Note: I use Basque alphabet as best thinkable approximation for Iberian (instead of the confusing academic conventions). I use Ŕ for RR (second rhotic, surely a trill) and Z for the second sibilant. Cursive is used for letters in some doubt. In Antiquity colon [:] was used to either separate words (later) or sentences (in which case words were not separated).The alphabet is basically Greek:
 |
| Notice that I use R/Ŕ inversely as here, also S for this Ś and Z for this S |
El Cigarralejo (Mula, Murcia) - lead found in a tomb:
- IUNTEGENZ
- ZAKARBIKZOZ
- LAGUTAS:KEBZ
- IZGENUZ:ANDINUE [...] BIANDIGOŔZANLENEBAŔEŔBEIGULANARE:ŔGANIKBOZ
- TARIKEDELBABINEDITARKE[... ...]NELA:EBANALBAZUZBELIGINELA
- ZABARBAZDEŔKBIDEDENEŔZBEZANELAZ:
- IKBAIDEZUIZEBAŔTASORTIDUDAGUNAN
Alcoy (Alacant) - lead:
IŔIKE:OŔTI:GAROKAN:DADULA:BASK
BUISTINEŔ:BAGAROK:SSSXC:TURLBAI
LURA:LEGUSEGUIK:BAZEROKEIUN:BAIDA
URKE:BAZBIDIRBAŔTIN:IRIKE:BAZER
OKAŔ:TEBIND:BELAGASIKAUR:IZBIN
AI:AZGANDIZ:TAGIZGAROK:BINIKE
BIN:SALIŔ:KIDEI:GAIBIGAIT
Crossed at edge of side 1:
AŔNAI
ZAKARIZKER
Second side (bottom):
IUNZTIŔ:SALIŔG:BAZIRTIR:ZABARI
DAŔ:BIRINAR:GURS:BOISTINGISDID
ZESGERSDURAN:ZEZDIRGADEDIN
ZERAIKALA:NALTINGE:BIDUDEIN:ILDU
NIRAENAI:BEKOR:ZEBAGEDIRAN
Other texts
As far as I know, there are other three Ibero-Jonian texts: one in Alacant province and the other two near the Mediterranean end of the Pyrenees (one in Girona province, near the former Greek outposts, and the other one further North in Roselló). I have not found them yet online and I'd appreciate any information on the matter.
Basque affinities
Anyone mildly familiar with Basque will quickly identify clear and dubious Basque-looking words and even constructions (declensions, verbs): many of them all around in both texts.
From the El Cigarralejo text I see all in bold as Basque-like or even straightforward Basque, but mostly just Basque-like:
- IUNTEGENZ
- ZAKARBIKZOZ
- LAGUTAS:KEBZ
- IZGENUZ:ANDINUE [...] BIANDIGOŔZANLENEBAŔEŔBEIGULANARE:ŔGANIKBOZ
- TARIKEDELBABINEDITARKE[... ...]NELA:EBANALBAZUZBELIGINELA
- ZABARBAZDEŔKBIDEDENEŔZBEZANELAZ:
- IKBAIDEZUIZEBAŔTASORTIDUDAGUNAN
Update: my (highly tentative) notion of what this text might mean using Basque as reference:
IUN TEGENZ - Jaun Tegenz - Lord Tegenz
(or joan (te) gantz: go (te) lard)
ZAKAR BIK ZOZ - za(k/h)ar bi(a)k zoaz(te) - the two debris/rough/old go
LAGUTAS:KEBZ - ??
IZ GENUZ : ANDI NUE [...] or AN DINUE
Hitz genuz ( roughly: let us speak). Andi nue(n) (I was big/great) - or Han dinue (what was said to him/her there)
[...] BI ANDI GOŔ ZAN LENE BAŔEŔ BEIGU LANARE : ŔGANIK BOZ
bi handi (gor) zen lehena barre(z?) (beigu) lanare. (rganik) poz/bihotz
two big (gor) were the first laughing (we verb?) to work. (rganik) happy/heart
TARIK EDEL BABINE DITARKE[... ...]NELA:EBANALBAZUZBELIGINELA
(tarik) eder (babine ditarke) (...) -nela. Eban al ba zuz (beli) ginela
(-tarik) beautiful (conditional verb structure) (...) (subordinate sentence suffix: "that"). If you slice/divide (zuz would be zara rather than zoaz here) that we were (beli).
ZABAR BAZDEŔK BIDE DENEŔZBEZANELAZ:
Zabal bazterrak bide dene(rrz) bezain (elaz) [quite straightforward]
The wide banks that are(?, rrz) the way... the same (elaz).
IK BAI DEZU IZEBA ŔTAS ORTI DUDAGUNAN
(ik) bai duzu izeba (rrtas) Orzti(?) duda(n) gunean
(Ik) you do have an aunt (rrtas) that I have Ortzi(?) in the zone.
As for the second text the Basque-like words are also boldfaced here
IŔIKE:OŔTI:GAROKAN:DADULA:BASK
BUISTINEŔ:BAGAROK:SSSXC:TURLBAI
LURA:LEGUSEGUIK:BAZEROKEIUN:BAIDA
URKE:BASBIDIRBAŔTIN:IRIKE:BAZER
OKAŔ:TEBIND:BELAGASIKAUR:ISBIN
AI:AZGANDIZ:TAGIZGAROK:BINIKE
BIN:SALIŔ:KIDEI:GAIBIGAIT
Some are quite striking: BELAGASIKAUR must be bela (beltz) gazika ur: black salty water (the Ocean I guess). OKAŔ is surely oker: wrong, BUISTIN is bustin (wet) and the repeated word OŔTI must be the sky god Ortzi, attested among Medieval Basques and also in vocabulary (week days, meteorological phenomena). KIDEI is still in Basque to the friends or partners.
Second side:
IUNZTIŔ:SALIŔG:BAZIRTIR:ZABARI
DAŔ:BIRINAR:GURS:BOISTINGISDID
ZESGERSDURAN:ZEZDIRGADEDIN
ZERAIKALA:NALTINGE:BIDUDEIN:ILDU
NIRAENAI:BEKOR:ZEBAGEDIRAN
IUN is possibly jaun (sir, lord, mister, master) as the other text also DEDIN may be dadin and DIRAN diren, verbal forms of to be, which is also auxiliary verb. The latter's -n implies a subodrdinated sentence (dira + n, modernly diren). BOISTIN is again bustin (wet), ILDU is to die or kill or also hil du: (s)he/it has killed (s)he/it. NIRAENAI is surely nire anai: my brother (of man).
Thanks to this page of Ana Mª Vázquez Hoys (UNED), where I took the images from.
Maju, your source author name Vazquez Hoys (not Hoyos). Her nice web page is not updated with her last books.
ReplyDeleteThis comment is jus to rise an orange warming for readers (not red level): she can be considered a serious researcher, but in one of her last books she tried to argue for a somewhat incredible and bodacious if not crackpot-like thesis: that the alphabetic writing was invented in S-iberia (spanish iberia). Title: las Golondrinas de Tartessos.
A second thought I had while reading your post, suggested by the alternation of somewhat basque-like words with martian words is that these inscriptions could be dictionaries. Just an hypothesis.
Are you sure that the second surname is Hoys? It's not a normal name, that's why I ask.
ReplyDeleteWhatever the case, I am just using her site as source for the two pieces (and I went a bit faster using her trancription for the second piece - but then I had to correct S/Z and R/Ŕ distinctions, which she does not make). What is here is essentially MY transliteration and my opinion, not hers (not at all).
Good post. It is always hard to evaluate how similar two languages are, and this does a good job of showing rather than telling us that in an easy to grasp way.
ReplyDelete"these inscriptions could be dictionaries"...
ReplyDeleteI don't think so. Some strange letter sequences could be numbers however.
In truth no idea about what exactly they are. I worked a bit in the past with the first text and my impression was that it might be explaining a way to go, a verbal map, so to say. I'll make an update on that part because I was not really precise (was in a hurry).
@Andrew: thanks. I'll see if I can improve this a bit (check for updates in a while) and be even more clear.
ReplyDeleteThe text is unmistakable because it is in Ibero-Jonian.
ReplyDeleteOne thing is the script and another one is the language in which is written.
I am unsure of which are your reasons to think it is not Iberian
As I said, the morphology is un-Iberian: -s, -sos, -bos. They look like an IE, probably Celtic language. At the same time, one can't deny there're Iberian personal names and even a complete sentence. A weird puzzle.
but there's hardly any more Iberian region than Murcia-Almeria (El Argar core area) and hardly any more clear text as those in Ibero-Jonian.
I said and I repeat that Iberian wasn't the only language spoken in "Iberian" areas, and in many parts (e.g. Catalonia) it wasn't even the vernacular one.
Don't take this as a personal offence, but your "translations" are delirious. Sure, Iberian sounds much like Basque, and even entire words are roughly similar in both languages, but their actual meaning is quite different.
The only one you got right is kide-, which in Iberian seems to mean 'friend' from a broken bilingual inscription. This is from IE *genh1-ti- (e.g. Latin gens, gentis).
On the La Serreta's lead, we find the personal Sakaŕ-iskeŕ (which I translate as 'Big Hand') followed by the "possession mark" ar nai, which should be understood as 'I am' (Latin sum), that is 'I am (of) Sakaŕiskeŕ"
ReplyDelete"Don't take this as a personal offence, but your "translations" are delirious".
ReplyDeleteWhy delirious? State the facts: why exactly?
They make good sense. If you read those texts (and the transliteration cannot fail with Ibero-Jonian) and you know some Basque you can't but be aware of the Basqueness of at least many fragments of the texts.
Iberians were in principle not related to Basques (in terms of Metal Ages' archaeology), so it's likely that the last linguistic flow happened many millennia before these texts were written (Epipaleolithic to Neolithic). This explains any differences (at least as divergent in terms of time as Spanish and Romanian, maybe as much as Berber and Arabic). What you can't deny are the affinities.
Well, you can deny, but wishful thinking Indoeuropeanist heresy.
ReplyDeleteWhy delirious? State the facts: why exactly? They make good sense. If you read those texts (and the transliteration cannot fail with Ibero-Jonian) and you know some Basque you can't but be aware of the Basqueness of at least many fragments of the texts.
ReplyDeletePossibly you aren't aware dozens (and posssibly hundreds) of people have done this before. They chopped the Iberian text in arbritrary ways and then tried to match those segments to modern Basque words. This is is an amateurish and most unscientific approach.
I challenge you to do it better. I think that straightforward is better than esoteric.
ReplyDeleteTo begin with, you should get acquantited with ALL Iberian epigraphy, not just the few Ionian inscriptions. The next step is to be able to identify personal names (something quite easy since the Ascoli's Bronze discovery) and then formulaic expressions like the one I've mentioned.
ReplyDeleteTo begin with, Octaviá, I have worked in the past with other Iberian epigraphy but something I have learned is that there is wide disagreement on how many signs should read. So Ibero-Ionian is safer because there is no room for "cheating" that way: Ibero-Ionian is the Rosetta Stone of Iberian, so to say, restricting what Iberian may be like.
ReplyDeleteThat is why I am limiting myself, knowingly, to Ibero-Ionian texts.
"The next step is to be able to identify personal names"...
Not at all: personal names change a lot with time: 50 years ago Basques were named Javier and Jose Mari, now they are much more often Iker and Odei. These are fashions only. What we need to identify is common nouns, adjective, verbs and grammar elements. Of whatever is left, some may be personal names or toponyms (for example I suggest Orti as modern Ortzi (Urtzi, Ost), the well attested Sky God).
Yes, second surname is Hoys. Probably a crystallized transcription mistake from Hoyos, but Hoys anyway.
ReplyDeleteDictionary: well, assuming your basque interpretation are right (I´m agnostic about this), a text where some parts can be interpreted according to a language and other inserted parts not, suggest a dictionary. Of course it could be a dictionary, a wordp map or any other thing, we just lack of enough information to decide.
It always surprise me that despite all the research energy devoted to this pre-roman iberian languages we have not advanced too much since Gomez Moreno´s time. Again i do not think it is because inhability of researchers, we just do not have enough information to solve this puzzle.
To begin with, Octaviá, I have worked in the past with other Iberian epigraphy but something I have learned is that there is wide disagreement on how many signs should read.
ReplyDeleteI think you're pretty misinformed, as usual. Actually, things are quite the opposite you say.
I have seen very different interpretations of the Iberian script, one of them produced a "Celtic" result, another made Tartessian "be Basque", etc. Also there's no way to take apart K/G, D/T and B/P, even assuming that all interpretations are correct, so Ibero-Ionian is safest (but sadly scarce).
ReplyDeleteWhatever the case you have no right to claim that Ibero-Ionian is not the way to go: in the worst case, it's as good Iberian as any other and has the advantage of using an alphabet (not a sillabary) and an alphabet we are quite sure of how to read.
So essentially: I think you are making up bad excuses for your failure to see whatever you want to see in these texts.
I have seen very different interpretations of the Iberian script, one of them produced a "Celtic" result, another made Tartessian "be Basque", etc.
ReplyDeleteI think you confuse reading with translating. Iberian texts can be read but not translated.
Also there's no way to take apart K/G, D/T and B/P, even assuming that all interpretations are correct
Actually, there's a variant of the Levantine script which differentiate them but I'm afraid this is too subtle for an amateur.
I think you are making up bad excuses for your failure to see whatever you want to see in these texts.
No, it's YOU who're making excuses for not being able to read the indigenous scripts (Levantine and Southern).
Maju,
ReplyDeleteHow old are these inscriptions, and what is your general impression about the timing and prevalence of surrounding Celtiberian?
I just took a look at some of the Botorrita inscriptions and can't believe they have not yet been reliably translated (from what I gather). They look so perfectly IE (not much Celtic, really, at all, but more Italic and Germanic, as would be expected) --- it's all hard to believe.
How old are these inscriptions,
ReplyDeleteHi, eurologist. According to the specialist Javier Velaza: Epigrafía y lengua ibéricas (Arco Libros, 1996), the most ancient inscriptions are those in the Ionian alphabet, and they date from the 4th century BC.
I just took a look at some of the Botorrita inscriptions and can't believe they have not yet been reliably translated (from what I gather).
Apparently Celtiberian is hard to understood than, say, Gaulish, possibly due to a non-Celtic IE substrate (Italoid/Sorotaptic).
They look so perfectly IE (not much Celtic, really, at all, but more Italic and Germanic, as would be expected) --- it's all hard to believe.
I bet you're referring to Lusitanian, a non-Celtic IE language recorded in inscriptions from the West of the Iberian Peninsula.
Lusitanian looks like a dialect of Italoid/Sorotaptic, an IE language mostly attested in toponymy and substrate loanwords. According to Coromines and Villar, who have studied it, it's somewhere between Baltic and Italic in the IE dialectal cloud.
ReplyDeleteA very detailed map relevant to the discussion:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.arkeotavira.com/Mapas/Iberia/Populi.pdf
Several questions:
--what is the oldest undisputed aquitanian inscription (in aquitanian language?). What is its date ?
--are there any words at use today in latin-derived iberian undisputedly derived from iberian ?
what about toponomy ?
--why all genetic studies in Basques are centered in basque country in stead of mountain areas of Navarra ? Or mabe I´m wrong on this...
"I think you confuse reading with translating".
ReplyDeleteI do not: I mean different readings. For example our "friend" Koch systematically reads Iberian in a way others do not (and that's the only way he can come up with "Celtic" translations"). I have often seen (online and in books) different tables that produce different transliterations for the same Iberian characters (and not just one nor a rare one but for common ones and many of them too).
There may be some consensus on the basics but I understand that nothing is set on stone in this matter.
And that is why I think Ibero-Ionian is a lot safer to begin with and a reference that cannot be ignored.
"... it's YOU who're making excuses for not being able to read the indigenous scripts"...
I can read them (with the help of a reference table). In fact I almost ended up adding my own transliteration for the "Celtiberic tesera" of Sasamón (Northern Burgos province), which IMO is quite Basque in fact. But I decided to be strict and abide by Ibero-Ionian texts for that reason.
There are still three Ibero-Ionian texts I could not find online. You may want to use them to either disprove or support my thesis (or something in between). But I have set the basic rules for this basic analysis in the Ibero-Ionian texts for a serious matter of scientific method, so please respect this.
They are just random texts (with the advantage of using a "normal alphabet" that we know how it reads for sure).
So why to reject them? You tell me, Octaviá: what's so scary about simple texts that everyone can read easily?
@Eurologist:
ReplyDelete"How old are these inscriptions"...?
Not sure exactly but they are Iron Age, proto-historical. The fact that they use a variant of the Greek alphabet means that in the last 550 years before the common era (foundation of Emporion), probably before the Punic wars. So maybe 550-200 BCE is a safe window. Though there's no particular reason why Iberian would not be used in Roman times (and in "Greek alphabet"), I guess that Latin replaced it quite fast, specially among literate people.
"... and what is your general impression about the timing and prevalence of surrounding Celtiberian?"
Celtiberian is, I understand, the residual Celtic (with Iberian substrate) that remained south of the Ebro River and specially in the mountain range known as Iberian range (Soria and Teruel provinces mostly) after Iberians (and Basques) "liberated" what is now Catalonia and the Northern half or Aragon. This probably happened in relation to the founding of the Greek trading outposts of Emporion and Rhodes, near the Mediterranean end of the Pyrenees, c. 550 BCE.
Sometimes the term Celtiberian is misused to indicate all Iberian Celts or even all Iberian Indoeuropeans of proto-history, including the dubious Lusitani, but this is confusing at the least. These other (related) peoples lived in the Plateau and the Western coasts, which they had conquered somehow in the 7th century (peripheral Hallstatt culture) in a move reminiscent to that of Italics into Central and South Italy under similar socio-economic conditions.
Hope this answers your quite ample question.
"I just took a look at some of the Botorrita inscriptions and can't believe they have not yet been reliably translated (from what I gather). They look so perfectly IE (not much Celtic, really, at all, but more Italic and Germanic, as would be expected) --- it's all hard to believe".
It is an opinion, thanks. I'm sure you'll have fun with Iberian texts and script in any case, for what I know you... at least for a while.
I'm not going to work right now transcribing and trying to translate the whole text but I'll do with the first line (using Almagro-Gorbea's tables from the 1980s), so we can check notes:
TIKUI(?)NTAM: BE(TE)KUNKET(?)M: TOKOITOZKUKE: MA(BU)NIKIO: KUE: MUA: KOMBALKES: NEL(?)TOM...
Of course I use again Z for the second sibilant (did not need to bother about rhotics) and the following pairs are interchangeable: B/P, D/T and G/K.
So it could beging DIUGUI, TIGUI, DIKUI or TIKUI...
Does it sound Germanic/Italic to you? I can't figure out but who knows? It's supposed to be Celtiberian.
"... the most ancient inscriptions are those in the Ionian alphabet"...
ReplyDeleteThat would make no sense because then the alphabet would have stuck and Iberian script would have never evolved altogether. Ibero-Ionian is clearly an improvement on the Iberian script and cannot be older than 550 BCE in any case.
Instead Iberian script implies some connection with Cyprus (or maybe Crete?) before Phoenicians took over (it's not derived from the Phoenician alphabet either). So ultimately he Tartessian and Iberian scripts must be from the Tartessian, a time when there was marked civilization and some cultural unity across South and SE Iberia.
So, regardless of the exact date of each text, the Tartessian and Iberian scripts are surely from c. 1000 BCE, not more recent in their formation. They may well date to the El Argar period ultimately but the Tartessian one is a safer bet.
"Apparently Celtiberian is hard to understood than, say, Gaulish, possibly due to a non-Celtic IE substrate (Italoid/Sorotaptic)".
Celtiberian and all Iberian Celt/IE also diverged quite earlier from the common proto-Celtic origin than all other attested Western Celtic (which are from the La Tène culture, which never reached Iberia) and then became isolated from the mainland when Catalonia was re-Iberized in the 6th century. So Iberian "Celt" should be quite archaic in relation to Gaulish and island Celtic, maybe with the partial exception of the languages spoken by Vacceans (and Armoricans?) in SE France.
"I bet you're referring to Lusitanian"...
He said clearly Botorrita: a "Celtiberian" text from Zaragoza province.
For example our "friend" Koch systematically reads Iberian in a way others do not (and that's the only way he can come up with "Celtic" translations").
ReplyDeleteApparently, Koch didn't read a line of Iberian in his whole life. His worsk is about Tartessian, not Iberian.
So why to reject them? You tell me, Octaviá: what's so scary about simple texts that everyone can read easily?
I don't "reject" anything, but I think it's anything but scientific to isolate these texts from the rest of the Iberian epigraphic corpus.
Ibero-Ionian is clearly an improvement on the Iberian script and cannot be older than 550 BCE in any case.
Bullshit. This is a Greek alphabet and the Iberian scripts (don't forget there're two of them) are based on the Phoenician alphabet.
So, regardless of the exact date of each text, the Tartessian and Iberian scripts are surely from c. 1000 BCE, not more recent in their formation.
Stretching the date a bit earlier you could even make them rpedate the Phoenician alphabet. :-)
"I bet you're referring to Lusitanian"...
He said clearly Botorrita: a "Celtiberian" text from Zaragoza province.
Yes, but if Celtiberian looks so un-Celtic it's surely due to its Italoid substrate. Also if Tartessian is actually Celtic it would also have an even stronger substrate.
"His worsk is about Tartessian, not Iberian".
ReplyDeleteAlright but still he's off the other tables. And the Iberian tables you can find online and in books are different from each other too. You just need to bother making a search.
I said: "Ibero-Ionian is clearly an improvement on the Iberian script and cannot be older than 550 BCE in any case".
And the angry Catalan wannabe linguist said: "Bullshit. This is a Greek alphabet and the Iberian scripts (don't forget there're two of them) are based on the Phoenician alphabet".
And I say now: Precisely because it is a Greek ALPHABET it is an improvement on the semi-syllabary (or even the imperfect Phoenician abjad without vowels). That's a reason why we use today a variant of the Greek alphabet in most of the World (and not just Rome: Roman numerals are all but lost because they were inferior in comparison to Arabic (Indian) ones).
Greek alphabet should have not arrived to Iberia before the founding of Emporion c. 550 BCE nor should have survived long after the Romans took over.
Now say "bullshit" again if you feel like but at least provide a decent explanation for that.
"Stretching the date a bit earlier you could even make them rpedate the Phoenician alphabet".
Are you sure that the Iberian syllabary is a development on the Phoenician abjad? If so, did Iberians invent vowels on their own? Because the Phoenician abjad has no vowels at all and the Iberian script has all five vowels and is a semisyllabary.
So Iberian has two developments in comparison with the Phoenician abjad: vowels and single-sign syllables. In the first it's closer to Greek and Etruscan alphabets, but these are post-Tartessos, in the latter it is closest to Cypriot and Cretan scripts (both syllabaries).
So IMO it's absurd to claim it derived from the Phoencian abjad. Instead I bet for Cypriot and Cretan influences, maybe in El Argar time, before the arrival of Phoenicians.
"... but if Celtiberian looks so un-Celtic it's surely due to its Italoid substrate".
Why not the fact that it diverged from Celtic earlier than all continental or insular Celtic? That makes total sense, the same that makes Romanian impossible to understand: it diverged earlier than other Romances and remained isolated from the rest for long (while the others influenced each other mutually).
Also I'm flippant why you don't even mention the likely Vasco-Iberian substrate. After all, Celts were invaders from the continent and there was something before them, surely a Vasco-Iberian or similar substrate we cannot ignore.
I am right now comparing the Southern Iberian script in the online Omniglot version and the 1986 version of Almagro Gorbea I have at home. There are major differences in the following characters: E, O, U (3/% vowels!), Ŕ (1/7 free consonants), BA, BE, BI, BU, TE, TI, TO (7/15 potential syllables).
ReplyDeleteIn Northen Iberian I find only one significant discrepancy (in the sign TU, that for Almagro is a dotted triangle and for Omniglot a Celtic cross instead).
Almagro also seemed to believe that Southern Iberians and Tartessians used the same script. He makes no mention of any Celtiberian variant either. And that's only 25 years ago.
There are also differences between the chart (for the Southern Iberian script) proposed in Wikipedia (on Correa 2004) and those in Omniglot, even if not so extreme as with Almagro's.
And as I was checking Wikipedia, I stumbled on a section of the article on Iberian languages on the possible relations between Iberian and Basque that may be of interest for readers.
ReplyDeleteIt was indeed novelty for me to find that certain Orduña (2005) has proposed a whole numeral sequence in Iberian that is almost identical to that of Basque:
ban-bi(n)-irur-laur-bors(te)-śei-sisbi-sorse-...-abaŕ-...-oŕkei
Compare with modern Basque:
bat-bi-hiru-lau-bost-sei-sazpi-sortzi-bederatzi-hamar-...-hogei (20)
The Iberian forms irur, laur and bors(te) are coincident with those proposed for proto-Basque: hirur, laur and bortz (3, 4 and 5).
There are also other curious coincidences: bat (1) becomes ban- in composites like bana (each one), bi (2) becomes bin in bina (each two). Hamar (10) had a proto-form proposed as *(h)anbar (compare with Iberian abaŕ, baŕ).
There is also Iberian erder/erdi, equivalent to Basque erdi: half.
It is mentioned that at least in one case a whole numeral system migrated between unrelated languages: from Middle Chinese to Vietnamese, Japanese, Korean and Thai. But that is probably the only time it ever happened and you can't compare the influence of the Iberian civilization with that of the Chinese Empire.
Are you sure that the Iberian syllabary is a development on the Phoenician abjad? If so, did Iberians invent vowels on their own? Because the Phoenician abjad has no vowels at all and the Iberian script has all five vowels and is a semisyllabary.
ReplyDeleteSimple. They took the Phoenician signs and gave them other values.
Why not the fact that it diverged from Celtic earlier than all continental or insular Celtic? That makes total sense, the same that makes Romanian impossible to understand: it diverged earlier than other Romances and remained isolated from the rest for long (while the others influenced each other mutually).
But a Romanian had a Dacian substrate absent in other Romance languages (not to speak of the Slavic adstrate in the Middle Ages).
Also I'm flippant why you don't even mention the likely Vasco-Iberian substrate. After all, Celts were invaders from the continent and there was something before them, surely a Vasco-Iberian or similar substrate we cannot ignore.
Unless it could be defined with precision, the concept "Vasco-Iberian" is meaningless to me. This is why I don't use it. I've got a different view because this is my own research field.
And I say now: Precisely because it is a Greek ALPHABET it is an improvement on the semi-syllabary (or even the imperfect Phoenician abjad without vowels).
ReplyDeleteThen you'll have a hard time to explain why Levantine Iberians abandoned the Ionian alphabet and adopted a variant of the Southern script based on the Phoenician alphabet.
"Simple. They took the Phoenician signs and gave them other values".
ReplyDeleteThat is what some say but to me that is far from "simple" because it requires A LOT of innovation precisely in the same direction that the East Mediterranean syllabaries and true alphabets had. Could Iberians or Tartessians have co-evolved in the syllabary direction when this was in fact a stage previous to the abjad?
I found that González Ramos (2000, in Spanish), for example, ponders similar questions when discussing the Tartessian script (similar to Iberian and maybe at its origin). Because one thing would be to co-evolve vowels out of nothing with or without Greek influence but a much harder path is to evolve syllable characters from an alphabet just because. Makes no sense unless a true syllabary cross-influenced the formation of the scripts.
This syllabary could be Linear A/B, Cypriot or even Ugaritic (it is cuneiform but it is a syllabary with vowels like Cypriot and Linear A/B).
"But a Romanian had a Dacian substrate absent in other Romance languages"...
Other Romance languages had other substrates: Etruscan, Ligurian, Celtic, Basque, Iberian, Tartessian, Illyrian and whatever else (we do not even know what was spoken in so many areas). I do not question substrate nor adstrate (why would I?), what I do is to emphasize is timeline of divergence (several centuries earlier or later) and geography of isolation or interaction.
"Unless it could be defined with precision, the concept "Vasco-Iberian" is meaningless to me".
LOL, I just mentioned a whole bunch of elements of coincidence, including all the numeral system! What more precision do you expect? From an amateur?!
You cannot provide even a fraction of that precision to your "Vasco-Caucasian". NEC numerals for example are much more remote (if related at all) than Iberian and Basque are. I arrived to the conclusion that Basque and NE Caucasian were remotely related maybe by comparing numbers but this connection is hyper-thin in comparison with Iberian.
What more precision do you need?
"Then you'll have a hard time to explain why Levantine Iberians abandoned the Ionian alphabet and adopted a variant of the Southern script based on the Phoenician alphabet".
ReplyDeleteThere can be political, cultural and prestige reasons. Remember that it is the time in which Phoenician influence extends in all that area. Using a Greek script may have been perceived as pro-Massilian first and then pro-Roman. This would be the political reason.
But what I suspect is that the syllabary was older than the Ionian script. Unsure exactly where or if it can be proven (clay plates only survive if burnt) and that's the historico-cultural reason.
My conjecture is that there was already a Tartessian/Iberian script c. 1000 BCE, when the Tartessian culture began (Final Proto-Tartessian Bronze in West Andalusia) within the wider context of the Atlantic Bronze, which has somewhat intense trade connections with Cyprus.
This Tartessian culture expands its influence since c. 900 BCE, while Phoenician influence is only apparent since c. 750 BCE. It may be the convergence of a Cypriot (modified?) syllabary with the Phoenician abjad (and some local creativity, maybe lead by the authority of the monarchy of Tartessos or whatever) what forged that script, that later would show some local variants.
found that González Ramos (2000, in Spanish)
ReplyDeleteYou got the name bad. The guy is Rodríguez Ramos.
That is what some say but to me that is far from "simple" because it requires A LOT of innovation precisely in the same direction that the East Mediterranean syllabaries and true alphabets had.
LOL. If alphabets were innovative with regard to syllabaries, then the Tartessian and Iberian scripts would be actually "involutive", not "innovative".
Could Iberians or Tartessians have co-evolved in the syllabary direction when this was in fact a stage previous to the abjad? This syllabary could be Linear A/B, Cypriot or even Ugaritic (it is cuneiform but it is a syllabary with vowels like Cypriot and Linear A/B).
This is highly unlikely unless Tartessians had direct contacts with these cultures in the past.
My conjecture is that there was already a Tartessian/Iberian script c. 1000 BCE, when the Tartessian culture began (Final Proto-Tartessian Bronze in West Andalusia) within the wider context of the Atlantic Bronze, which has somewhat intense trade connections with Cyprus.
The usual dating is around 700 BC.
It may be the convergence of a Cypriot (modified?) syllabary with the Phoenician abjad (and some local creativity, maybe lead by the authority of the monarchy of Tartessos or whatever) what forged that script, that later would show some local variants.
See above.
LOL, I just mentioned a whole bunch of elements of coincidence, including all the numeral system!
They're just a bunch of words similar in form in both languages, but nothing guarentees they're actually related.
What more precision do you expect? From an amateur?!
Of course I can't expect none. This my own field of research, so please leave this task to me.
"... then the Tartessian and Iberian scripts would be actually "involutive", not "innovative"".
ReplyDeleteIndeed. But if they had no contact ever with any syllabary, they had to invent it, and that is innovation, even if it'd be in an involutive and unnecessarily complicated manner.
But that's why I require the intervention of a syllabary. My favorite is Cypriot because it looks more like Iberian than the other candidates but it could also have been Linear B in Mycenaean times, because we know that Mycenaeans had quite close relations with El Argar before both civilizations collapsed. In this case, Southern Iberian would be the ancestor of all Iberian scripts (instead of Tartessian).
But my first choice is Tartessian with Cypriot influence. In any case, Cyprus had to be involved in the rather sudden naval colonial expansion of Phoenicians, providing the knowledge of routes at the least.
"This is highly unlikely unless Tartessians had direct contacts with these cultures in the past".
What I am saying is that all the Atlantic Bronze had some trading contact with Cyprus. Earlier El Argar specially (but also Bronze of Levante) had contacts with Crete specially and with Mycenaean Greeks in general. Actually the Iberian trade with various Eastern Mediterranean peoples was almost continuous, however the civilizations at both sides of the (colonial and increasingly unequal) deal changed a bit, specially at the Bronze/Iron Ages transition.
"The usual dating is around 700 BC".
The usual dating of what? Of the earliest Tartessian script? Why?
"... nothing guarentees they're actually related".
A whole numeral system almost identical! WTF! You are in denial, a very strange denial from someone who argued not long ago that Basque was a direct descendant from Iberian. Have you changed your stand?
"This my own field of research, so please leave this task to me".
I am not going to leave anything to anyone. If you don't like my opinions, you can discuss them from person to person or you know where the door is. I don't have to put up with scholastic pedantry.
"Does it sound Germanic/Italic to you? I can't figure out but who knows? It's supposed to be Celtiberian."
ReplyDeleteThe only reason I brought this up was to understand the broader context of this period in Iberia. I used the transliteration in Wikipedia - I have no idea how good or bad it is.
But it clearly shows a text that is declared/decided upon, followed by a list of participants/ officials who voted. The structure thus is identical to the Latin Botorrita II.
In the list of names, I would guess barauzanco, bercanti, uzeis[z]u, acainaz, antutaz, and ucontaz to be IE foreign (that is, Iberian and/or Basque). The "bintis" and "cum" structure appears IE/Italic, though.
In the preceding lines, there is an abundance of repeated suffixes in a very structured way that reminds of proto-IE: ito/itom/itei, scue/cue/cuez/counei; also mue. Then there are words reminiscent of either personal pronouns or simple conjugations of "to be" or "to have" verbs, like sua, soz, sues, saum, somei, and also iom, iomue, imue, and emeiue.
Thus, to the lay person, the structure looks very much (proto) IE with some Iberian substrate.
... "the structure looks very much (proto) IE with some Iberian substrate".
ReplyDeleteWhat you say makes sense to me. The words in -Z look vaguely Basque (-(e)z is a modal declension meaning by means of - example: "kotxez": by car). It might be also, I presume in archaic or dialectal versions related to Ibero-Romance surname endings in -ez and Basque in in -iz.
Baraunzaco reminds me of Bur(t)zako, a surname. Burzako means of Bur(t)za (burtza: purse?). Barauntzako (modern Basque spelling) would be from Barauntz(a), compare with baratz(a) (orchard), barazki (vegetable), untz (rabbit), ahuntz (goat)...
The words you say are IE generally don't sound Basque to me, excepted "sua" (the fire), "scue" (-sko dimminutive + -e nominative? -zkoa like in Aezkoa?), which may be coincidences.
What do you think of the bronze "tesera" (password) of Sasamón (Burgos): link 1, link 2? Each site provides a different transliteration (and I don't like either).
Sasamón is at the approximate triple border point between ancient Vaccei (Celts), Cantabri and Autrigones (IMO Basque but Celt for others). I understand that the sign that looks like a 'double E' (one on top of the other) is not read as E (which has only two horizontal strokes in North Iberian and the proposed Celtiberian variant script, like an 'F' upside down) but as TI (Almagro 86 for South Iberian) or something else. Otherwise I follow standard Northern Iberian and get:
1- GUIŔOŔTIKIEZNEBEIDUUKOZBETINAIOZ
2- ALDITUUŔDIZ
The choice between G/K, D/T and B/P is mine.
I think I can read most in Basque:
gu irrortik(i) ez nebei du uko beti nahiez
we from Irror have not left the sisters (of woman) willfully
However nebei is IO "to the sisters" and I'm using it here liberally as DO "the sisters" as demanded by the verb "du" (ez du uko). Also "uko" is not a verb modernly but a particle of "uko egin" (to do "uko" = to leave).
So maybe I am wrong after all because the grammar does not fit well enough.
The second side could be ALDITU URDIZ or maybe more like ALDE ITURRIZ (liberally). First one is reminding of aditu (learned, wise) by the boar (urdaz?) or something like that (-IZ surname suffix already?). Second "liberal" reading "by means of the fountain (iturri) of the zone (alde)".
Whatever, just baiting your interest. :)
PS- "beti" means forever, always (somehow I forgot to translate that word above).
ReplyDeletendeed. But if they had no contact ever with any syllabary, they had to invent it, and that is innovation, even if it'd be in an involutive and unnecessarily complicated manner.
ReplyDeleteBut that's why I require the intervention of a syllabary. My favorite is Cypriot because it looks more like Iberian than the other candidates but it could also have been Linear B in Mycenaean times, because we know that Mycenaeans had quite close relations with El Argar before both civilizations collapsed. In this case, Southern Iberian would be the ancestor of all Iberian scripts (instead of Tartessian).
Interestingly, but utterly unprovable. IMHO, there's no special reason to think Tartessians and Iberians didn't develop their syllabary independently.
IMHO, beti is another Celtic loanword in Basque. As a little exercice, I'll leave you the task of searching Matasović's dictionary to find the source. :-)
ReplyDeleteYou are in denial, a very strange denial from someone who argued not long ago that Basque was a direct descendant from Iberian.
ReplyDeleteNot exactly, they're both offpsring from an ancient dialectal continuum.
Although relatives, they've also phonetical differences. For example, native Iberian lacked lamino-alveolar sibilants but it had instead dental STOPS t, d (unvoiced and voiced), which respectively correspond to Basque s "z" and r . These two consonants, when geminated, gave ś "s" and ŕ "rr". This would explain isoglosses like esan ~ erran 'to say' or mossu ~ Spanish morro 'muzzle, lips'.
To complicate matters further, both Basque and Iberian had loanwords from a third Vasco-Caucasian but non-Vasconic language which I call "Cantabrian", and whose sound correspondences with Starostin's PNC are different from the Vasconic ones.
"Interestingly, but utterly unprovable. IMHO, there's no special reason to think Tartessians and Iberians didn't develop their syllabary independently".
ReplyDeleteFrom an alphabet/abjad? It's illogical: the logical of writing evolution is: hieroglyphic > syllabary > abjad/alphabet. These things are tools for communication not fancy games for nerdy speculation.
"As a little exercice, I'll leave you the task of searching Matasović's dictionary to find the source".
As I told to someone else today: if you think that I am your secretary, fuck off and send me your money.
"... they're both [Iberian and Basque] offpsring from an ancient dialectal continuum".
Fair enough to me, as long as it is a SW European one.
"To complicate matters further, both Basque and Iberian had loanwords from a third Vasco-Caucasian but non-Vasconic language which I call "Cantabrian"...
Sounds interesting. Could we think of it as the language of Neolithic and Chalcolithic Portugal. Before Celts took over there, it used to be a center of civilization and must have been once a most influential source of culture.
IMHO, beti is another Celtic loanword in Basque.
ReplyDeleteThis is Proto-Celtic *bitu- 'world' (but also 'eternal'), from PIE *gWih3-tu-, the same root which gives Latin vīta.
"Interestingly, but utterly unprovable. IMHO, there's no special reason to think Tartessians and Iberians didn't develop their syllabary independently".
ReplyDeleteFrom an alphabet/abjad? It's illogical: the logical of writing evolution is: hieroglyphic > syllabary > abjad/alphabet. These things are tools for communication not fancy games for nerdy speculation.
Sorry, but unless you could prove Tartessians took their signs from one of the syllabaries and not from Phoenician, there's no room for "nerdy speculation".
You have not proven either that they took their signs from the Phoencian abjad exclusively. The Phoenician alphabet has only 22 characters, at least some of which do NOT correspond with any Iberian signs. The Iberian syllabary has at least 32 signs (5 vowels, 7 free consonants and 15 syllables).
ReplyDeleteThe Cypriot syllabary had some 55 signs (Cretan some 60 of them).
In any case concepts like vowel and syllable characters are totally absent from the Phoenician syllabary and yet found in other Eastern Mediterranean scripts, the three syllabaries I have mentioned. Tartessians or Iberians must have known them at the time of, not merely adopting the Phoenician abjad or even a variant of it, but of inventing a wholly new syllabary.
The hieroglyph > syllabary > alphabet pattern of evolution is common worldwide. I challenge you to point to a single case when an alphabet becomes syllabary.
As for "beti", claiming a protoword without properly documenting it with real speech examples is nonsense.
More so when it can come or be otherwise related with the Basque verbal form "bedi" (let it be), form most common in the Christian ritual sentence "so it be" ("amen"), which in Basque is "hala bedi".
And more so when you are doing exactly what you complain that should not be done: relating words by mere approximate sound value regardless of meaning. Why would Basques take their world for something as basic in speech as "always" from other language? It's not like it's a new weapon type, which would be justified, or a new communication concept as book or telephone... it's one of the most common words of speech!
You have not proven either that they took their signs from the Phoencian abjad exclusively. The Phoenician alphabet has only 22 characters, at least some of which do NOT correspond with any Iberian signs. The Iberian syllabary has at least 32 signs (5 vowels, 7 free consonants and 15 syllables).
ReplyDeleteThe Cypriot syllabary had some 55 signs (Cretan some 60 of them).
Good. But the burden of proof is on you, not me. Anybody who proposes something is entitled to supply the evidence.
As for "beti", claiming a protoword without properly documenting it with real speech examples is nonsense.
I should have explained this with more detail. To begin with, the concept 'life' is semantically related to 'eternal' in IE languages. For example, Latin aevum '(eternal) time; lifetime; age, generation' comes from PIE *aju- 'life'.
Basque beti supposes an earlier form *beto- from a Late Gaulish dialect where i became e. My Italian colleague Marco Moretti quoted the Sequanic inscription memento beto to dio 'remember forever your god'.
Why would Basques take their world for something as basic in speech as "always" from other language?
I won't say it's a "basic" term, but rather a religious one.
It looks like Vascologists themselves have deeply underestimated the strong Celtic influence upon ancient Basques and Iberians. To quote an interesting example, Basque zuhur 'wise, prudent' < *sun-uŕ is a semantic calque from Celtic *dru-wid 'druid', a compound from *dru 'tree' and *weid- 'to know', lit. 'expert in trees'.
And more so when you are doing exactly what you complain that should not be done: relating words by mere approximate sound value regardless of meaning.
ReplyDeleteOn the contrary, it's you who actually compared phonetically unrelated words with the same meaning in Basque and PIE.
"But the burden of proof is on you, not me. Anybody who proposes something is entitled to supply the evidence".
ReplyDeleteHave you supplied any evidence of your Phoenician only origin hypothesis? In that aspect the burden of proof is yours.
"I should have explained this with more detail. To begin with, the concept 'life' is semantically related to 'eternal' in IE languages".
It is highly speculative, forcing meaning assimilations. These may make sense in their original languages, I do not question that, but extrapolating them to pretext a loanword is not serious linguistics.
Beti is not a religious term: it is a common word. If it has to have a religious origin it'd be Christian... but Basque anyhow, as I said in from the ritual form "hala bedi", (so it be, amen).
"... the Sequanic inscription memento beto to dio 'remember forever your god'".
How do you know "beto" means forever and not something else, like an emphatic term?
"Basque zuhur 'wise, prudent' < *sun-uŕ is a semantic calque from Celtic *dru-wid 'druid', a compound from *dru 'tree' and *weid- 'to know', lit. 'expert in trees'".
And how does it relate to Basque zuhaitz, tree? Don't tell me it does not, you just kicked your ass in this one.
Remember that the very concept of 'druid' is non-Celtic but pre-Celtic British, possibly Vasconic as well. Iberian Celts never had druids or anything like druidism and some were even claimed to be atheists.
Is it possible that druid is a semantic calque from zuhur instead? I'd say so.
"... it's you who actually compared phonetically unrelated words with the same meaning in Basque and PIE".
ReplyDeleteAt least I did make sure that the meaning was the same. Which is the first thing to care about, otherwsie we end up comparing thumb with stick and horse with frog.
Have you supplied any evidence of your Phoenician only origin hypothesis? In that aspect the burden of proof is yours.
ReplyDeleteNot really, because it's what it says stablished scholarship. If you want to challenge that (something perfectly legitimate), it's up to you to supply the necessary evidence.
"I should have explained this with more detail. To begin with, the concept 'life' is semantically related to 'eternal' in IE languages".
It is highly speculative, forcing meaning assimilations. These may make sense in their original languages, I do not question that, but extrapolating them to pretext a loanword is not serious linguistics.
I haven't "extrapolated anything", this is internal to Gaulish.
How do you know "beto" means forever and not something else, like an emphatic term?
Because this is the most parsimonous hypothesis.
"Basque zuhur 'wise, prudent' < *sun-uŕ is a semantic calque from Celtic *dru-wid 'druid', a compound from *dru 'tree' and *weid- 'to know', lit. 'expert in trees'".
And how does it relate to Basque zuhaitz, tree? Don't tell me it does not, you just kicked your ass in this one.
These words have as first member zur 'wood' (soft rothic) < *sun-.
Remember that the very concept of 'druid' is non-Celtic but pre-Celtic British, possibly Vasconic as well.
Evidence?
Is it possible that druid is a semantic calque from zuhur instead? I'd say so.
Not impossible, but it must be demonstrated.
At least I did make sure that the meaning was the same.
But you didn't care about phonetics. This isn't how comparative linguistics works.
No one liners, please. I bet that you, with your university education, can write better than that.
ReplyDeleteAnyhow, I do not understand why you are so close-minded. I have already mentioned how Rodríguez Ramos himself finds difficult to explain how the syllabary hatched from the Phoenician abjad. He says that this is a matter that requires some better thought and I am proposing a coherent model: Cypriot syllabary influence at the genesis, influence that is attested archaeologically (in trade items) and is crucial also to understand how Phoencians (North Canaanites) set out to be the mariner people they are known to history. Nothing in all this part of history can be understood without the Cypriot connection.
As for the Gaulish loanword hypothesis of beti, I think you make many claims without sufficient substantiation, like for instance the word still existing in Brythonic or something. These interpolations from ancient texts are always a bit dubious, more when you look at them in some depth, as happened with your "gdonios" claim.
"These words have as first member zur 'wood' (soft rothic) < *sun-".
The etymology is conjectural.
The clear thing, and in this I will agree is that the root is zur (wood), as in zuri (white, probably from zur-ti: woody), zuhaitz (tree, lit. rock of wood) and now you say also zuhur (astute), I am not sure how you make "-ur" related to "to know" (jakin) but I'll let it stay as possible.
It is not in any case a calque from Celtic but the opposite wold be more likely (as druidism is pre-Celtic).
"Evidence?"
Not only it is attested by Roman sources (cf. Kruta and nearly any other documentation on druidism), which declared the concept of British origin and not truly native, but also these same ancient sources never make any mention of druidism or anything of the like among Iberian Celts. The Vaccei, a militarist coalition, were proclaimed atheist in fact (either Strabo or Pliny, can't recall).
"Not impossible, but it must be demonstrated".
Not so easy to demonstrate because pre-Celtic languages of Britain, which may have been related to Basque and are the source of the druidic concepts, are fully dead and forgotten.
"But you didn't care about phonetics".
Can you remind me what was this about? Whatever the case, if I committed errors in phonetics, you should criticize them but much worse is to compare words unrelated or very weakly related in meaning (unless a very powerful reason exists, as happened with the two words that swapped meanings per that Gascon linguist "friend" of yours who visited here some time ago).
Anyhow, I do not understand why you are so close-minded. I have already mentioned how Rodríguez Ramos himself finds difficult to explain how the syllabary hatched from the Phoenician abjad. He says that this is a matter that requires some better thought and I am proposing a coherent model: Cypriot syllabary influence at the genesis, influence that is attested archaeologically (in trade items) and is crucial also to understand how Phoencians (North Canaanites) set out to be the mariner people they are known to history. Nothing in all this part of history can be understood without the Cypriot connection.
ReplyDeleteI'm not close minded, but the material evidence, i.e. how the Iberian signs are derived from ,say, the Cypriot ones, still lacks.
As for the Gaulish loanword hypothesis of beti, I think you make many claims without sufficient substantiation, like for instance the word still existing in Brythonic or something. These interpolations from ancient texts are always a bit dubious, more when you look at them in some depth, as happened with your "gdonios" claim.
Have you look at Matasović dictionary? Then why did I upload it?
Anyway, your argument is also applyable to your own "interpretations" of Iberian texts.
The clear thing, and in this I will agree is that the root is zur (wood), as in zuri (white, probably from zur-ti: woody), zuhaitz (tree, lit. rock of wood) and now you say also zuhur (astute), I am not sure how you make "-ur" related to "to know" (jakin) but I'll let it stay as possible.
Because I didn't explain this is the same root found in i-ra-kurri 'to read', from which Sabino Arana (labelled as "racist" by some people in my town) coined the neologisms ikur 'symbol' and ikurrin 'flag'. I relate this root to PNC *=HǝχχVr- 'to know; to perceive'
Can you remind me what was this about?
You "Swadesh list" comparison between Basque and PIE.
"Have you look at Matasović dictionary?"
ReplyDeleteWhy do I bother explaining all? Look above: after that upload of yours, the gdonios inscription was discussed in depth and it is unclear of what it means what it says and even if it is Celtic at all.
"I relate this root to PNC *=HǝχχVr- 'to know; to perceive'".
Conjectural again.
I'd dare say that your division of irakurri into "i-ra-kurri" is unsustainable.
If you want to do that you need to split as follows:
ira- (era-) + -kurr- + -i
The final -i is the verbal infinitive mark, there's no doubt about that (in Basque these are -i, -n and -tu). The initial ira- should be (in order to do your etymology any good) era- (which was surely what Arana had in mind actually).
Era- is a preffix that modifies the meaning of verbs. Examples:
· eragin (from egin: to do): to transform
· erabili (from ibili: to walk): to use
Etc. There are many many verbs of this kind. Several pages in the dictionary.
If irakurri has to follow your PNC root, ira- must be era-.
However I can think also of era- ekarri (to bring, to carry).
Alternatively I can think of something related to iragan (the past). But whatever.
What I'm flippant, as always, is that arrogant certainty that you use to express your hypothesis, as if they'd be proven even before any reality check (at least a second opinion).
"You "Swadesh list" comparison between Basque and PIE".
Ah, that's another thread. I do not think that I made any major such phonetic correlation errors.
I'd dare say that your division of irakurri into "i-ra-kurri" is unsustainable. If you want to do that you need to split as follows:
ReplyDeleteira- (era-) + -kurr- + -i
That's right. I made a mistake.
Era- is a preffix that modifies the meaning of verbs. Examples:
This is the causative prefix *-ra-.
If irakurri has to follow your PNC root, ira- must be era-.
The *e- prefix is found in non-finite and past forms of the verb. However, in modern Basque, sometimes has become i-. This isn't really a problem.
"You "Swadesh list" comparison between Basque and PIE".
Ah, that's another thread. I do not think that I made any major such phonetic correlation errors.
This is precisely why your "comparison" doesn't work at all: in most cases there's no phonetic "correlation" between these comparanda. The obvious conclusion is that Basque and PIE aren't closely related.
"This is the causative prefix *-ra-."
ReplyDeleteNo, it's the modal preffix "era-", with "era" as whole word meaning "mode" and also existing as suffix in the meaning "language" (but with a more lax approach "way of life" too). You can also find the word era in other terms like galdera (question), arabera (version), izaera (personality), hizkera (dialect), etc.
You do not need proto-words from across Earth when it's so obvious in extant Basque.
"Basque and PIE aren't closely related".
Nothing is "closely" related to Basque with the possible exception of Iberian. But IE may be closer to Basque than NE Caucasian, depending how you approach the matter.
The Swadesh list approach suggests that IE and Basque form a single branch or which NEC is another branch. That's how far I have reached ever and I feel it is a reasonable conclusion.
No, it's the modal preffix "era-", with "era" as whole word meaning "mode" and also existing as suffix in the meaning "language" (but with a more lax approach "way of life" too). You can also find the word era in other terms like galdera (question), arabera (version), izaera (personality), hizkera (dialect), etc.
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid this -era has nothing to do with verbs. In basque (as well as in many other languages) verb and noun morpohology are worlds apart.
You do not need proto-words from across Earth when it's so obvious in extant Basque.
The problem is your analysis are bound to be wrong because you lack some basic knowledge. This is why I'd recommend you to read a good book on the subject like Trask's.
But IE may be closer to Basque than NE Caucasian, depending how you approach the matter.
So far I haven't seen that evidence.
The Swadesh list approach suggests that IE and Basque form a single branch or which NEC is another branch. That's how far I have reached ever and I feel it is a reasonable conclusion.
The problem is that just comparing a word in the language A with another word in a language B with identical meaning doesn't work.
"The problem is that just comparing a word in the language A with another word in a language B with identical meaning doesn't work".
ReplyDeleteIt may fail on occasion but the statistical result of comparing a number of them (with some method as with Swadesh lists) ought to produce some significant results. These results can always be challenged because of accidental flaws but not the method.
"In basque (as well as in many other languages) verb and noun morpohology are worlds apart".
I don't know if this is true or not or when it is if sometimes, I just know that 'era' is 'era' (mode) for verbs as for nouns (albeit in different positions and with somewhat different functions). And opposed to this natural, obvious, internal logic you just come with some esoteric "e-ra" conjecture from outer space.
Suggestion rejected.
It may fail on occasion but the statistical result of comparing a number of them (with some method as with Swadesh lists) ought to produce some significant results.
ReplyDeleteNot really. It only works on closely related languages, which certaintly isn't the case of basque and PIE.
These results can always be challenged because of accidental flaws but not the method.
See above.
I just know that 'era' is 'era' (mode) for verbs as for nouns (albeit in different positions and with somewhat different functions).
Sorry, but they're completely different things. You just assume two word segments which have the same form are actually the same, but very often this isn't true (homonymy).
And opposed to this natural, obvious, internal logic
I'd say "amateurish" way of thinking.
you just come with some esoteric "e-ra" conjecture from outer space.
Do you understand how verb morphology works in Basque? I also remember having ar argument with you à propos of definite articles, a basic item of noun morphology.
There's nothing "esoteric" here, only you need to be trained on the matter. There's no problem in being an amateur, but you still lack some knowledges you couldn't go without.
Nothing is "closely" related to Basque with the possible exception of Iberian. But IE may be closer to Basque than NE Caucasian, depending how you approach the matter.Actually, Basque is sometime closer to NWC than NEC.
For example, itsaso 'sea' can be analyzed as *(g)i-tsa-śo, where the root *tsa is cognate to NWC *tɕǝ 'salty'.
Let's see: Greenberg succesfully produced the first ever consistent linguistic classification of Africa (some refinement seems to be needed, specially in the Niger-Congo family, but still very good) and also the only consistent linguistic classification of Native American languages (Amerind must be correct or all our understanding of the colonization of America is radically wrong). And then you tell me that superb method does not work? C'mon!
ReplyDelete"You just assume two word segments which have the same form are actually the same, but very often this isn't true (homonymy)".
The MEANING in all cases is "era" (mode): can't you understand something so simple?!
You shield your pathetic disdain for hard reality behind claims of homonymy but your claims make no sense at all. I cannot take your opinions as serious: you systematically disdain the self-evident and claim extremely retorted and twisted pseudo-logic instead, you are an enemy of Occam's Razor.
"For example, itsaso 'sea' can be analyzed as *(g)i-tsa-śo, where the root *tsa is cognate to NWC *tɕǝ 'salty'".
ReplyDeleteYou are "able" to make such an esoteric and unlikely claim without even blinking (remember that salt in Basque is gatz, unrelated) and you are unable to see how NW Caucasian (first etymology ever for Basque in NW Caucasian!) *tɕǝ is cognate of IE *sal- (salt).
It is not the first time I see IE-NWC likely cognates and I'm considering these two families might have a common origin. But not NWC-Basque: I have never seen any systematic approach that makes any correlation between NWC and Basque (or even NWC and NEC either, mind you).
Let's see: Greenberg succesfully produced the first ever consistent linguistic classification of Africa (some refinement seems to be needed, specially in the Niger-Congo family, but still very good) and also the only consistent linguistic classification of Native American languages (Amerind must be correct or all our understanding of the colonization of America is radically wrong). And then you tell me that superb method does not work? C'mon!
ReplyDeleteHave you even heard of "regular sound correspondences"? This what's rquired to prove relationship.
The MEANING in all cases is "era" (mode): can't you understand something so simple?!
No. Let me explain you. For example, the causative form ofthe verb e-karr-i 'to bring' is e-ra-karr-i. You can see a *-ra- prefix is added before the verbal root.
You shield your pathetic disdain for hard reality behind claims of homonymy but your claims make no sense at all. I cannot take your opinions as serious: you systematically disdain the self-evident and claim extremely retorted and twisted pseudo-logic instead, you are an enemy of Occam's Razor.
Sorry, but the "hard reality" is your knowledge on historical linguistics is poor. It's like trying to repair a TV set knowing nothing on electronics. Then you open the case and see a flyback transformer and you think "what an esoteric device".
You are "able" to make such an esoteric and unlikely claim without even blinking (remember that salt in Basque is gatz, unrelated)
Because this is a different root. How many times I've told the same meaning can be expressed by different roots, even in the same language?
and you are unable to see how NW Caucasian (first etymology ever for Basque in NW Caucasian!) *tɕǝ is cognate of IE *sal- (salt).
No, It's actually gatz which is cognate to IE *sa(:)l-, although this is far from being obvious and needs a lot of research.
I have never seen any systematic approach that makes any correlation between NWC and Basque (or even NWC and NEC either, mind you).
This is because, as usual, you're misinformed.
"Have you even heard of "regular sound correspondences"?"
ReplyDeleteIndeed and I have always thought that it is not necessary because a language is not anything homogeneous (dialects, changes through time) and changes can happen in several moments and contexts, rendering this assumption partly meaningless (notice that I do not say totally, just partly so).
"For example, the causative form ofthe verb e-karr-i 'to bring' is e-ra-karr-i. You can see a *-ra- prefix is added before the verbal root".
NO. I see an era- prefix before the verbal root (karr), the same that I see an era- prefix before the verbal radix bil (of ibili or maybe of bildu) in erabili or before the verbal radix aiki (of jaiki) in eraiki.
You are confused by the fact that many verbs in Basque begin with the letter e- before the radix but that is not necessary nor any rule - much less follows your alleged etymologies.
ndeed and I have always thought that it is not necessary because a language is not anything homogeneous (dialects, changes through time) and changes can happen in several moments and contexts, rendering this assumption partly meaningless (notice that I do not say totally, just partly so).
ReplyDeleteI disagree. Sound correspondences are extremely important because it's the only tool we'vr got to tell true cognates from random similarities. In fact, most of your PIE-basque comparanda aren't even remotedly similar.
You are confused by the fact that many verbs in Basque begin with the letter e- before the radix but that is not necessary nor any rule - much less follows your alleged etymologies.
No, it's YOU who's confused. What else could be "the letter e-" if not a prefix? Maybe a cookie? :-)
"What else could be "the letter e-" if not a prefix? Maybe a cookie?"
ReplyDeleteThe letter e- is a random element as you can see by looking at any list of Basque verbs: there's no rule for a verb beginning with e- before the radix nor beginning with any other prefix changes how the verb behaves. Also verbs which do not begin with e- can and are modified by the particle era- (before the radix) exactly the same as those that do begin with e-.
You are making a total mess here.
“I causativi con –ra-, come e-ra-doski säugen da e-doski saugen, hanno riscontro nei causativi con -r- dell’Abchazo. Vi sono anche dei causativi con –s-, per es. j-arri sich setzen: e-z-arri setzen, cfr. Berbero ers: caus. s-ers id. (noto di passaggio che nel Basco rr sembra derivare spesso da rs, cfr. erran ed esan dire, urrin per *ursin e usain per *ursain duft). Cfr. anche e-s-tali coprire con Berb.del, dal id.”
ReplyDelete(Alfredo Trombetti, Elementi di glottologia, Bologna 1923, p. 122).
The letter e- is a random element as you can see by looking at any list of Basque verbs: there's no rule for a verb beginning with e- before the radix nor beginning with any other prefix changes how the verb behaves.
ReplyDeleteNot really. The prefix e- (sometimes changed to i- due to assimilation) is found in most ANCIENT verbs as well as in Iberian. There's however another class of verbs which don't have it, and these include the ones with the -tu suffix, presumably borrowed from Latin.
You are making a total mess here.
I'm afraid this sentence applies to you. :-)
While you are surely right, now that I think on it, about the existence of a prefixing element e-/i-, I don't think you are right about the rest. This does not change that the added prefix is era- and not a most unlikely -ra- that breaks all logic and grammar as far as I can tell.
ReplyDeleteAlso the suffix -tu is not Latin nor is present in Latin-derived words (only nor mostly). You are correct in that it seems to indicate a change in how the infinitive is made, from the -i/-n ending to a now standarized -tu one and that era-...-tu verbs are rare (though not totally non-existent: eraberritu, erazagutu).
This does not change that the added prefix is era- and not a most unlikely -ra- that breaks all logic and grammar as far as I can tell.
ReplyDeleteNo, it doesn't. The problem is you confuse the causative verb prefix *-ra- with the noun -ara, -era 'way of'.
Also the suffix -tu is not Latin
Why do you say so? Latin participles end in -tum.
nor is present in Latin-derived words (only nor mostly).
Because it's appended to Basque lexemes.
"The problem is you confuse the causative verb prefix *-ra- with the noun -ara, -era 'way of'".
ReplyDeleteI don't think I confuse anything: there is no REAL "-ra-" just a conjectural proto-root "*-ra-" that comes from nowhere and has no real life correlates.
Instead there is a real word "era", which can be suffixed [galdu (to lose): galdera (question < lost-like) - izan (to be): izaera (personality < being-like)], which can be found alone "era hori" (that way, mode, style, kind) and that, IMO, can be prefixed as well and is in fact prefixed to verbs to change their meaning in a subtle or radical way, almost exactly as suffixed particles do with phrasal verbs in English.
"Why do you say so?"
Because the verbs are in a vast majority of cases of genuine Basque (or otherwise non-Latin) roots. I see no logic other than the usual Latino-mania or generic Indoeuropeo-mania to postulate that change precisely with Romanization. It might be but I see no particular reason to claim that so firmly. At best it is a hypothesis to be demonstrated.
"Because it's appended to Basque lexemes".
Which is anomalous. Typically words migrate between contacting languages but grammar does not, yet in this case you (and others) postulate that a grammatical element has migrated, displacing to some extent the pre-existent ones... but words have not migrated.
It's really odd. So I doubt that's the real pattern. Just because some verbal forms (not the infinitive but the participle, which in Basque is made with -t(z)en) end in a way that sounds similar is not enough to get entrenched in such a claim, otherwise unlikely.
Maju, only two languages survived to Latin in Western Roman Empire: Albanian and Basque. They survived not only because these peoples had the strength to do it, but probably also because these peoples lived in mountainous zones.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately I haven’t the knowledge of Basque like that I have of Albanian, but if it happened to Basque what happened to Albanian, the influence of Latin was massive at every level, also grammatical and syntactic, not only lexical one.
Technically Albania or Kosovo never were in the Western Roman Empire. However the Northern part of the country was in the area of Latin influence and, also, because of the Ilyrian wars, coastal Albania was since very early exposed to the influence of Latin, long before the Eastern Empire could even attempt to exist at all.
ReplyDeleteSomehow you forget Berber anyhow. While some Berber languages like Kabyle were since early on (Yugurthine war) exposed to Latin influence, others were only later exposed and others not at all (or very indirectly at the best) because they existed outside the Roman imperial borders.
While no doubt some Latin influence in Kabyle and other Berber languages must have happened, I am unaware of any such extremist claims as those proposed for Basque. As with Albanian there are claims of "normal" loanwords like plow and donkey, some of which come from the nominative sing. (early) and some from the accusative (late). But nothing about a grammatical form being inserted in native grammar, nothing like the claims made about -tu.
So why should I accept claims about Basque on matters unprecedented even in such heavily "contaminated" languages as Albanian? The natural reaction is to hush them... unless you are an acritical Latinophile.
“39. Un suffisso –to trovasi in gorro-to odio, rancore, cfr. Gorro-mio id., Less. 102.
ReplyDeleteIl participio passato passivo debole termina in –tu, per es. har-tu preso, sar-tu entrato, gal-du perduto, sal-du venduto, e-zaga-tu conosciuto. Numerosi sono i denominativi come bildur-tu temuto, apain-du ornato, handi-tu ingrandito, garbi-tu pulito. E numerose sono le forme di origine latina, come sendi-tu sentito.
Questo participio “debole” si considera generalmente come più recente di quello “forte” e si ritiene che la terminazione –tu sia latina. Senza negare la possibilità di tale origine, conviene però notare che il Basco –tu, mentre sembra far parte di tutto un sistema (per es. ega-tu: ega-ti, Glott. 749, e regolarmente minza-tu parlato : minza-tze parlare), concorda benissimo con numerose formazioni simili appartenenti a vari gruppi linguistici. Del resto, quale forma avrebbe preceduto, per es., har-tu? Cfr. van Eys, Gramm. 467.
a) Egizio dj-tw dato; Kafa ogē-to cresciuto, adulto, allē-to perduto, imī-to
donato > dono.
c) Greco ζευκ-τό-ς aggiogato, Lat. auc-to aumentato, da-to dato (e parallelamente can-tu- ecc.). – Mangiu turga-tu dimagrito, magro, Mong. saχal-tu barbato”
(Alfredo Trombetti, Le origini della lingua basca, Bologna 1923-25, p.41)
I don't think I confuse anything: there is no REAL "-ra-" just a conjectural proto-root "*-ra-" that comes from nowhere and has no real life correlates.
ReplyDeleteNot really. It does come from the past of the Basque language, and also has "real life correlates": the *-ra in gara 'we are', zara 'you (pl.) are' and dira 'they are'.
Instead there is a real word "era", which can be suffixed [galdu (to lose): galdera (question < lost-like) - izan (to be): izaera (personality < being-like)], which can be found alone "era hori" (that way, mode, style, kind) and that, IMO, can be prefixed as well and is in fact prefixed to verbs to change their meaning in a subtle or radical way, almost exactly as suffixed particles do with phrasal verbs in English.
As said before, this is actually a noun -ara, -era < Paleo-Basque *(k)ala, *(k)ela.
Like in other languages, verb and noun morphology doesn't "mix" in Basque. Being an amateur is no problem, but lacking basic knowledges such as this, is it.
Which is anomalous. Typically words migrate between contacting languages but grammar does not, yet in this case you (and others) postulate that a grammatical element has migrated, displacing to some extent the pre-existent ones... but words have not migrated.
Sure, morphological (e.g. "grammar") are more rarely borrowed, but it doesn't they can't be.
Gioello, I said wrong earlier: there's no participle in Basque: the past or present participle (recent past) tense is made with the infinitive and the corresponding auxiliar. The infinitive can end (except irregular verbs: bizi, hil, jaio) in -n, -i or -tu.
ReplyDeleteThere is no partciple in Basque because the grammar is plainly different than in Indoeuropean.
To make a true participle you add -ta to the infinitive: eginda dago (it is done), hilda dago (it is dead, killed), bilduta dago (it is gathered), etc.
The commonality of suffixes in -tV or -tzV- is pervasive in Basque, so I am not surprised at all about -tu being one.
Octavià:
ReplyDelete"... has "real life correlates": the *-ra in gara 'we are', zara 'you (pl.) are' and dira 'they are'".
Very forced analogy, really. We are here before the irregular and synthetic verb 'to be' (izan) in present form plural, which always strikes me as curiously akin to English "are" by the way (no, you won't see even if you write them side by side, so never mind).
Mind you that in past form and whenever it has a suffix, there is not anymore -ra (actually -ara) but -re- (actually -are-) plus the suffix:
For past tenses: g-are-n, z-are-n, d-ire-n. Ok diren is irregular but, comparing with other verbs the third person prefix is d- not di- (could be da however where the verbal root begins with consonant), so the a>i change is a peculiarity of this verb. See:
Gara - Dira (to be/exist/have an attribute)
GAude - DAude (to be/stay)
GAtoz - DAtoz (to come)
Goaz - Doaz (to go)
"Gara" anyhow, like nearly anything else in Basque, changes a lot along dialectal lines. As the song goes: "Araban baGARE, Gipuzkun baGERA, Xiberun baGIRE ta Bizkaian baGARA, baita ere Lapurdin ta Nafarroan".
So we have a very "eroded" verb where the only recognizable elements across dialects are the initial G- (person indicator, in this case "we": gu) and the -R- (not -ra- nor anything really recognizable as such) of the the verb IZAN, which does not keep the root. I imagine that it was originally IRAN (or IREN) instead and that somehow (IE influence?) there was a sound change R>Z.
This is in any case not what you say: no "causative" nor anything of the like but a fossilized or otherwise irregular verbal root -IRA or -IRE, changed into -ARA or -ARE in some cases bu virtue of its intrinsic diversity across dialects.
You guys love to build on thin air, with lots of "reasons" that have an asterisk meaning someone made it up (without or without reason but unreal in any case). Unless you step on real languages and bring forward real words you'll be living a lie.
PS- Gioello: I just recalled that there is a third language/liguistic group that survived Romanization in the Western Empire until this day: Brythonic Celtic (best known as Welsh, Cornish and the close relative of this one: Breton).
ReplyDeleteThe Roman domination of all the three areas was of the order of 400 years, the main variation being the time of conquest:
· Britain: 43-410 CE (c. 350 years)
· Numidia: 46 BCE-439 CE (c. 450 years)
· Mauretania 40-428 CE (c. 350 years)
· Aquitaine (ref. for Basque lands): 56 BCE-409 CE (c. 450 years)
"... has "real life correlates": the *-ra in gara 'we are', zara 'you (pl.) are' and dira 'they are'".
ReplyDeleteThis is a suppletive root of izan 'to be':
gara 'we are' < *ga da-ira-de
zara 'you are (pl.)' < *za da-ira-de
dira 'they are' < *da-ira-de.
This is my own reconstruction, partly based on other people's work. We've got the 1st and 2nd plural person agreement prefixes *ga, *za, the present tense indicator *da-, the verb root *-ira- and the plural marker suffix *-de. You might also notice there's no 3rd person prefix in Basque.
GAude - DAude (to be/stay)
This is *ga da-go-de
GAtoz - DAtoz (to come)
This is *ga da-to-za, with a different plutal marker *-za.
Goaz - Doaz (to go)
This is *ga da-go-za.
"Gara" anyhow, like nearly anything else in Basque, changes a lot along dialectal lines. As the song goes: "Araban baGARE, Gipuzkun baGERA, Xiberun baGIRE ta Bizkaian baGARA, baita ere Lapurdin ta Nafarroan".
These variants reflect different outputs of *ga-da-i....
So we have a very "eroded" verb where the only recognizable elements across dialects are the initial G- (person indicator, in this case "we": gu) and the -R- (not -ra- nor anything really recognizable as such) of the the verb IZAN, which does not keep the root. I imagine that it was originally IRAN (or IREN) instead and that somehow (IE influence?) there was a sound change R>Z.
Not really, because they're suppletive roots. A classical example of a verb with suppletive roots is Spanish ir 'to go' (Latin eō, īre whose present is conjugated as voy, vas, va, vamos, vais, van (Latin vādō, vādere).
This is in any case not what you say: no "causative" nor anything of the like but a fossilized or otherwise irregular verbal root -IRA or -IRE, changed into -ARA or -ARE in some cases bu virtue of its intrinsic diversity across dialects.
See above. IMHO, this root is remotdely related to the causative prefix -ra- (definitively not **era-).
You guys love to build on thin air, with lots of "reasons" that have an asterisk meaning someone made it up (without or without reason but unreal in any case). Unless you step on real languages and bring forward real words you'll be living a lie.
I'm afraid your approach is an amteurish one.
The synthetic verb formation is always:
ReplyDeletePreffix + root (+ suffix).
The verbal root in JOAN is -OA-
And therefore GOAZ is G+OA+Z (we+go+plural) - and not anything like "*ga da-go-za" (LOL).
There are some irregular verbs, notably the two translated as "to be": IZAN and EGON, the latter only in the plural form.
"Not really, because they're suppletive roots".
You are right here: I was letting my mind fly to high and wrongly so. I realized later.
Do you think that the original form of NAIZ (I am) was NAZA?, as -za- would appear to be the genuine root of I-ZA-N? Just as we say NAGO from E-GO-N.
This regardless of the plural forms which are as you say using suppletive roots.
"this root is remotdely related to the causative prefix -ra-".
You fail to demonstrate it (would be infix anyhow) once and again, sorry.
"I'm afraid your approach is an amteurish one".
You repeat the word "amateurish" as if that would be an incantation that could protect your opinions from scrutiny. It will not.
The verbal root in JOAN is -OA-
ReplyDeleteYes, that's right. I made a wrong copy & paste from another verb.
And therefore GOAZ is G+OA+Z (we+go+plural) - and not anything like "*ga da-go-za" (LOL).
This would be *ga da-oa-za.
Do you think that the original form of NAIZ (I am) was NAZA?, as -za- would appear to be the genuine root of I-ZA-N? Just as we say NAGO from E-GO-N.
IMHO, naiz is from *na da-iza.
Actually, these verbs would *e-izan-i and *e-gon-i, but when the verbal root ended in a nasal, strange things happened.
BTW, in past forms the *da- prefix is substitued by *z-e-, where e- is the same prefix found in non-finite forms. There's also an -en suffix.
Understanding the verb structure in Basque can be somewhat difficult, but it's rewarding, specially if you pretend to understand Iberian.
You repeat the word "amateurish" as if that would be an incantation that could protect your opinions from scrutiny. It will not.
No, it only describes your lack of knowledge about the subject. It's like trying to repair a TV set without knowing electronics.
I don't see why you add "da" to the synthetic verbs of all the things you add. NA-IZ(a) is more like the original thing, where NI (I) becomes NA- (or just N- in other cases) and the verbal root -IZ(a)- follows.
ReplyDeleteThe "DA" is in excess and there's no reason to add it only to take it out then. DA- (D-) is the third person in synthetic verbs but does not need to be in other persons (N-, Z-, G-, etc. take its place).
Also the A after IZ (IZA) is surely not there, just that it is needed to fit the verbal ending -N. Otherwise its mute, never was there to begin with.
I'm not sure if this is a bit too daring but does not IZEN (name) mean "superlative being", "the greatest being"? -en is the superlative declension: goien (highest, greatest), handien (largest), etc. There's only a subtle difference in any case in the words name and to be in Basque, reflected in sayings: "izena izana": the name (is) the being, "izena duen guztia izan omen da": all that has name may be.
don't see why you add "da" to the synthetic verbs of all the things you add. The "DA" is in excess and there's no reason to add it only to take it out then. DA- (D-) is the third person in synthetic verbs but does not need to be in other persons (N-, Z-, G-, etc. take its place).
ReplyDeleteI understand your "scepticism", but there's a reason for that. This *da- isn't actually a 3rd person agreement marker but a present tense one. Basque itself doesn't have genuine 3rd person pronouns, the modern ones being a specialization from demonstratives.
Also the A after IZ (IZA) is surely not there, just that it is needed to fit the verbal ending -N. Otherwise its mute, never was there to begin with.
Not really. Basque tended to delete final unstressed vowels: e.g. *bade > bat '1'.
I'm not sure if this is a bit too daring but does not IZEN (name) mean "superlative being", "the greatest being"?
I'm afraid this is TOO MUCH. Forget it.
"This *da- isn't actually a 3rd person agreement marker but a present tense one".
ReplyDeleteConjectural and unnecessary.
"Basque itself doesn't have genuine 3rd person pronouns, the modern ones being a specialization from demonstratives".
Basque really has little use for pronouns. In English you can't speak without them but in Basque you can, and there is no need to say "he" when you can say "Mike" or "the dog" or "that one" if need be and when you can say he did, he wrote, he spoke, he walked... without any need to write down "he" (or "she" or "it" or "they"). It happens in Romance too, even if these retain a "classical" pronoun, which is almost never used.
But the particle for the third person may come from a lost third person sing. pronoun dV.
Also there's no need to mark the default tense: present.
"Not really. Basque tended to delete final unstressed vowels: e.g. *bade > bat '1'".
Maybe but the root per izen is iz- not -za-nor -iza-. Guess this is all arguable but I'm more comfortable with an iz- root for izan, as attested in real words: izen, naiz, haiz, etc. Probably giza also has that root plus the collective (gu: we) G- preffix. So giza (human) is "what we are", from which, gizon, etc.
This probably pre-dates the evolution of secondary root -(i)ra (gara, zara, dira) or is a parallel development.
The problem is that while I tend to imagine people creating the language out of the blue, you always seem to need to go to the remote mount Caucasus for some odd reason and force things a lot.
"I'm afraid this is TOO MUCH. Forget it".
Then you would not like either that minimalist theory of J. Pascual in which arri erri irri orri urri (stone, people, laughter, leaf, scarce) are all conceptual variants of the same root.
There are big differences when you see a language from inside and when you look at it from the outside. While both approaches may be complementary, they should not be mutually excluding... yet you always exclude internal reconstruction.
"This *da- isn't actually a 3rd person agreement marker but a present tense one".
ReplyDeleteConjectural and unnecessary.
This again reflects your ignorance of the relevant literature.
But the particle for the third person may come from a lost third person sing. pronoun dV.
Certainly not. This possibly was a fossilized adverb 'now'.
Maybe but the root per izen is iz- not -za-nor -iza-.
I'm afraid izen 'name' has nothing to do with the verb izan.
The problem is that while I tend to imagine people creating the language out of the blue
A crude "isolacionist" approach.
you always seem to need to go to the remote mount Caucasus for some odd reason and force things a lot.
I don't think Gaulish or Celtiberian, which supplied words like gizon or zain, were spoken in the Caucasus.
There are big differences when you see a language from inside and when you look at it from the outside.
There're also big differences when you take up a subject without any previous knowledge than when you have some expertise. Would you try to repair a TV set without knowing electronics? Surely not. :-)
While both approaches may be complementary, they should not be mutually excluding... yet you always exclude internal reconstruction.
Not always, but you clearly abuse it.
"I'm afraid izen 'name' has nothing to do with the verb izan" [to be].
ReplyDeleteThat is why you and I are never going to agree: it is self-evident, painfully obvious, insultingly clear that izen and izan are closely related. They may even be the same word that has evolved divergently (in a very subtle way) in order to show some distinction according to meaning.
There's no way on earth to dispute this identity in form, etymology and meaning (more so when names have been magical bearers of the being in so many different cultures through the world, having in many cases to keep them secret not to allow others to exert undue magical power over your real being).
Probably my first proposed etymology of izen as "the most being" is unnatural and wrong but that of izen as mere variant of izan is unquestionable.
"I don't think Gaulish or Celtiberian, which supplied words like gizon or zain, were spoken in the Caucasus".
You think they influenced Basque language in ways extremely obscure and forced in spite of almost permanent war with these peoples.
You also ignore the fact that at least some of these words show clear signs of Basque > Celtic migration, not by contact but by substrate creolization. Remember that it was Celts who invaded (not long before Romans actually) and that they were largely aculturized "Basques" (Aquitanians, Ligurians, etc.)
That is why you and I are never going to agree: it is self-evident, painfully obvious, insultingly clear that izen and izan are closely related.
ReplyDeleteAs you linke using adjectives, I'd say this is blatantly amateurish. :-)
"I don't think Gaulish or Celtiberian, which supplied words like gizon or zain, were spoken in the Caucasus".
You think they influenced Basque language in ways extremely obscure and forced in spite of almost permanent war with these peoples.
Not really. In fact, besides having an aristocracy of Gaulish origin (hence gizon 'man'), ancient Vascons had contact with other Celtic-speaking people, and in fact it's possible that some of them later shifted to Basque and/or Iberian, which also has a strong Celtic influence.
For example, Basque pezoin 'ditch, trench' is a loanword From Celtiberian, where it's actually attested in one inscription as arkatobezom 'silver mine'.
ReplyDelete"having an aristocracy of Gaulish origin"...
ReplyDeleteWhere do you get this stupid idea from?
The contact of Basques (in their historical Roman-era range) and Celts is restricted in the South to the period beginning c. 700 BCE (Iron Age) and in the North c. 300 BCE. In the south, where the contact was older and stronger, there is an archaeology of fortresses and war. It is that way since the Celts arrived.
In the North the contact was quite limited as well. According to Heraus only the Bituriges were really spoken to of all the Celtic tribes (and that I guess it was because Burdigala was an important port then as today).
All that "Celtic aristocracy" nonsense, not excluding maybe some occasional transitory circumstance, is just Spanish nationalist ranting: they find a toponym that some linguist who does not even speak Basque think is "Celtic" (not modern Celtic, mind you but reconstructed proto-Celtic of some weird sort) and they build a whole theory to obliquely support their imperialist ideology, which is otherwise quite unjustified in the historical aspect.
Winners write history... but it's all lies.
"For example, Basque pezoin 'ditch, trench' is a loanword From Celtiberian, where it's actually attested in one inscription as arkatobezom 'silver mine'".
ReplyDeleteThis is extremely technical and therefore quite irrelevant because these kind of words appear and disappear like the Guadiana, they are not like beech or house, which are repeated almost daily.
But 'beso' is arm, which is often used as metaphor in so many alternate meanings specially as "branch", "subdivision", "divergent path or way". So who knows.
I find incredible that you can consider this as support of anything at all.
The contact of Basques (in their historical Roman-era range) and Celts is restricted in the South to the period beginning c. 700 BCE (Iron Age) and in the North c. 300 BCE. In the south, where the contact was older and stronger, there is an archaeology of fortresses and war. It is that way since the Celts arrived.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that archaeology alone doesn't tell us which language spoken these people.
Perhaps these supposed "Celts" actually spoke a language related to Basque and/or Iberian, but archaeology will never tell us.
All that "Celtic aristocracy" nonsense,
Don't forget our former discussion about Basque hauta.
This is extremely technical and therefore quite irrelevant because these kind of words appear and disappear like the Guadiana, they are not like beech or house, which are repeated almost daily.
LOL. Would you also consider gizon 'man', of clearwhose Celtic ascent, an "extremely technical" word?
Don't forget Aragonese maño 'man' is a Middle Age loanword from Germanic mann.
But 'beso' is arm
But this word doesn't even match phonetically, as it sibilant is different, much less semantically.
I find incredible that you can consider this as support of anything at all.
I also find incredible the way you deal with language data.
Gioiello: I didn’t reply to you when you asked me, but I did mean: ll- is due to Latin Cl-, mostly pl- a few fl- and cl-. The theory of Corominas that it could be due to li- after diphthongization of -e- I should deepen. You of course know Spanish better than me, but why liebre isn’t *llebre or liendre isn’t *llendre or lienzo isn’t *llenzo?
ReplyDeleteI'd suggest we continue this discusion in my own blog, if you wish, but I can say Menéndez Pidal confirms this: in Medieval Spanish, the present forms of levar were lievo, lievas, lieva, levamos, levades, lievan. Hence li became ll, which was extended later to the rest of forms by analogy.
AFAIK, this is the only attested case of (conditioned) palatalization of l- in Spanish. Possibly this was originally a dialectal pronountation which was adopted by the standard variety for sociolinguistic reasons.
Perhaps these supposed "Celts" actually spoke a language related to Basque and/or Iberian, but archaeology will never tell us.
ReplyDeleteTo quote an "authority", Schulten even went to the point of linking Basques and Ligurians, and IMHO he wasn't too much mistaken.
Take for example Basque gurbitz 'strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo)', which is cognate ro Italian corbezzolo (diminutive) id., and Asturian gorbiezu, gorbizu, gurbiezo 'cornish heath (Erica vagans)', murbiezu 'woody grass'. This is actually a compound gurb-itz, whose second element is 'tree' and the first one is gurbi 'service tree (Sorbus domestica); crab apple (Malus sylvestris)', cognate to French corme 'service berry', a word usually labelled as "Gaulish" (where, in fact, there's a homonymous curmi 'beer').
In La Serreta lead foil I, we find the strange segment tuŕlbailuŕa with two "lambdas". IMHO, these are damaged signs which should be respectively read as an "alpha" and a "delta", thus giving tuŕabaiduŕa.
ReplyDeleteThey're probably the "words" tuŕa and baiduŕa, the latter corresponding to Tartessian haitura. Remember that the Tartessian script doesn't differentiate between /t/ and /d/ and also rothic signs are inverted. Also /h/ would be the result of Proto-Celtic *φ, which in the historical languages disappeared without a trace.
Although we aren't yet capable of translating these texts, we can detect several other correspondences between Iberian and Tartessian, which of course have been ignored by Koch.
Closeing comments. Sorry to all commenters of good will.
ReplyDeleteOctavià I do not want to see you around: your "paleolithic celts" are of no interest to me nor anyone with two neurones.