but it isn't found in loanwords/Wanderwörter. Take for example English crab, which is related to Semitic *ʕa-k'rab- 'scorpion'.
I think you are again forcing stuff without sufficient justification.
Not really. :-)
"I don't think they were borrowed from Latin".
Care to argue why?
Because phonetics doesn't match the Latin one.
If you are correct, as I said before, it implies a shared proto-WIE and Basque word. But still needs to explain why most Slavic languages lack it, specially the critical (central to explain Slavic and even Balto-Slavic) Polish language.
This can hardly be an PIE word but rather a substrate loanword.
"This can hardly be an PIE word but rather a substrate loanword".
ReplyDeleteNot PIE but proto-WIE, i.e. a substrate loanword into PWIE (as in proto-Western-IE).
"Which can be found in languages like Latin (e.g. lingua instead of **dingua)"...
"*Dingua" as in "tongue"? Well, that would be a PIE->Latin shift not a proto-Semitic->proto-WIE shift via Danubian. I doubt they can be compared, the same that the consonantic shifts of proto-Germanic did not happen in any other language.
Also Semitic is too recent to loan to proto-WIE via Danubian. Semitic is of c. 4000 BCE and proto-WIE of c. 3000or 3500 BCE but Danubian is of at least 5000 BCE and last Weast Asian contact was at best c. 8000 or 7500 BCE.
"Because it's also found in other Semitic words but it isn't found in loanwords/Wanderwörter. Take for example English crab, which is related to Semitic *ʕa-k'rab- 'scorpion'".
Fair enough if true. I find hard to imagine that English is directly related to Semitic in any way, specially when crab is also similar to Latin cancer and Basque karramarro, all keeping a core *K-R- component.
While the sound similitude is tempting, a serious linguist like you should not be deceived by it so easily. According to Wikitionary, English "crab" has nothing to do with any Semitic *ʕa-k'rab- unless it is via PIE *grobʰ-.
"Because phonetics doesn't match the Latin one".
Germanic forms do match perfectly the Latin one. Only the few related exceptions within Balto-Slavic differ but that can be explained if the loan (maybe via Germanic) happened before the Slavic expansion in the 7th century CE.
Deciding on this one really requires to find out first about the history of lentils in Europe, specially if there were lentils historically in Central-North Europe and if these arrived before Roman influence. Just talking about the word without a proper pre-historical contextualization is pointless once we have outlined the alternative, as we have already.
"This can hardly be an PIE word but rather a substrate loanword".
ReplyDeleteNot PIE but proto-WIE, i.e. a substrate loanword into PWIE (as in proto-Western-IE).
I'm skeptical about your "WIE". :-)
"*Dingua" as in "tongue"? Well, that would be a PIE->Latin shift
PIE *d- regularly gives Latin d- except in a few words like lingua, lacrima. This shift d- > l- is thought to be due to a substrate/adstrate language, asLatin laurus is cognate to
Greek dáphne, a non-IE word.
Also Semitic is too recent to loan to proto-WIE via Danubian.
IMHO, loanword like this one points to a Semitic-like language was spoken somewhere in Neolithic Europe.
I find hard to imagine that English is directly related to Semitic in any way
I'm affraid this is case of a substrate loanword in Germanic.
specially when crab is also similar to Latin cancer and Basque karramarro, all keeping a core *K-R- component.
I disagree.
While the sound similitude is tempting, a serious linguist like you should not be deceived by it so easily.
Sorry, but this is a perfect match.
According to Wikitionary, English "crab" has nothing to do with any Semitic *ʕa-k'rab- unless it is via PIE *grobʰ-.
A serious linguist should only use serious sources, and I'm affraid your "Wikitionary" is not. The problem is most Indo-Europeanists tend to believe everything in IE languages comes form PIE.
Germanic forms do match perfectly the Latin one. Only the few related exceptions within Balto-Slavic differ but that can be explained if the loan (maybe via Germanic) happened before the Slavic expansion in the 7th century CE.
I still don't see any reason why these words should have been borrowed from Latin and not from substrate language.
Kluge's etymological dictionary of German (which unlike your "Wikitionary" is a serious source) says that German Linse was "borrowed from an unknown language, from which also come Latin lēns (-ntis) and the corresponding Balto-Slavic words."
Deciding on this one really requires to find out first about the history of lentils in Europe,
But there're also other 'lentil' words, even in Basque (e.g. txingilla, txindil.)
"I'm skeptical about your "WIE""
ReplyDeleteI could not care less as it is a well established fact of consensual linguistics (i.e. most linguists agree, ergo it's true - however the nomenclature is mine, I understand it was earlier called "European" but that is a misnomer, IMO).
It also seems to enjoy a reasonable good support from the viewpoint of archaeology, notably the Corded Ware culture.
And, in any case, it would apply here (if your hypothesis is correct) because it is asking from a shared Italo-Germano-Balto-Slavic root, before the divergence of all these four families (and surely Celtic as well).
So keep throwing rocks to your own roof and you'll break your own conjecture.
...
I could not care less as it is a well established fact of consensual linguistics (i.e. most linguists agree, ergo it's true
ReplyDeleteEr... references, please?
And, in any case, it would apply here (if your hypothesis is correct) because it is asking from a shared Italo-Germano-Balto-Slavic root, before the divergence of all these four families (and surely Celtic as well).
You're wrong. It's a WANDERWORT borrowed from a non-IE substrate, not a "common root".
So keep throwing rocks to your own roof and you'll break your own conjecture.
Readers will se you've lost the argument. :-)
"... loanword like this one points to a Semitic-like language was spoken somewhere in Neolithic Europe".
ReplyDeleteNot likely and that is anyhow a "Vennemannism", something that should get your strangling your own self, right?
AFAIK all the idea of a Semitic derivative in Neolithic Europe comes from the fact that Celtic (or some Celtic) has a grammatical peculiarity that is also found in West Asian languages such as Semitic or Turkish. However this is probably, I'd think, a substrate infiltration in these two (and maybe other) languages. It'd be a third language family ("Danubian") the one implied in the transmission of such feature to Europe, specifically to Celtic. Is this one NW Caucasian? Something else? I cannot say because I do not know enough of these languages.
Alternatively some have suggested Berber, which is Afroasiatic and could have been involved in Atlantic demic and cultural flows in the Megalithic period. But I have yet to read confirmation that this grammatical feature exists in Berber. AFAIK only Arabic (Hebrew?), Turkish and Gaelic (Brythonic?) have it in this part of the world.
Yo probably know which feature it is. I forgot.
...
I said: "I find hard to imagine that English is directly related to Semitic in any way".
You replied: "I'm affraid this is case of a substrate loanword in Germanic".
I must then insist: I find hard to imagine that Germanic is directly related to Semitic in any way.
:/
...
Not likely and that is anyhow a "Vennemannism", something that should get your strangling your own self, right?
ReplyDeleteYou're right, Vennemann proposed the connction, but I never said he was wrong on that. It's actually his "Vasconic" theory which is a crackpot one.
AFAIK all the idea of a Semitic derivative in Neolithic Europe comes from the fact that Celtic (or some Celtic) has a grammatical peculiarity that is also found in West Asian languages such as Semitic or Turkish.
Not at all. In any case, the case of Celtic would imply a Semitic-like or Afrasian substrate on the Atlantic fringe, not Central Europe.
You probably know which feature it is. I forgot.
It doesn't matter at all.
...
ReplyDelete"Sorry, but this is a perfect match".
You have rejected yourself much more "perfect matches" in the past, claiming that they are mere coincidences. Be consistent, please.
...
"A serious linguist should only use serious sources, and I'm affraid your "Wikitionary" is not".
Wikitionary has a green mark in WOT (Web of Trust) while rinet.ru has a red mark, sign that it is not respectable nor trustworthy, apparently it's marked that way because of connection to spam networks. It's certainly not the case of a university site but just a 'random site'.
Whatever the case, try not to be so stiff and snobbish. If you want to contest the Wikitionary claim you can do it by providing alternative credible sources or even getting yourself implied in the development of such project and debating within it.
There's a whole discussion page where you can add your objections and suggest alternative documented etymologies (not whatever spawns out of your brain - that's self-research and is not accepted AFAIK).
"The problem is most Indo-Europeanists tend to believe everything in IE languages comes form PIE".
I can agree with this criticism in general or in other cases but in this case, I think that there is a common root betwen crab, grab, garra, cancer and Basque karramarro, which looks like a IE loanword at least the first half of the word karra- (Sp. garra = claw) via childspeak (the suffix marro, mamarro means bug, Sp. bicho, also ghost).
While the Semitic word for Scorpion could indeed be related via a third language or whatever, this requires a different line of research one that explores possible cognates in Caucasian languages, Sumerian, Elamite, etc. You tell me, as you surely have your library stuffed full of books and dictionaries about all these languages, as any good linguist should.
"I still don't see any reason why these words should have been borrowed from Latin and not from substrate language".
Valid question.
My understanding is that lentils are primarily a rather Mediterranean crop, like chickpeas, grapes or olives. Hence it is reasonable that names would migrate from south to north even repeatedly along time (because you lose memory of names of things you do not use more easily than of those you use daily).
I am not aware of Danubians growing lentils, while Cardium Pottery peoples did indeed. Hence all those Nordic words for lentil that are so similar to the Latin form are surely borrowings via the Roman Empire or even the Catholic Church (probably the latter more than the first).
But if you can minimally document growing lentils in Northern Europe prehistorically, I am willing to reconsider.
"But there're also other 'lentil' words, even in Basque (e.g. txingilla, txindil.)"
Fair enough but looks a variant of dilista or lentil, they share the same basic consonantic structure: d/t, l, intermittent n, and also vocalic one: i/e. The order of the syllabes changes a bit chaotically but I can intuitively understand such changes as happening easily in normal speech through the millennia.
"Kluge's etymological dictionary of German (which unlike your "Wikitionary" is a serious source) says that German Linse was "borrowed from an unknown language, from which also come Latin lēns (-ntis) and the corresponding Balto-Slavic words.""
Plan B. First we need to know what's the exact history of lentils as crop, specially in Central Europe. I am presuming all the time they have never been grown in significant amounts before crop rotation was introduced in the Middle Ages, but maybe I'm wrong.
You have rejected yourself much more "perfect matches" in the past, claiming that they are mere coincidences.
ReplyDeleteIn this case, both phonetics and semantics match, unlike your "perfect matches" which only are phonetically but not semantically similar.
Whatever the case, try not to be so stiff and snobbish. If you want to contest the Wikitionary claim you can do it by providing alternative credible sources or even getting yourself implied in the development of such project and debating within it.
Sorry, but I'm not interested (neither I've got the time) to debunk all the rubbish other people put in the Internet. :-)
can agree with this criticism in general or in other cases but in this case, I think that there is a common root betwen crab, grab, garra, cancer and Basque karramarro, which looks like a IE loanword at least the first half of the word karra- (Sp. garra = claw) via childspeak (the suffix marro, mamarro means bug, Sp. bicho, also ghost).
Sorry, but I see no reason to think all the 'crab' words (specially the Basque one) should be related.
I am not aware of Danubians growing lentils, while Cardium Pottery peoples did indeed. Hence all those Nordic words for lentil that are so similar to the Latin form are surely borrowings via the Roman Empire or even the Catholic Church (probably the latter more than the first).
I still see no indication of that. A post-Neolithic chronology doesn't necessarily imply a Middle Age one.
"But there're also other 'lentil' words, even in Basque (e.g. txingilla, txindil.)"
Fair enough but looks a variant of dilista or lentil, they share the same basic consonantic structure: d/t, l, intermittent n, and also vocalic one: i/e. The order of the syllabes changes a bit chaotically but I can intuitively understand such changes as happening easily in normal speech through the millennia.
Basque txingilla and related forms can't be positively linked to tilista, dilista, so it must be another root, for example Afrasian *da/ingw- 'a k. of beans; corn', a widely attested word.
Documenting the damn matter from an archaeological viewpoint is the key.
ReplyDeleteThis site explains that lentils were domesticated along wheat, barley and other basic crops (flax, beans) in West Asia and then arrived with earliest Neolithic flows to Greece and then Italy and Central Europe.
It's funny that they argue that "poppy" (opium actually) was used as "oil seed". In fact West Danubians were the first population worldwide to have grown opium - no need to hide this fact. Opium was a common drug in Europe before Christians outlawed it and caused much less problems than alcohol, as far as we know. However it was considered "medicine" (painkiller) for middle aged to old people - not stuff for kids.
Back to our debate, it's possible that there was an early Neolithic word (either Danubian or Mediterranean or shared) for lentil, from which the WIE lens/les and the Basque dilista and others probably come from. However it's not impossible to fully discard a Latin loanword, IMO, or an Italo-Celtic origin in Urnfields period, when Germanic was still restricted to areas where lentils do not seem to be cultivated further north (same for Balto-Slavic).
I don't thinks such an "Italo-Celtic" entity ever existed, neitherr the word 'lentil' is attested in Celtic.
ReplyDelete"It's actually his "Vasconic" theory which is a crackpot".
ReplyDeleteWell, I happen to think it's exactly the opposite I fail to see anything solid in his and others' "Semitic" claims.
Furthermore, Semitic is just too recent (c. 4000 BCE) and, excepting the very shallow Phoenician influence, never really made any mark in West Europe, leave alone Central Europe.
"the case of Celtic would imply a Semitic-like or Afrasian substrate on the Atlantic fringe, not Central Europe."
Celtic is a Central European language family that coalesced by the Rhine. Its arrival to Ireland and Britain is of about the same time as the Punic Wars. It's arrival to Portugal and Galicia is a bit but not much older (c. 700 BCE, a few years "ab urbe condita").
Celtic is a Central European language that coalesce by the Rhine. If it ha substrate influences including all the family, it must have adopted them there, not in Ireland.
Also at this moment I do not know if the peculiarity in question exists in Berber or other Afroasiatic languages, only in Semitic and Turkish (but also no idea about other languages, modern or extinct, from that area). Claiming "Afroasiatic" when you have only looked at Semitic is cheating.
"It doesn't matter at all".
Of course it does matter. How can we discern anything without knowing the exact detail of why all this fuss is about and where it does manifest. One thing I have noticed is that linguists discussing this matter just assume it's Semitic but do not even look if it could have arrived from some other origin, say Kartvelian or Berber.
So please let us be systematic, methodical, serious, and not just make happy claims we are not even bothering substantiating with half-decent data.
"... neitherr the word 'lentil' is attested in Celtic".
ReplyDeleteI was thinking more in the line of "lens" than "lentil". But anyhow how do Welsh and Gaelics say lentil?
Furthermore, Semitic is just too recent (c. 4000 BCE) and, excepting the very shallow Phoenician influence, never really made any mark in West Europe, leave alone Central Europe.
ReplyDeleteSurely besides historical Semitic, there were other languages related to Semitic spoken in the Neolithic, and some of them could even reach to Europe.
Celtic is a Central European language family that coalesced by the Rhine. Its arrival to Ireland and Britain is of about the same time as the Punic Wars. It's arrival to Portugal and Galicia is a bit but not much older (c. 700 BCE, a few years "ab urbe condita").
Sorry, but I don't believe this tale.
So please let us be systematic, methodical, serious, and not just make happy claims we are not even bothering substantiating with half-decent data.
Please apply this to yourself first. :-)
Afroasiatic but it is an African language family with only one representative in Asia: Semitic.
ReplyDeleteI understand that proto-Semitic coalesced in Harifian (desert area Natufian-PPNA) and then the Circum-Arabian Pastoralist Complex (CAPC for short) in the PPNB phase, from where it expanded as is generally accepted c. 4000 BCE.
Earlier, the source of proto-Semitic would be Egypt (surely Ancient Egyptian/Coptic is the closest relative of Semitic).
It is possible that some Semitic-related Afroasiatic made its way to Greece, the presence of E1b1b1 in that area (expanding with Neolithic in Europe) could suggest it. But it is anything but certain and remains in the realm of speculation.
In general I do not see enough strength in the arguments in favor of this hypothetical Semitic-like linguistic presence in Neolithic Europe: for example there is no long list of possible toponyms with such origin and alleged "substrate words" are really quite anecdotal and not the huge corpus we could expect if such relation was true.
Finally there's only room for two language families (at most) migrating from West Asia into Europe in the Neolithc: one with the Balcano-Danubian branch and another with the Mediterranean one. There is a third wave (1000 years later, surely invaders) but only affected parts of the Balcans directly (Thessaly-Macedonia-Serbia specially), the Vinca-Dimini super-culture. This group could be hypothetically related to Pelasgians and Tyrsenians.
"Sorry, but I don't believe this tale".
So what's your theory for the origin and expansion of Celtic? I'm following a major Celtic scholar, Venceslas Krutas, among others. There's pretty much a wide consensus on this matter (notwithstanding IEPC freaks).
In general I do not see enough strength in the arguments in favor of this hypothetical Semitic-like linguistic presence in Neolithic Europe: for example there is no long list of possible toponyms with such origin and alleged "substrate words" are really quite anecdotal and not the huge corpus we could expect if such relation was true.
ReplyDeleteBut IE languages (not just PIE) have loanwords/Wanderwórter of Semitic origin, e.g. 'male goat' or 'bull'.
I also wonder why would you expect such a "huge corpus" from prehistoric language contacts (as a matter, Vasco-Caucasian loanwords are much more frequent).
"But IE languages (not just PIE) have loanwords/Wanderwórter of Semitic origin, e.g. 'male goat' or 'bull'".
ReplyDeleteI have heard of that but I feel that these are not words of Semitic origin but words of (non-semitic probably) West Asian Neolithic origin which scattered to both IE and Semitic (but not other Afroasiatic generally). They are always Neolithic farming-herding words, i.e. like telephone or computer nowadays, which are shared by many languages somewhat chaotically.
Wanderwort (wandering word) is a good term to describe them indeed but I question the "Semitic origin" and suggest rather a parallel Semitic destination from a third origin. It'd be interesting, as always in these cases, to research Caucasian and other languages of West Asia (Sumerian, Elamite, Hurro-Urartean, Hattic and even Tyrsenian) which surely got the same wanderworts in many cases as destination (or maybe as origin).
"I also wonder why would you expect such a "huge corpus" from prehistoric language contacts (as a matter, Vasco-Caucasian loanwords are much more frequent)".
Precisely. If there are so many North-Caucasian remains (you claim so) or Vasconic ones (Vennemann and others), there should also be as many "Semitic" ones in order for "Semitic" to have migrated in parallel to Caucasian or Vasconic, i.e. in the Neolithic.
If there are only a handful of words, we enter the realm of random flows, coincidences and little more. Hyped by the fact of the two major remaining language families of West Eurasia (with their huge cultural and ideological influences) being involved.
This hype is indication of low level of interest, imagination, method and research by the affected scholars. Because the least they can do is to make sure that no other West Eurasian language family is also involved before they claim such "Semitic" origins so happily.
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ReplyDeleteI have heard of that but I feel that these are not words of Semitic origin but words of (non-semitic probably) West Asian Neolithic origin which scattered to both IE and Semitic (but not other Afroasiatic generally).
ReplyDeleteMaybe, but IMHO these "West Asian Neolithic" languages happen to be Vasco-Caucasian ones. I've also detected a Vasco-Caucasian substratum in Semitic.
Nevertheless, there're genuine Wanderwörter with clear Semitic cognates but no NEC ones, like the words 'bull' or '7' (the last one giving a doublet in PIE and Proto-Germanic).
Precisely. If there are so many North-Caucasian remains (you claim so) or Vasconic ones (Vennemann and others)
You already know what's my opinion about Vennemann's "Vasconic".
"IMHO these "West Asian Neolithic" languages happen to be Vasco-Caucasian ones. I've also detected a Vasco-Caucasian substratum in Semitic".
ReplyDeleteIDK. There must have been a number of language families in early Neolithic West Asian; at least 2-4. Even if all the highlands (and Sumer) spoke "Vasco-Caucasian", we still have lowland Levant, which has a different tradition altogether and is somehow eventually influenced by Egypt (Afroasiatic languages). Then you also have Elamite in Iran and there were surely more (for example all the highlands probably spoke several, not one single linguistic family).
I terribly fear when things get oversimplified into two or three categories such as Vasco-Caucasian, Indoeuropean and Semitic. These (assuming VC is real) must be only part of the picture, not the whole picture, specially at the beginnings of Neolithic.
"You already know what's my opinion about Vennemann's "Vasconic"".
It is still respectable and every day more respected.
If you are not willing to consider Vasconic, I am not willing to consider VC and we cannot continue debating altogether.
So long.
There must have been a number of language families in early Neolithic West Asian; at least 2-4.
ReplyDeleteIMHO, Semitic is a relatively late comer.
Even if all the highlands (and Sumer) spoke "Vasco-Caucasian" we still havre lowland Levant, which has a different tradition altogether
But a different "tradition" doesn't necessarily imply a different language MACRO-family (not just group/family). You must be aware Vasco-Caucasian is a macro-family or phylum.
And IMHO IE descends from the language(s) spoken by Mesolithic hunter-gatherers of SE Europe. Most lexicon regardind Neolithic techniques in PIE and IE languages is borrowed.
If you are not willing to consider Vasconic, I am not willing to consider VC and we cannot continue debating altogether.
I'm affraid this is your problem, not mine. Where in many cases I can come out with an etymology, you can't do the same. This is the difference.
"You must be aware Vasco-Caucasian is a macro-family or phylum".
ReplyDeleteThat's nonsense: if Afroasiatic, which is older than what you claim for VC, is a family, then VC must be a family too.
By your dates, VC is younger than Afroasiatic (which dates to the late UP) or Sino-Tibetan (Epipaleolithic or older) and older than IE (which dates to the Chalcolithic) or Austronesian.
If VC is a macro-phylum then it must date to quite more than 10 Ka ago (Capsian and Harifian cultures and therefore the latest possible arrival of Afroasiatic to NW Africa and the Negev area). You cannot then claim VC as a Neolithic phenomenon as you have done once and again.
"And IMHO IE descends from the language(s) spoken by Mesolithic hunter-gatherers of SE Europe".
SE Europe as the Balcans or SE Europe as the North Caucasus? Tricky term.
PIE coalesced in Samara Valley between c. 5500 and 3500 BCE (in a Neolithic context) but earlier we know nothing about it. Some traditions of this group are shared with other East (not SE) European hunter-gatherers (who became farmers and herders) but others are quite unique.
I generally assumed that Eastern European hunter-gatherers of Gravettian tradition spoke some sort of proto-NEC or macro-NEC but I may be wrong on this and they actually spoke macro-IE instead.
Whatever the case there does not seem to be any Balcanic connection if that is what you meant.
"I'm affraid this is your problem, not mine. Where in many cases I can come out with an etymology, you can't do the same. This is the difference".
"Afraid" still has only one F (told you earlier).
I do offer etymologies but they are not reliant on reconstructed (or is it constructed?) proto-NC. I do not believe in "North Caucasian" not PNC nor "Vasco-Cacuasian". You have first to demonstrate it but instead of working hard and building your opus magna on the matter you waste your time in endless debates here.
My etymologies are reliant only on Basque, what is perfectly legitimate as a lot of words are created from the pre-existent elements of a language. For example zuri (white) comes from zur (wood), just like urdin (blue) comes from ur (water), etc.
These are valid etymologies and need no conjectural PNC whatsoever.
I have also offered some cases of possible Basque-PIE connections, which may produce some etymologies for other cases. But you prefer to discard it all.
You are on denial, you are one sided, you argue based on speculations you have not yet demonstrated... what can I say? Shut up and work more in the background.
That's nonsense: if Afroasiatic, which is older than what you claim for VC, is a family, then VC must be a family too.
ReplyDeleteSorry, but you're misinformed: Afrasian is a macro-family/phylum.
My etymologies are reliant only in Basque
More acurately "modern Basque".
which is perfectly legitimate as a lot of words are created from the `pre-existent elements of a language.
Althouigh Basque as a lot of compounds, I'm affraid they're much less in number than you thought. And in particular, most bisyllablic words aren't so.
For example zuri (white) comes from zur (wood),
Possible, but questionable.
just like urdin (blue) comes ur (water)
A bad etynmology.
I have also offered some cases of possible Basque-PIE connections, which may produce some etynmolgies for other cases.
I'm affraid these comparisons are mostly invalid. They're simpleworlds apart.
You are on denial...
I think you'd better apply this to yourself. But I propose you a deal: as long you stop posting about Basque on your blog I'll stop making comments to your posts.
Wikipedia: "The Afroasiatic languages constitute a language family"...
ReplyDeleteSure that we can ponder what hierarchical categories they can be organized in but when people talk of superfamilies I think in Nostratic and the like: conjectural stuff.
And curiously that is exactly what happens with both North Caucasian and Vasco-Caucasian: that they are conjectural and weakly demonstrated if at all.
"More acurately "modern Basque"".
Real Basque.
Tired of this circular discussion in any case.
Wikipedia: "The Afroasiatic languages constitute a language family"...
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid Wikipedia is a "do-it-yourself" thing. The author(s) consistently use "language family" instead of "macrofamily" through the text. I've just corrected this. :-)
Sure that we can ponder what hierarchical categories they can be organized in but when people talk of superfamilies
Which people?
I think in Nostratic and the like: conjectural stuff.
I don't Afrasian/Afro-Asiatic is "conjectural".
And curiously that is exactly what happens with both North Caucasian and Vasco-Caucasian: that they are conjectural and weakly demonstrated if at all.
I disagree.
Tired of this circular discussion in any case.
I'm also tired of you quoting unreliable sources such as "Wiki-" and the like.
So what's your theory for the origin and expansion of Celtic? I'm following a major Celtic scholar, Venceslas Krutas, among others.
ReplyDeleteAFAIK, Krutas isn't a linguist but a prehistorian/archaeologist.
Real specialists on the study of ancient Celtic languages include Matasović, Delamarre, Falileyev and Koch.
IMHO, and partly following Koch's thesis, I think the Atlantic Bronze culture was capital for the emergency of the historical Celtic people, giving their "takeover" of the Megalithic traditions and the early presence at the Atlantic fringe from SW Iberia to the British Isles.
Upon publishing of Matasović's Proto-Celtic etymological dictionary (2008), some insight can be gained about its origins.
ReplyDeleteFirstly, Celtic shares leixcal isoglosses with the so-called "Pontic" languages (Greek-Armenian, Indo-Iranian) such as words beggining in *j-: *jakkā 'cure, treatment, salvation', *jo- 'which' and *gd-: *gdesi 'yesterday', *gdon- 'earth, place', *gdonjo- 'man' (which interestingly is the source of Basque gizon).
There're also Vasco-Caucasian substrate loanwords such as longā 'boat, vessel' (compare Latin lanx 'dish'), related to NEC *leq'V 'a k. of vessel', but a large part of the non-IE lexicon still remains without etymology.
There's pretty much a wide consensus on this matter (notwithstanding IEPC freaks).
ReplyDeleteI had a discussion (which of course ended with my posts being censored) with Jesús about the non-Celtic toponymy of Britain, which for these folks should be "Germanic" according to the postulates of the Continuity Theory.
I've just reviewed Jesús' blog and I saw your comments regarding the Atlantic Celticity. Interestingly enough, the book cover is a photograph of a dish-vessel (Proto-Celtic *longā): http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_2c-e52uVg_k/TH-OUN7Qo8I/AAAAAAAAAks/zGfgW_Nh7X4/s1600/41QgPelzgxL._SL500_AA300_.jpg
ReplyDeleteThe fact this word has a nice Vasco-Caucasian etymology probably implies pre-Celtic people on the Atlantic fringe spoke some VC language.
"I'm afraid Wikipedia is a "do-it-yourself" thing. The author(s) consistently use "language family" instead of "macrofamily" through the text. I've just corrected this. :-)"
ReplyDeleteYo will have it "uncorrected" soon probably unless you have substantiated the change with due references.
"Which people?"
People, just "people": "la gente".
"I don't Afrasian/Afro-Asiatic is "conjectural"".
I do not think it either and that is why I do not use the term "macro" or "super-family" (superfamily is more common, never read "macrofamily" before this debate).
There is no doubt a hierarchy but arguing what is super or sub, macro or micro... without an international body to regulate such usage is utterly pointless.
"I disagree".
Wikipedia (surely reflecting a linguistic consensus) disagrees with you: North Caucasian languages - Vasco-Caucasian does not even exist, as it seems nobody but you has ever defended it at least by that name.
You have a lot to "correct" in Wikipedia, just make sure you document it properly ;)
"I'm also tired of you quoting unreliable sources such as "Wiki-" and the like".
They are more reliable than your opinions in any case.
As for Celts, as in other matters, Prehistory generally precedes Linguistics. Get that straight, please.
ReplyDelete"There're also Vasco-Caucasian substrate loanwords such as longā 'boat, vessel' (compare Latin lanx 'dish')".
Maybe those are "Caucasian" (which Caucasian?) loans but they are clearly not Basque (ontzi: ship, container - obviously unrelated).
"... should be "Germanic" according to the postulates of the Continuity Theory".
Indoeuropean Continuity Freak Crackpot Nonsense... there's nothing in all that worth calling it "theory". Theories are serious, reasonably demonstrated paradigms. IEPC is junk like no other.
You will have it "uncorrected" soon probably unless you have substantiated the change with due references.
ReplyDeleteSee below.
"Which people?"
People, just "people": "la gente".
Then you mean "hearsay", as usual.
"I don't Afrasian/Afro-Asiatic is "conjectural"".
I do not think it either and that is why I do not use the term "macro" or "super-family" (superfamily is more common, never read "macrofamily" before this debate).
Perhaps you'll be interested to read thsi Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macrofamily
Afro-asiatic is a macrofamily in its own right, regardless of any "Nostratic" theory. In fact, the article's epigraph read as "one the world's largest language families" before my editing.
Wikipedia (surely reflecting a linguistic consensus) disagrees with you: North Caucasian languages - Vasco-Caucasian does not even exist, as it seems nobody but you has ever defended it at least by that name.
It looks like you're again misinformed. In the old days, people like Bengtson used that term as a synonym of "Macro-Caucasian", a macro-family which would initially encomprise Starostin's NC, Basque and Burushaski. See http://www.nostratic.ru/books/(220)bengtson%20-%20macro-caucasic.pdf
As for Celts, as in other matters, Prehistory generally precedes Linguistics. Get that straight, please.
Sorry, but I disagree. Give God what is God's and Ceaser what is Caesar's.
"There're also Vasco-Caucasian substrate loanwords such as longā 'boat, vessel' (compare Latin lanx 'dish')".
Maybe those are "Caucasian" (which Caucasian?) loans
Not "Caucasian" but Vasco-Caucasian.
but they are clearly not Basque (ontzi: ship, container - obviously unrelated).
This word happens to be from another VC root: *bo:ndzz(w)V 'a k. of vessel'. Get it?
Indoeuropean Continuity Freak Crackpot Nonsense... there's nothing in all that worth calling it "theory". Theories are serious, reasonably demonstrated paradigms.
I'm afraid this could be also applied to Vennemann's "Vasconic".
I'm afraid my last post went to the spam folder.
ReplyDeleteYes, this one and one older from Terry it seems. Fixed.
ReplyDeleteDon't expect me to reply in any case. I'm just so bored of this, erm, discussion...
As the song says: Don't worry, be happy!
ReplyDeleteHi Maju,
ReplyDeleteI don't know if you have seen this article already, but I figured you would be interested (re Basques and Sardinians): http://westhunt.wordpress.com/2013/07/17/impressed-ware/
Not impressed: it seems just a short entry taken from Wikipedia.
DeletePlease notice the contradiction between the sentence: "These artifacts show up first in Epirus and Corfu, around 6400-6200 BC" and the map. That map is abhorrent in the sense that Cardium-Impressed pottery is much older in Greece and the Adriatic than in Biblos (only one of the facies of Amuq-Biblos and only in the latest period). However, ironically it has one detail better than the text: before showing up in Epirus and the Adriatic, Cardium-Impressed pottery existed in Thessaly in the group known as Pre-Sesklo, essentially the site of Otzaki, side by side with Proto-Sesklo (at Sesklo itself).
In other words: the origin of both Cardium-Impressed and Painted-Linear pottery branches is the same: Early Neolithic Thessaly, whose dates for pottery are quite older than anything in Lebanon (then in the Pre-Pottery B stage).
Also, as a side note, Amuq-Biblos never included all Syria, just the coast: Lebanon, Latakia, Antioch and Cilicia (Cyprus too?). The southern facies (where Cardium pottery appears later on) is known as Biblos, the Northern facies of Cilicia bears the name of Amuq.
BarKatu baino .....in euskara...
ReplyDeleteSaldI. ...is horse
And saldiketa...Group of horses.
Geroarte.
Zaldi = horse, zaldiketa = horse riding, horsemanship. What's your point?
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ReplyDeleteSardinia is not a Semitic Island, but a European very old Island ( Cavalli Sforza). Sardinia is almost related to ancient linguistic Basque stratum (Blasco-Ferrer), then has been semitized by oriental semitic peoples, from Cyprus, Aegypt, and Canaan. SRDN in the name of Sardinia in a Phoenician Stele from Nora 800ac, the same name is from Semitic stele from near Karantepe about ASHURDAN Prince written SRDN. Ashurdan is relative to a BIG Prince, like Sardinia, estimated by Semitic Seafarers, the biggest island in Mediteranean Sea.
ReplyDeleteWho said Sardinia is "Semitic"? I did not for sure. Maybe you're replying to someone but with more than 140 comments from years ago... hard to say to whom.
DeleteIncidentally in 2016 I was approached by J.M. Elexpuru with the request to make an article on the genetic aspects related to this, as appendix for a book that was published on 2017: "Euskararen aztarnak Sardinian?" (Pamiela ed.)
ReplyDeleteThe Spanish language draft version of that article is available at my blog Bagauda: https://bagaudaberri.wordpress.com/2016/03/09/origen-de-vascos-sardos-y-demas-europeos-segun-la-genetica-de-poblaciones/