From nicholas.widdows at traceplc.co.uk  Mon Feb  1 12:36:04 1999
From: nicholas.widdows at traceplc.co.uk (Nicholas Widdows)
Date: Mon, 1 Feb 1999 12:36:04 -0000
Subject: agglutination in Scandinavian languages
Message-ID: <MON.1.FEB.1999.123604.0000.NICHOLAS.WIDDOWS@TRACEPLC.CO.UK>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

> Now I don't think English would go through that change, and it is also easier
> to agglutinate "en" and "et" (the indefinite articles, common and neuter) to
> the noun, which in turn makes them definite articles.

> house is neuter. et hus, huset (a house, the house)
> kone is common.  en kone, konen (a wife, the wife)

I could wait another day and look up the answer in Gordon, or I could
shoot my mouth off now and work from memory. Stand well back. Isn't this
a conflation of the two Norse articles? Indefinite <einn maDr>, <ein
kvinna>, <eitt skip>, and definite <hinn maDr>, <hin kvinna>, <hit
skip>. On a simple noun the definite article was normally postposed,
<maDrinn>, <skipit>, but with an adjective it stayed in front, <hinn
ri'kr maDr>. Or something of that kind?

Still, this is a saltation, not a slight change like [p] > [f]. It's not
easy to imagine starting to say "man the", "the woman young", "Frau
die", "Schiff blaues", though such crossovers have happened. I often use
elegant inversions in my English but don't think any of them will
displace norms like SVO. Are there any examples in familiar languages of
such a thing in progress now?

Nicholas Widdows
[The opinions in this are mine only, not those of Trace PLC.]


From thorinn at diku.dk  Mon Feb  1 14:25:04 1999
From: thorinn at diku.dk (Lars Henrik Mathiesen)
Date: Mon, 1 Feb 1999 15:25:04 +0100
Subject: agglutination in Scandinavian languages
In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19990128151525.0080ee50@mail.web4you.dk> (message from
 Carol Jensen on Thu, 28 Jan 1999 15:15:25 +0100)
Message-ID: <MON.1.FEB.1999.152504.0100.THORINN@DIKU.DK>

   Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 15:15:25 +0100
   From: Carol Jensen <jorna at web4you.dk>

   To Mark Hubey, who probably knows this, I will remind him that except in
   Jutland in Denmark, the Scandinavian languages agglutinated the definite
   article (only to the noun) rather suddenly as such things go.

Just to prevent a misunderstanding: The article that was agglutinated
was the Norse definite determiner "inn" (from the distal demonstrative
pronoun "hinn"), not the modern indefinite article (from "einn" = one,
IIRC). And 'cliticized' would probably be a better term, as there was
double declension of noun and determiner for number and case.

Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn at diku.dk> (Humour NOT marked)


From iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu  Mon Feb  1 16:33:18 1999
From: iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu)
Date: Mon, 1 Feb 1999 10:33:18 -0600
Subject: Evolution
In-Reply-To: <13424440356.11.ALDERSON@toad.xkl.com>
Message-ID: <MON.1.FEB.1999.103318.0600.>

[ private note to moderator snipped ]

	The efficiency of natural selection is greatly improved by
variation.  This is the fundamental purpose of sex.  Perfect copying (or
near-perfect:  "copy degeneration" will be ignored) is quite possible, but
would inevitably lead to evolutionary stagnation.

	If we turn to language, it should be evident that whatever the
first language was (something pidginish will be assumed here), perfect
copying could only lead to more of the same. Progress would require
imperfect copying, something to "throw up" variation, which selection
could then act upon.

	So I do hereby officially suggest that we are programmed to
produce slightly imperfect copies of the target language.  In the past,
this (by hypohesis) enabled language to evolve/progress to its current
level of sophistication. In the present, it does nothing but introduce
functionally pointless variation over time.

	Evidence in favor of this can be seen, I believe, in the
phenomenon of "Suggested Improvements" in children's speech, like "seed"
for "saw".  Early work saw such things as "errors", but sine then it has
become quite clear that children who say "seed" are fully able to use
"saw".  Conclusion:  they are intentionally producing imperfect copies.

					DLW


From manaster at umich.edu  Tue Feb  2 00:44:43 1999
From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu)
Date: Mon, 1 Feb 1999 19:44:43 -0500
Subject: Greek question
In-Reply-To: <198318B676B@hum.au.dk>
Message-ID: <MON.1.FEB.1999.194443.0500.>

Part of the answer must surely be that we cannot
start with an unanalyzed stem nykt-.  Rather
we must start with nyk-t-, next to which there
can be a nyk-H- perhaps.  Or perhaps nyk-t
really nykh-t- from *noghw-t- or the like.
Do we have any reason to assume that the "k"
of nyk-t- comes from a *kw and not a *ghw?

[ Moderator's comment:
  Bartholomae's Law:  If the PIE form contained *-ght- we would expect Sanskrit
  to show -gdh- instead of the attested -kt-.
  --rma ]

On Fri, 29 Jan 1999, George Hinge wrote:

> Wayles Browne:
> > Nyx has stem nykt-os. So why do some derivatives have nykh- as
> > in nykhios, pannykhis etc? Frisk's etym.dict. just says one
> > stem is 'neben' the other. Has anyone figured out anything


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Tue Feb  2 01:23:05 1999
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (Patrick C. Ryan)
Date: Mon, 1 Feb 1999 19:23:05 -0600
Subject: Greek question
Message-ID: <MON.1.FEB.1999.192305.0600.PROTOLANGUAGE@EMAIL.MSN.COM>

Dear George and IEists:

-----Original Message-----
From: George Hinge <oldgh at hum.au.dk>
Date: Monday, February 01, 1999 5:42 PM

[ moderator snip ]

>I am not satisfied with either of the explications cited in
>Chantraine (I don't have a Pokorny); Lejeune does not solve the
>problem, he just transplant it to the PIE phase. And I don't see how
>the native speaker would make a false interpretation of nyx,
>when he had -kt- in all the oblique cases (except the dative plural,
>of course).

I would like to put forward a thought based on my own comparative efforts.

I believe the base of <nu:kto/s> is IE *neugh-, and therefore contrasts with
all the other derivatives listed under Pokorny's *nekw-, which are derived
from an alternative form: *negh-; both of which having the meaning 'black'.

When the IE stem with -to was originated, the final consonants of both stems
were de-voiced to *k(h).

The entry in Pokorny that comes closest to being related to the Greek forms
is *neuk(h)-, 'dark', from earlier *neugh- + -s/t- (metathesis in Latin
nuscitio:sus).

The root without -u- is also attested in Egyptian nHzj, 'Nubian = black
(man)'.

Pat

[ Moderator's comment:
  But this violates Bartholomae's Law:  The Sanskrit evidence shows us -kt-,
  which could not arise from PIE *-ght- (which gives Sanskrit -gdh-).
  --rma ]


From Odegard at means.net  Mon Feb  1 20:38:03 1999
From: Odegard at means.net (Mark Odegard <Odegard@means.net>)
Date: Mon, 1 Feb 1999 20:32:03 -6
Subject: IE-Semitic connections
Message-ID: <MON.1.FEB.1999.203203.6.>

Glen Gordon

> >Well, we have a problem then because there was definitely some kind of
> >contact (whether direct or indirect) between IE and Semitic. Both IE
> >*s(w)eks "six" and *septm "seven" show painfully clear evidence of that,
> >and yet I can't find any language group from which IE could have
> >borrowed these words except for North Semitic itself.

Theo Vennemann

> >You say Akkadian may have came from the southwest but are the Akkadians
> >the only offspring of North Semitic? Do we really know where other
> >branches of North Semitic might have gone?

> Those and related problems do not exist if the earliest Semitic-IE contacts
> are assumed to have occurred in Europe.

Well. If mcv is correct, the solution is obvious. Pre-PIE is to be
found in Western Anatolia, Greece, the Aegean and parts perhaps a
bit south. Considering that sea level was something like 50 feet
lower ca. 5500 BE than today, what would be the most revealing
neolithic sites would seem to be inundated (below the present deltas
of the Nile, the Orontes, the Vardar, etc). This permits *direct*
contact between A-A/proto-Semitic speakers.

For whatever reason (perhaps the final pulse of sea level rising
sometime before 3000 BCE), the Anatolians became restricted to
Anatolia, and by 2000, pre-Greek was/had infiltrated Greece, while
the main body of IE-speakers was found up and beyond the
Vardar-Morava corridor.
--
Mark Odegard   mailto:odegard at means.net


From manaster at umich.edu  Tue Feb  2 02:59:50 1999
From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu)
Date: Mon, 1 Feb 1999 21:59:50 -0500
Subject: IE creole?
In-Reply-To: <3729a8ec.1601514044@mail.wxs.nl>
Message-ID: <MON.1.FEB.1999.215950.0500.>

On Fri, 29 Jan 1999, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote
[i.a.]:

> I'm not convinced that creoles as such ever arose before the era
> of European colonial expansion.

This interests me a great deal.  I was just asking myself
how old the clear examples of Mixed Lgs that we have are.
The oldest I know is Loshnekoudesh, attested first
I think in the 16th or 17th cent., among German Jews
of course.  One question to ask is whether we can
identify sthg as a creole or a Mischsprache if we
have not already identified the components of the mix
or the source(s) underlying the pidgin underlying the
creole.  I think we should be able to, but I don't
know of any such work. Anybody?

A.


From manaster at umich.edu  Tue Feb  2 04:45:06 1999
From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu)
Date: Mon, 1 Feb 1999 23:45:06 -0500
Subject: Hurrians
In-Reply-To: <372aadf1.1602798004@mail.wxs.nl>
Message-ID: <MON.1.FEB.1999.234506.0500.>

That's cause they did not hurri. Sorry, my second pun
in three years.

On Fri, 29 Jan 1999, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote:

> There were no Hurrians in Northern Mesopotamia and Syria until
> 2200 BC or so.


From manaster at umich.edu  Tue Feb  2 05:34:41 1999
From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu)
Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1999 00:34:41 -0500
Subject: rate of change
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.03.9901291414400.414-100000@rsuno.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <TUE.2.FEB.1999.003441.0500.>

On Fri, 29 Jan 1999, Larry Trask wrote:

> *First* we have to agree on what *exactly* it is that we want to try to
> measure.  "Measuring the rate of language change" is every bit as
> diffuse a concept as "measuring the rate of social change".

[snip]

But there is well-known work on specific rates of specific kinds
of change, e.g., the rate at which words are replaced in the
100-item Swadesh list.  We know for certain, even Swadesh
towards the end conceded, that this rate is not the same
for all languages,  There are examples of the rate being
much slower than Swadesh's norm (Icelandic) and ones of it being
much faster (Eastern Greenlandic).  This much is or should
be widely known.

However, it is meaningful to ask whether what I referred
to as the norm is still useful to know about, because
perhaps it ALMOST always holds.

Let me add that there are many areas of science and
math where ALMOST always is a useful concept.  Theoretical
computer science is a good example of such an area.
There is considerable interest in algorithms which
almost always work right (but not quite). Why? Because
there are many problems which cannot be solved (in
practice, at least) by algorithms which always work
right but can by ones which almost always do.  The
small rate of error is acceptable because otherwise
we have nothing.  Practical computer work of course
is another such area, since few if any real-life
systems or applications work right ALL the time.
We would have no computer anything if we insisted on
programs that ALWAYS work.

Anyway, if it were true that Swadesh's norm was
ALMOST always right, with only very occasional
exceptions, then of course we could still use
his methods of glottochronology and lexicostatistics
but the results would always be subject to a small
amount of uncertainty.

I conjecture that this is in fact the
case.

AMR

[ Moderator's comment:
  I was under the impression--given by a supporter of glottochronology, Dyen--
  that G/L dates for the Romance languages, for example, are wildly off when
  compared to the known history.  Given that no testable languages have ever
  agreed with Swadesh's hypothesis, can we really treat this method as "almost
  always right" with regard to those languages we cannot otherwise date?
  --rma ]


From glengordon01 at hotmail.com  Tue Feb  2 07:12:25 1999
From: glengordon01 at hotmail.com (Glen Gordon)
Date: Mon, 1 Feb 1999 23:12:25 PST
Subject: IE-Semitic connections
Message-ID: <MON.1.FEB.1999.231225.PST.GLENGORDON01@HOTMAIL.COM>

MIGUEL:
>The contrast between the initial consonants of the words for "6"
>and "7" does indeed suggest a NE Semitic origin.  Akkadian, and
>no other Semitic language, has a contrast between 6 s^is^s^(et)
>and 7 sebe(tt), i.e. shibilant vs. sibilant.

I think you mentioned this before, however now it seems more intriguing.
:) Why would Kartvelian have the opposite however? Is there cause to
reinterpret the reconstruction?

ME:
>>I take the word *eg'oh in IE to be a realisation of
>>the North Semitic word *anaku...

MIGUEL:
>The word is post-Anatolian (which has *amu-), unless
>Hittite uk (besides ammuk) is related, which I doubt.

Why do you doubt "uk"'s kinship? Where else could it be from? I've heard
about this analysis of *eg'oh but it seems awkward to explain it as
*e-g'e-hwe (or *(H1)e-ge-H3e, if you like).

1. The word *e is a demonstrative, not an attested 1rst person on its
own, no?

2. Why don't other pronouns like *tu: undergo the same process?
   Say, **twe-g'e-s? Or **ns-g'e-mes??

3. How and why would the pronoun be conjugated like a verb?

4. Hittite ammuk could just as well be interpreted as akin to *@me, a
variant of *me. (Perhaps those that are bent-up on *H's will like
the reconstruction of *H1me or *?me better, preserved
coincidentally in Greek as such initial laryngeals should be) In
fact, couldn't *@me explain the plural form *ns "us" (< *@ns <
*@me-s) just as we find the accusative plural in *-ns (<*-m-s)?
   How do we know that the prothetic vowel is honestly from **e-?

5. The ending -m is found in other pronouns in Sanskrit: aham,
tvam, vayam, yuyam, etc. and doesn't show that it's specific to the
1rst person. How do we know IE meant *-m as a first person ending     as
opposed to something else?

--------------------------------------------
Glen Gordon
glengordon01 at hotmail.com

Kisses and Hugs
--------------------------------------------


From glengordon01 at hotmail.com  Tue Feb  2 07:25:18 1999
From: glengordon01 at hotmail.com (Glen Gordon)
Date: Mon, 1 Feb 1999 23:25:18 PST
Subject: IE-Semitic connections
Message-ID: <MON.1.FEB.1999.232518.PST.GLENGORDON01@HOTMAIL.COM>

MIGUEL:
>The same happens in Etruscan (s'a ~ semph) and Basque (sei ~ zazpi).

Whoops almost missed that one. Good thing I re-read. Basque? This brings
up that ugly topic again of where Basque got those numbers from. I
fathomed that they are perhaps some kind of Late Latin/Romance borrowing
out of a blind guess. Larry Trask would know but he's probably busy
battling Bengtson's Dene-Caucasian theory right now :)

How would Basque acquire Semitic numbers?? It would be hard via an IE
language - I can't think of one that would fit. Are you proposing that a
moyl got lost in the Mediterranean? And what would he do with words like
"six" and "seven" outside of the Middle East? Things that make you go
hmmm....

--------------------------------------------
Glen Gordon
glengordon01 at hotmail.com

Kisses and Hugs
--------------------------------------------


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Tue Feb  2 07:32:42 1999
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1999 02:32:42 EST
Subject: Modality-Independent Evolution
Message-ID: <TUE.2.FEB.1999.023242.EST.>

I wrote:
<<In between the old and new - there is much more that goes on in biology.  A
word, not being an entity or a species, does not have to go through natural
selection to emerge differently.>>

In a message dated 2/1/99 10:54:13 PM, DLW wrote:
<<I was not talking about words, I was talking about languages.>>

Without trying to obstruct or snipe, the parallel is still tough to draw.
Evolution's "method" is random change.  It would be equivalent to generating
thousands of random languages that could not survive (that don't work to
communicate) in order to get one that does.  It would be the equivalent of
untold numbers of random versions of, say, German that were tried and dropped
before getting a version that survived.  (And then immediately starting the
process all over again.)

That was my point with saying that culture and language are Lamarckian.  There
is intentionality that guides them.  Intention guides change in a very
different, much less explosive but much less wasteful way.  Language is aimed
at an objective - communication.  Biological evolution however has no
objective, does not care where its going, it just goes.  The piece in
Scientific American I mentioned earlier is a good example of the difference.
The biochemists let natural selection loose in a test tube and it comes up
with molecular combinations "that they could not have made themselves."  The
process is very creative but very wasteful - all of the combinations but a
very few are useless.

<<Sometimes in order to tell whether a road is a dead-end, you have to go down
it.>>

Also some of the best scenery.  But you're right.  I may not have a good sense
of where you will end up.  Sorry for "snipping."

Regards,
Steve Long


From tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de  Tue Feb  2 11:59:14 1999
From: tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de (Theo Vennemann)
Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1999 12:59:14 +0100
Subject: NSemitic borrowings: in response to Greg Web
Message-ID: <TUE.2.FEB.1999.125914.0100.TVN@CIS.UNIMUENCHEN.DE>

>"Glen Gordon" <glengordon01 at hotmail.com> wrote:

>>Miguel
>>believes as well that Etruscan semph is an odd sort of metathesis of the
>>IE form *septm

>Well, what I actually suggested was metathesis of *sepm ~ *sebm,
>without the /t/, as in Germanic [and Samoyed (???)].

May I ask where these two views are published? I am afraid I will be
quite embarrassed, because I explained Etrusc. _semph_ as the result of
coda metathesis -- and thus by a common type of sound change -- with-
out giving credit for this same view, or the opposite view ("an odd sort
of metathesis"), in "Etymologische Beziehungen im Alten Europa", Der
GinkgoBaum: Germanistisches Jahrbuch für Nordeuropa 13 (1995),
39-115., § 7.21 _sieben_.

Theo Vennemann,
2. Februar 1999.


From ERobert52 at aol.com  Tue Feb  2 15:21:30 1999
From: ERobert52 at aol.com (ERobert52 at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1999 10:21:30 EST
Subject: wh
Message-ID: <TUE.2.FEB.1999.102130.EST.>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

petegray at btinternet.com writes:

> Larry writes of initial /hw/ as if it were indeed /hw/.  I have seen this
> description of it in the text books, and been puzzled by it.  In my dialect
> (NZ) it is a voiceless /w/.  There is no /h/ at all.

> I'm just checking back, I guess.   Do some speakers actually say /h/+ /w/?
> I always thought the textbooks were wrong.

Yes. I say /h/ + /w/. (I am Scottish). There is also a flavour of bilabial f
because of anticipatory lip rounding. The degree of the anticipatory lip
rounding varies according to the register I am speaking in. In Scotland /hw/
is still almost universal, but I am starting to hear it replaced by /w/ in
some young people.

BTW, Larry Trask is exaggerating to say /hw/ is dead in England. I visit
England frequently and still occasionally hear it from native English people.
My wife, who is English, reports that her mother told her as a child that not
saying /hw/ was sloppy.  My wife has retained /hw/, but her mother has now
moved to /w/.

Ed. Robertson


From mcv at wxs.nl  Tue Feb  2 15:46:56 1999
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1999 15:46:56 GMT
Subject: Why *p>*f?
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.03.9901291538160.414-100000@rsuno.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <TUE.2.FEB.1999.154656.GMT.>

Larry Trask <larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk> wrote:

>In High German, providing we follow the traditional view, and not
>Vennemann's bifurcational theory, */p/ changed to /pf/ -- an
>extraordinary development, rarely if ever seen elsewhere.

But we find this "High German" consonant shift in English as well
(e.g. Liverpudlian, which has -t > -ts, -k > -kx and -p > -pf if
I'm not mistaken).

In any case, neither the Grimm nor the High German shifts are
cases of a direct shift [p] > [(p)f].  In both cases the
precondition, which may be a necessary precondition for this
sound shift, was an aspirated pronunciation of /p/ as [ph].
The same applies to Greek (/ph/ > /f/), probably pre-Latin (*bh >
*ph > f) and Arabic (*p > f, but Proto-Semitic *p, *t, *k etc.
were probably aspirated), and in cases of /p/ > /h/ > zero like
Armenian or (probably) Celtic.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam


From mclasutt at brigham.net  Tue Feb  2 15:53:22 1999
From: mclasutt at brigham.net (Dr. John E. McLaughlin and Michelle R. Sutton)
Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1999 08:53:22 -0700
Subject: wh
Message-ID: <TUE.2.FEB.1999.085322.0700.MCLASUTT@BRIGHAM.NET>

Peter &/or Graham wrote:

> Larry writes of initial /hw/ as if it were indeed /hw/.   I have seen this
> description of it in the text books, and been puzzled by it.   In my dialect
> (NZ) it is a voiceless /w/.   There is no /h/ at all.
>
> I'm just checking back, I guess.   Do some speakers actually say /h/+ /w/?
> I always thought the textbooks were wrong.

I don't have it in my dialect, but I assumed that it was a voiceless [w] as
well.  I think that the /hw/ orthography may be based on Anglo-Saxon spelling
{hwael} (along with its lost 'buddies' hr, hn, and hl).  As an aside, in
addition to "losing the h" in words like 'whale', my dialect of English has
also "lost the h" in words like 'human', so it is now homophonous with 'Yuman'.
However, with monosyllables like 'hue' and 'huge', the [h] has become a
voiceless palatal fricative [cju] and [cjudZ] (there should be a cedilla under
the c).

John McLaughlin
Utah State University


From whiting at cc.helsinki.fi  Tue Feb  2 16:51:18 1999
From: whiting at cc.helsinki.fi (Robert Whiting)
Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1999 18:51:18 +0200
Subject: Hurrians
In-Reply-To: <372aadf1.1602798004@mail.wxs.nl>
Message-ID: <TUE.2.FEB.1999.185118.0200.WHITING@CC.HELSINKI.FI>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

On Fri, 29 Jan 1999, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote:

> JoatSimeon at aol.com wrote:

>>The whole of northern Mesopotamia, northern Syria, and eastern Anatolia was
>>Hurrian/Urartian speaking at least as far back as the 3rd millenium BC.

>There were no Hurrians in Northern Mesopotamia and Syria until 2200 BC or so.

Well, that's the 3rd millennium, innit?

But the actual point is that Semitic speakers were there before the
Hurrians turned up.

JoatSimeon at aol.com never seems to have heard of Ebla or Tell Abu
Salabikh and the conclusions to be drawn therefrom.

Bob Whiting
whiting at cc.helsinki.fi


From mcv at wxs.nl  Tue Feb  2 17:39:35 1999
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1999 17:39:35 GMT
Subject: NSemitic borrowings: in response to Greg Web
In-Reply-To: <v01510100b2dc83be75f7@[129.187.26.133]>
Message-ID: <TUE.2.FEB.1999.173935.GMT.>

Theo Vennemann wrote:

[ moderator snip ]

>>Well, what I actually suggested was metathesis of *sepm ~ *sebm,
>>without the /t/, as in Germanic [and Samoyed (???)].

>May I ask where these two views are published?

I was simply referring to my message of Sat 23 Jan 1999, 13:06:13
GMT, "Re: Pre-IE and migrations", where I said:

>>Well, we also find the lack of /t/ in Germanic (sibun, seven), so I'd
>>say Etruscan semph *is* most likely due to metathesis (wacky or not)
>>of something like *sepm or *sebm.

Theo:
>I am afraid I will be
>quite embarrassed, because I explained Etrusc. _semph_ as the result of
>coda metathesis -- and thus by a common type of sound change -- with-
>out giving credit for this same view, or the opposite view ("an odd sort
>of metathesis"), in "Etymologische Beziehungen im Alten Europa", Der
>GinkgoBaum: Germanistisches Jahrbuch f|r Nordeuropa 13 (1995),
>39-115., ' 7.21 _sieben_.

Which I have read, so, if anybody, it's me that should have given
credit for the idea of coda metathesis.

Upon re-reading that passage, I find we are in agreement on
Etruscan semph, as well as the Akkadian/IE/Basque/Etruscan
correlation of 6 ~ 7 with s^- ~ s- (credit for the identification
of Etruscan s'a with "6", not "4", by an alternative and
plausible re-interpretation of the Tuscan dice, should be given
to Beekes and van der Meer).

The Basque forms <sei> and <zazpi> are a bit problematical,
however.  From (East-)Semitic *s^es^s^- and *seb- we would have
expected to see <ses-> and <zeb-> c.q. <sesi> and <zepzi>, with
-zi appended as in zortzi "8" and [analogical] bederatzi "9" <
*bederatzu.  As to <sei>, Larry Trask's "The History of Basque"
mentions a few cases of sibilant dissimilation through loss
(*Sanso > Anso "Sancho"), but these affect the first, not the
second, sibilant.  The <a> in <zazpi> is mysterious, and we need
a metathesis *zapzi > zazpi, which in itself isn't too much of a
problem, not in a borrowed item.  I'd like to know what the <a>
is doing in Welsh saith (< *saxt < *sapt- ??).  Do we know the
Gaulish or Celtiberian for "6" and "7"?  My guess would be,
preliminarily, that the Basque forms are more likely to be
borrowings from Celtic (We. chwech, saith) than directly from
Semitic.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam


From jrader at m-w.com  Tue Feb  2 14:06:08 1999
From: jrader at m-w.com (Jim Rader)
Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1999 14:06:08 +0000
Subject: rate of language change
Message-ID: <TUE.2.FEB.1999.140608.0000.>

I think there are actually a number of variables in the loss of [h-]
in [hw-] in North American English, with splits along regional,
class, and educational lines as well as large city/small city/rural
distinctions.

I grew up in a working-class neighborhood in Chicago.  When I first
became aware of dictionary respelled representations of English
phonetics, as an elementary school student in the 1950's, I found the
representation of <wh> in "where" as [hw] incomprehensible, because
no one I knew, not my parents or grandparents, teachers or
schoolmates, pronounced this with anything but [w].  It was only
after I met a much wider circle of people that I realized some people
actually pronounced the [h]--or at least had something like a
voiceless [w].

In Arthur Bronstein's _The Pronunciation of American English_ (1960),
it is claimed (p. 96) that "/hw/ is actually the older and still
predominant form of most of the country" and that [w] is
characteristic only  of "the speech of most in New York City and in
certain other sections of the East."  Of course, the only survey data
Bronstein cites is from the eastern U.S.  I think the change was very
likely well under way in other areas.  The phoneticians were not
running around in the right places or right social circles.

Jim Rader

[ moderator snip of Larry Trask's post ]


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Tue Feb  2 02:15:32 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Mon, 1 Feb 1999 20:15:32 -0600
Subject: agglutination in Scandinavian languages, etc.
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.4.05.9901300555240.9271-100000@joust.rs.itd.umich.edu>
Message-ID: <MON.1.FEB.1999.201532.0600.RMCCALLI@SUNMUW1.MUW.EDU>

Just wanted to say that people like Larry, Carol, Miguel, Stefan, Sasha et
al. AND EVEN Alexis --who is also occaionally guilty of explaining basic
concepts are tremendously appreciated and not just by me. Their work is NOT
thankless.

At 6:01 AM -0500 1/30/99, manaster at umich.edu wrote:
>I do not see how this list can flourish if it becomes
>a place in which people get a remedial education in
>historical linguistics.  I am impressed that there
>are people, like Larry and Carol, who have the energy
>to undertake this thankless job, but I for one would like
>to have a list where issues of Indo-European historical
>linguistics could be discussed instead.  And I don't
>think that there is another one besides this one(:-).

>So, please, can we switch to talking about IE, a novel
>idea for a list devoted to IE I know, but still...
[snip]

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
MUW
Columbus MS 39701
rmccalli at sunmuw1.muw.edu


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Tue Feb  2 19:06:43 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1999 14:06:43 EST
Subject: Celtic influence in English
Message-ID: <TUE.2.FEB.1999.140643.EST.>

iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu

>Yes.  Isn't it past time we retired the quaint notion that thereis no Celtic
>influence in English?

-- "very little", rather than "no".

>If we know where to look (grammar rather than lexicon or phonology), Celtic
>influence is pervasive in English.

-- undemonstrated.  And how did Celtic manage to influence the grammar
profoundly without adding loan-words?  Lexical influence is easier and more
common in cases of prolonged language contact than changing grammatical forms.

Eg., look at the English-French cross-influences.

					DLW


From glengordon01 at hotmail.com  Tue Feb  2 20:44:57 1999
From: glengordon01 at hotmail.com (Glen Gordon)
Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1999 12:44:57 PST
Subject: IE, Semitic and Wanderworte: To joatsimeon@aol.com
Message-ID: <TUE.2.FEB.1999.124457.PST.GLENGORDON01@HOTMAIL.COM>

ME:
>>Well, we have a problem then because there was definitely some kind
>>of contact (whether direct or indirect) between IE and Semitic.

JOATSIMEON at AOL.COM:
>-- and probably the word for "axe", too.  However, these could >equally
easily be wander-words, or relayed through other languages.

You may have missed some messages. The whole problem I have with the
Wanderwort idea is that there are no languages that you can draw from as
a reasonable source of those words except Semitic itself. Do you want to
suggest a language that IE adopted those words from?

JOATSIMEON at AOL.COM:
>They don't imply geographical propinquity in the same way as the much
>more numerous PIE-Finno-Ugrian loans.

...because you're looking at the Black Sea as a barrier instead of a
means of transportation.

>>You say Akkadian may have came from the southwest but are the
>>Akkadians the only offspring of North Semitic?

>-- East Semitic, actually.  So far, it's all we have.

Have they changed the terms now? Ugh. I could have sworn it was under
"North Semitic" according to Encyc.Britt. At any rate, other dialects
would have developped out of your "East Semitic" besides Akkadian and
could have spread further North. How do explain the Kartvelian words?
More Wanderworte? Why, it's a Wanderworte bonanza!

--------------------------------------------
Glen Gordon
glengordon01 at hotmail.com

Kisses and Hugs
--------------------------------------------


From petegray at btinternet.com  Tue Feb  2 20:52:31 1999
From: petegray at btinternet.com (Peter &/or Graham)
Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1999 20:52:31 -0000
Subject: Why *p-*f?
Message-ID: <TUE.2.FEB.1999.205231.0000.PETEGRAY@BTINTERNET.COM>

>St. Augustine, who was well trained
>in Greek ...

St Augustine knew no Greek.

> St Jerome must issue forth the
>official Latin Vulgate "in good language."

The Latin of the vulgate is clearly very late Latin, not "good latin" in
your sense.   For example it includes phrases such as "dixit quoniam" (= he
said that ...).   In "good Latin" quoniam means because.

Peter


From iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu  Tue Feb  2 20:58:41 1999
From: iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu)
Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1999 14:58:41 -0600
Subject: Evolution
In-Reply-To: <4a1f4d15.36b6aa1a@aol.com>
Message-ID: <TUE.2.FEB.1999.145841.0600.>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

On Tue, 2 Feb 1999 X99Lynx at aol.com wrote:

> In a message dated 2/1/99 10:54:13 PM, DLW wrote:
> <<I was not talking about words, I was talking about languages.>>

> Without trying to obstruct or snipe, the parallel is still tough to draw.
> Evolution's "method" is random change.  It would be equivalent to generating
> thousands of random languages that could not survive (that don't work to
> communicate) in order to get one that does.  It would be the equivalent of
> untold numbers of random versions of, say, German that were tried and dropped
> before getting a version that survived.  (And then immediately starting the
> process all over again.)

	If "language" is more or less abstractly equivalent to "species",
then this is not a good counter-example.  We do not get thousands of
species that do not survive (not counting those that did survive for a
while but went extinct, not the same thing).  But I admit the nature of
the innovations is somewhat different.  Biology innovates through
individuals, whereas language does not so much innovate through idiolects
(the "abstract equivalent) as through simple innovations, which, to the
extent they get off the ground, are scattered across idioloects. But I
think it is a given that within any language there are many innovations
that do not "get off the ground", and thus can wind up invisible to us
strange folk who study such things.

> That was my point with saying that culture and language are Lamarckian.
> There is intentionality that guides them.  Intention guides change in a very
> different, much less explosive but much less wasteful way.  Language is aimed
> at an objective - communication.  Biological evolution however has no
> objective, does not care where its going, it just goes.

	Yes, it just goes, quite significantly constrained by various
functional considerations.  Language might be said to do the same, since
the intent of users is in effect subsumed by functional considerations:
what does not work to communicate cannot survive.

					DLW


From glengordon01 at hotmail.com  Tue Feb  2 21:13:44 1999
From: glengordon01 at hotmail.com (Glen Gordon)
Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1999 13:13:44 PST
Subject: rate of language change
Message-ID: <TUE.2.FEB.1999.131344.PST.GLENGORDON01@HOTMAIL.COM>

>To use Larry's example, in Anglo-American you don't say "John he
>it has bought the car" or "He it has bought John the car" ("il
>l'a achetee, Jean, la bagnole").

Although... I've been known to say "z-bot da-kar" ("He's bought the
car") or "z-boR a-kar" ("He's bought a car"). Here, one might say that
English is developping present perfect pronominal subject prefixes:

                        Singular      Plural
  1rst person             v-            wv-
  2nd person              yv-           yv-
  3rd person general      z-            v-

And post-verbal object affixes:

  1rst person             -mi-          -s-
  2nd person              -yu-          -yu-
  3rd person (male)       -m-           -m-
             (female)     -r-

"She's bought him a car" ->  /z-bot-m a-kar/

Very different from that language called Indo-European, the subject of
the list that I vaguely recall now.

--------------------------------------------
Glen Gordon
glengordon01 at hotmail.com

Kisses and Hugs
--------------------------------------------


From manaster at umich.edu  Tue Feb  2 21:14:03 1999
From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu)
Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1999 16:14:03 -0500
Subject: (no subject)
In-Reply-To: <Pine.PMDF.3.96.990129131641.545285507B-100000@utxvms.cc.utexas.edu>
Message-ID: <TUE.2.FEB.1999.161403.0500.>

I can't speak for Noam, but I think I am his ilk,
and I did talk to him recently about the evolution of
lg capacity.  I think the view he has (which I dont
accept) is that the lg capacity did come about rather
abruptly, but this does not say anything about how
long it then took for people to figure out how to use
it.  That is, this capacity can only be used if you
have specific phonemes, specific roots, etc., and no
one doubts that these are not innate and may have taken
time to evolve. It's like the human ability to do
theoretical computer science.  Obviousl we are born
with some degree of ability in this regard, unlike
say a parakeet, but until the 1930's, there was no
way to use this faculty.

On Fri, 29 Jan 1999 iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu wrote:

[ moderator snip ]

> 	I get the impression at times that Chomsky and his ilk think that.
> The grammar gene leading to the "abstract organ" which presumably permits
> and creates language.  Evolution is not their strong suit, for very good
> bad reasons ...


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Wed Feb  3 01:33:57 1999
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (Patrick C. Ryan)
Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1999 19:33:57 -0600
Subject: STATISTICS IN LINGUISTICS
Message-ID: <TUE.2.FEB.1999.193357.0600.PROTOLANGUAGE@EMAIL.MSN.COM>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

Dear Steve and IEists:

-----Original Message-----
From: X99Lynx at aol.com <X99Lynx at aol.com>
Date: Tuesday, February 02, 1999 2:24 AM

>I wrote:

><<Predictive power is based on an effective understanding of cause and effect
>relationships.>>

>Patrick C. Ryan replied:

><<Why does it seem to be so hard to understand that the relationship of cause
>and effect is statistical?>>

>Because it is not true.

>The relationship of cause and effect is physical or chemical or cultural, etc.
>Statistics can be extremely useful in establishing such relationships.  But
>I'm afraid statistics do not equal cause and effect.

You have said what I am saying in other words:

1) I said: "the RELATIONSHIP of cause and effect is statistical";

2) you said: "statistics can be extremely useful in establishing such
relationships".

I have NOT said  that "statistics (. . .) equal casue and effect". I am not
even sure what that is supposed to mean in English.

>Here is your example:

><<If you have Cause A, and you predict successfully Effect B, every time, then
>the relationship is <1> or 100% PROBABILITY.>>

>You are definitely jumping the gun here.  You are already telling me there is
>a cause and effect relationship BEFORE YOU'VE PROVEN IT.  You are presuming
>cause and effect before have statistically shown it.

Above, I said that the coincidence of A and B was 100%. That 100% defines
causality.

>The best you can say here is that if A occurs and then B occurs, everytime,
>there is some probability that A causes B.

Wrong. If A then B, every time, and there is no reason to think that will
ever change, then, whether we ever correctly understand the modality of the
causation, there is a causal relationship between A and B.

>HOWEVER, if your assumptions are flawed, you are not proving cause and effect
>with this.  All that this demonstrates is a 100% CORRELATION. But NO cause and
>effect relationship has been established.  And this should not be hard to
>understand.

What I find amazing is that you would think a "100% CORREKATION" does not
establish a cause and effect relationship.

>The classic classroom example is: EVERYTIME you see people carrying umbrellas,
>it ends up raining.  Based on that, you conclude that umbrellas cause rain.
>(Everytime equals "100% probability.")

Sophomoric! The correct causal relationship is:

1. Whenever there is a perceived prospect of rain (A), people carry
umbrellas (B).

>Even a very high correlation does not equal causation.

I spoke only of a 100% correlation.

>This is very important in a field like historical linguistics, where you do
>not have an independent variable to manipulate and therefore don't have the
>hard experimental controls you get in a lab.

Why is the prospect of analyzing linguistic data rigorously, employing
mathematical models, so frightening to you?

>With improper analysis, statistics are not just worthless.
>They are damaging.

Statistics are never worthless. But like anything in this world, they can be
poorly interpreted, and improperly applied.

>And of course the other thing that is inaccurate is "100% probability".  Until
>there is an end of time, there is no such thing.  Because no matter how many
>"n" times A leads to B, there is always "n + 1."  If you want to claim it, the
>best you get is 99% in this world.

I can see why you prefer not to deal with mathematical models. If you have
100 trials, and the same cause has the same effect, the probability of the
cause creating the same effect again is 100%. Not 99%. Not 98%. Infinity is
not a factor in this equation.

>As far as historical linguistics goes, statistical analysis could be a very
>powerful tool.

Yes. Why not use it?

>But all it is is a tool.

So?

>And if its limitations are misunderstood, it can be and has been used to prove
>all kinds of nonsense.

Ah, there is the real crux. Someone like Ringe comes up with proper
conceived math, and strange conclusions.

There are no limitations to statistics. There are only limitations of the
abilities of the people who employ statistics. These same limitations will
appear to effect results adversely no matter what "tools" used.

GCOG: Garbage trucks carry only garbage.

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN <PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com>
(501) 227-9947; FAX/DATA (501)312-9947
9115 W. 34th St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA
WEBPAGES: <http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803>
and PROTO-RELIGION:
<http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html>
"Veit ek, at ek hekk, vindga meipi, nftr allar nmu,
geiri undapr . . . a ~eim meipi er mangi veit
hvers hann af rstum renn." (Havamal 138)


From glengordon01 at hotmail.com  Wed Feb  3 01:31:22 1999
From: glengordon01 at hotmail.com (Glen Gordon)
Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1999 17:31:22 PST
Subject: IE, Genetic Data, Languages of Anatolia
Message-ID: <TUE.2.FEB.1999.173122.PST.GLENGORDON01@HOTMAIL.COM>

ME:
>>But then, come to think of it, is there an Anatolian version of *?ekwos ?

JOATSIMEON at AOL.COM:
>-- yes.  Hieroglyphic Luwian "Azuwa".  Cognate with Lithuanian
>asvienis, Vedic asva, etc.

Yes, of course. My brain froze and I couldn't recall the Anatolian side
of the cognate at all. Thanx. Anyways then, we can say with some degree
of certainty that IE (Indo-Anatolian) speakers spoke of horses. I guess
the contention Miguel has is whether these horses were domesticated or
wild.

Then again, if Miguel admits that there were no horses at the time and
location he specifies, one would think it makes for an even flimpsier
theory, alongside all the other innumerable linguistic problems it
presents, if it were true. I can't think of anything that specifically
disproves anything that Miguel is saying but I find it less and less
likely as we talk further of it.

I don't see why the agriculturalists that moved into Europe and who show
up in genetic data of what's-his-name-Sforza have to be speaking
Indo-European of all things. Indo-European just can't have been in the
Balkans or Anatolia at such an early date. I reason that the most likely
language candidate of these budding agriculturalists would be a language
closely related to North-East Caucasian. As Indo-European spread across
Europe later on, it would have wiped out almost all traces of the
earlier non-Indo-European languages.

The conversation regarding the linguistic side of this debate is perhaps
relatable to the topic ensued by Larry Trask and Bengtson on the
Nostratic list concerning the Dene-Caucasian theory and Basque's
relation to it, however, what's known is that Anatolia had many
languages and to single out IE as the one that escaped (even amidst the
unlikelihood of it being there in the first place) and as the one that
noblely brought agriculture to the barbarians seems misguided.

--------------------------------------------
Glen Gordon
glengordon01 at hotmail.com

Kisses and Hugs
--------------------------------------------


From petegray at btinternet.com  Thu Feb  4 03:34:01 1999
From: petegray at btinternet.com (Peter &/or Graham)
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1999 19:34:01 -0800
Subject: Why *p>*f?
Message-ID: <WED.3.FEB.1999.193401.0800.PETEGRAY@BTINTERNET.COM>

Larry in his posting appears to give up all hope of explaining the change
/p/ > /f/, (and other changes such as /b/ > /p/ and so on).     This is of
course a safe, classical position.   If I may again speak as one with
limited knowledge, isn't there a modern theory rather like the old "strength
values" theory of Grammont, which suggests a hierarchy, within which sound
change may move either up or down, but without jumping around?

Larry also says:
>In High German, ..., */p/ changed to /pf/ -- an
>extraordinary development, rarely if ever seen elsewhere.

This is only partly true.   In most contexts (e.g. medial when not doubled,
and final) it moved all the way to /f/, e.g. Dorf ~ thorpe, offen ~ open,
Schlaf ~ sleep etc etc etc.   /pf/ is only found initially, after
consonants, and for medial /pp/, where the process /p/ > /f/  may be seen as
being incomplete.

Peter


From GregWeb at aol.com  Wed Feb  3 03:53:11 1999
From: GregWeb at aol.com (GregWeb at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1999 22:53:11 EST
Subject: Chomsky
Message-ID: <TUE.2.FEB.1999.225311.EST.>

I found this post very interesting as I recently read The Language Instinct by
Steven Pinker.   Chomsky apparently cannot explain how a universal grammar
template would come to exist in the brain although it makes sense that it
does.   Pinker makes a rather convincing argument for its evolution and
existence, and he does not posit the existence of a grammar gene.   Neither
does he imply that humans suddenly began speaking with lots of vowels,
consonants and vocabulary roots.


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Wed Feb  3 06:29:26 1999
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1999 01:29:26 EST
Subject: Why *p-*f? (St. Augustine)
Message-ID: <WED.3.FEB.1999.012926.EST.>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

In a message dated 2/2/99 3:56:25 PM, petegray at btinternet.com wrote:

<<<St. Augustine, who was well trained in Greek>

St Augustine knew no Greek. >>

First, the correct and full quote from my post is << St. Augustine, who was
well trained in Greek and Latin syntax...>>  It makes a big difference.

Based on this entry from an old Britannica my statement is correct.  This also
explains your misunderstanding:

   "Apparently, he was in the habit of using translations of Plato (Confess.,
    viii 2), but, on the other hand, Greek words frequently occur in his
    writings correctly rendered and discriminated; aud he speaks in one of
    his epistles to Marcellinus (LIX. tom. ii. 294) of referring to the
    Greek Psalter and finding, in reference to certain difficulties, that it
    agreed with the Vulgate.

    Clausen, who has particularly investigated the point, sums up the
    evidence to the effect that Augustine was "fairly well instructed in
    Greek grammar, and a subtle distinguisher of words," but that beyond
    this his knowledge was insufficient for a thorough comprehension of
    Greek books, and especially for those in the Hellenistic dialect."

The statement that Augustine did not know Greek is a misunderstanding of a
more specific observation about Augustine, that he did not know enough Greek
to read many of his most important sources (eg., Plato) in the original.

Augustus himself says that, while he pursued all his studies diligently, he
"studied Latin with enthusiasm but never loved Greek."

See also, the Enchiridion - the only thing of his I have at hand - where he
writes: "If you ask further what is meant in that place by pietas, the Greek
calls it more definitely qeosebeia, that is, the worship of God. The Greeks
sometimes call piety eusebeia,..."

<<< St Jerome must issue forth the official Latin Vulgate "in good language.">

<<The Latin of the vulgate is clearly very late Latin, not "good latin" in
your sense.>>

The quote "in good language" is Jerome's, not mine.  My only point was that he
had in mind that he was countering the same trend his teacher Donatus was
complaining about - wholesale sound and syntax changes that were happening in
Latin.

Regards,
Steve Long


From hans.alscher at noel.gv.at  Wed Feb  3 07:00:22 1999
From: hans.alscher at noel.gv.at (Mag.Hans-Joachim Alscher)
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1999 08:00:22 +0100
Subject: Atlantic substrate of Insular Celtic
Message-ID: <WED.3.FEB.1999.080022.0100.HANS.ALSCHER@NOEL.GV.AT>

Dennis King schrieb:

> Theo Vennemann wrote:

> > Insular Celtic is structurally an Atlantic language (it is structurally
> > more similar to Arabic than to any non-Insular Celtic Indo-European
> > language), whereas Germanic is not.

> ...
> In the meantime, would you be willing to summarize for us some
> telling evidence in favor of the Atlantic substrate hypothesis?
> ...

The "Anlautpermutation" (morphological change of the initial consonant) of
Insular Celtic
resembles the same feature in "(Western) Atlantic" languages, one of the
branches of Greenberg´s "Niger-Congo"-languages. The most important languages
of this family are Ful, Wolof and Serer in Senegal. Hans G. Mukarovsky has
drawn a picture of possible relations between this family and the Berberic
and Basque language, see "Mukarovsky, Hans G.: Die Grundlagen des Ful und das
Mauretanische", Wien, Herder, 1963. Following this hypothesis one must assume
that "Mauretanic" is the "missing link" substratum to (Insular) Celtic.
Nevertheless, neither Semitic nor whole Afro-Asiatic (or branches of
Afro-Asiatic) show the characteristic "Anlautpermutation" of Atlantic and
Insular Celtic, a very rare feature amongst the world´s languages. Therefore
connections between Atlantic and Insular Celtic should be considered rather
than Semitic.
--
Mit freundlichen Gruessen / Yours sincerely

Bibliotheksrat Mag.phil. Hans-Joachim Alscher
A-1070 Wien, Burggasse 113/13
Tel.: 0043/664/3553640 oder 0043/2742/200/2769 (Buero)
e-mail: mailto:hans.alscher at noel.gv.at (dienstlich)
e-mail: mailto:hans-joachim.alscher at pgv.at (privat)
Homepage: http://members.pgv.at/homer/

Niederoesterreichische Landesbibliothek
A-3109 Sankt Poelten, Landhausplatz 1
Tel.: 0043/2742/200/2847 (Fax: 3860)
e-mail: mailto:post.k3 at noel.gv.at
Homepage: http://www.noel.gv.at/service/k/k3/index.htm
OPAC: http://www.noel.gv.at/ssi/k3.ssi
OPAC: http://www.landesbibliotheken.at/ (Verbund)
OPAC: http://www.dabis.at/dabis_w.htm (mirror)

Fachhochschulstudiengang Telekommunikation und Medien
A-3109 Sankt Poelten, Herzogenburger Strasse 68
Tel.: 0043/2742/313228 (Fax: 313229)
Homepage: http://www.fh-stpoelten.ac.at/


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Wed Feb  3 09:21:03 1999
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1999 09:21:03 +0000
Subject: IE-Semitic connections
In-Reply-To: <19990129234743.19379.qmail@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <WED.3.FEB.1999.092103.0000.LARRYT@COGS.SUSX.AC.UK>

On Fri, 29 Jan 1999, Glen Gordon wrote:

> In retrospect, I forgot about Basque "zazpi". Hmm, but I wonder what the
> mainstream theory is on that word. Larry Trask mentioned that Latin "s"
> becomes "z" in Basque borrowings. Latin, at least Vulgar Latin, as far
> as I am aware, reduced /m/ before vowel to a nasal vowel. I can't see
> how "zazpi" can be related to a t-less Semitic form because of the
> second -z- which has to be a soft representation of a previous /t/ (what
> else could it possibly be??) Hence zazpi might actually come from a late
> version of Latin septem which perhaps was pronounced /sept(s)@~/ at the
> time (@~ = nasal schwa).

> To be honest it probably can't be explained as a Classical Latin
> borrowing (cf. Lat apta- > hauta- "choose") but couldn't this be a late
> Latin borrowing? It's definitively not from a t-less Semitic form. Maybe
> an _m-less_ one at most and then we have to explain why Semitic *b
> becomes Basque /p/!

Basque <z> represents laminal [s], and Latin /s/ was indeed regularly
borrowed as Basque <z>.

A Latin or Romance origin for <zazpi> seems extremely unlikely, since
all the lower Basque numerals appear to be native, and there is no known
western Romance form of `seven' that could serve as a phonologically
plausible source for <zazpi>.

Apart from the name for `nine', which is partly analyzable, the Basque
number names up to ten are opaque and unanalyzable.  There is no
standard etymology for <zazpi>, but there is a proposal on the table,
due to Luis Michelena.

The Basque for `five' is <bortz>, and for `two' <biga>.  The
instrumental suffix is <-z>.  Michelena proposed that <zazpi> derives
from *<bortz> + <-z> + <biga> `two with five' (Basque is head-final).

To make this work, we need several things.

First, <bortz> must derive from earlier *<bortza>, to account for the
<a>, since, in word-formation, the vowel that is invariably inserted to
break up impermissible consonant clusters is <e>, not <a>.  But this is
plausible, since word-final consonant clusters in Basque are rare and
anomalous, and are known in a few cases to derive from a lost final
vowel, especially <a>, as in western <bart> `last night', from <barda>,
preserved in the east.

Second, <-z> must have been once a comitative suffix, rather than an
instrumental suffix.  This conclusion is actually supported by a modest
amount of evidence.  Moreover, it is well known that comitative markers
frequently acquire instrumental senses, and the modern Basque comitative
endings are of transparent and unquestionably late origin.

Third, <biga> must have been reduced to <bi> in this formation.  But
this is totally unproblematic: we *know* that <biga> is always reduced
to <bi> when in final position in a compound or phrase.

Fourth, the initial <bor-> must have been lost.  This is not regular,
and it constitutes the weakest link in the argument.

Fifth, if <bor-> were indeed lost, then the affricate <tz>, finding
itself in word-initial position, would absolutely have to change to
fricative <z>.  This is an ironclad rule of Basque phonology.

Finally, the original <b> absolutely must be devoiced to <p> when
preceded by a voiceless sibilant like <z>: this is another ironclad rule
of Basque phonology.

So, on balance, this proposal doesn't look too bad.  We have

	*<bortza-z-biga> --> *<bortzazpiga> --> *<bortzazpi> -->
		<zazpi>.

Only the loss of the first syllable is problematic.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk


From vidynath at math.ohio-state.edu  Wed Feb  3 14:28:02 1999
From: vidynath at math.ohio-state.edu (Vidhyanath Rao)
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1999 09:28:02 -0500
Subject: Chariots
Message-ID: <WED.3.FEB.1999.092802.0500.VIDYNATH@MATH.OHIOSTATE.EDU>

JoatSimeon at aol.com wrote:
> It's a light bentwood-construction vehicle with two
> spoked wheels pulled by paired draught horses.

You mean that the actual chariot was found. My understanding,
based on photographs, (and what Littauer and Crowell explicitely
say) is that only indentations made by the wheels and the axle part
extending out were found, and the superstructure was fully
decayed away. If a photograph (not a skectch) of whatever superstructure
was ever found, I would like a reference.

> And all chariots used neck-yokes, until the invention of the horse collar.

No. Spruytte, based on representations, showed that Classical greeks
used a dorsal yoke and what is a primitive version of breast traction.
His experiments with reconstructions based on chariots found in Tut's
tomb prove that traction comes from the yoke saddles (neck forks) and
not from the bands arounds the horses' necks. There is enormous
difference between the two that cannot be waved away.

-Nath


From manaster at umich.edu  Wed Feb  3 15:07:12 1999
From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu)
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1999 10:07:12 -0500
Subject: IE *eg'om (was: IE-Semitic connections)
In-Reply-To: <199901301316.OAA25082@as411.tel.hr>
Message-ID: <WED.3.FEB.1999.100712.0500.>

On Fri, 29 Jan 1999, Alemko Gluhak wrote:

> In Etimologic^eskij slovar' slavjanskih jazykov I, red. O.N. Trubac^ev, we
> can read that *eg'o(:)(m) < *e g'o eme, something like "it's me!".

Thank you Alemko for a note of sanity!  Something like
what Trubac^ev says is surely right, but also note that
Greenberg (and perhaps others independently, is Alan
Bomhard listening in?) has (have?) noted that this
construction does not look like an isolated PIE
development but does have parallels (crucially not
just in the 1st person) in a language family which
some relate to IE.  I will say no more since this
is the IE list, although Ipersonally do NOT understand
why this list should publicize nonsense about PIE
pronouns being borrowed from Semitic but ban the N
word.

AMR

[ Moderator's response:
  There are Indo-Europeanists who are not interested in Nostratic debates, who
  still have to explain the facts of Indo-European.  As is evidenced by the
  contents of the list itself, parallels from other languages and language
  families are welcome here, so long as the focus of this list on Indo-European
  is remembered.  So a parallel, even an occasional etymology from Nostratic,
  is not unwelcome; it's arguments about Nostratic qua Nostratic that belong
  on the other list.
  --rma ]


From mcv at wxs.nl  Wed Feb  3 15:16:04 1999
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1999 15:16:04 GMT
Subject: Pre-IE and migrations
In-Reply-To: <19990125055941.8336.qmail@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <WED.3.FEB.1999.151604.GMT.>

"Glen Gordon" <glengordon01 at hotmail.com> wrote:

>Miguel on Etruscan "semph" and Semitic borrowing:

>>Well, we also find the lack of /t/ in Germanic (sibun, seven), so I'd
>>say Etruscan semph *is* most likely due to metathesis (wacky or not)
>>of something like *sepm or *sebm.

>But this is one step up beyond Germanic. We should expect a much more
>regular change than this. You're assuming metathesis as well as a loss
>of *-t, as well as an Etruscan /ph/ = IE *p correlation which I, at
>least, have not seen substantiated in data.

So what should IE (or Semitic) *p correspond with?  Consider that
Etruscan only has plain unvoiced and aspirated unvoiced stops,
and that it unfortunately shows considerable variation
(dialectal, historical) in the spelling of aspirates vs.
non-aspirates (p/ph, t/th, c/ch), so there's no easy way to tell
whether <semph> was originally <semph> or <semp>.  Note also that
the numbers 7-9 all end in -p(h) (semph, cezp, nurph), so there's
your trigger for the metathesis if you insist on calling it
"awkward".

>At any rate, back to IE and Anatolia, if IE were in Anatolia for such a
>long time,

Who says?  I date the entry of Anatolian into Anatolia no
different from Mallory, i.e. ca. 3000 BC (Troy I).  Where I
differ is that I put the Anatolians in the Balkan peninsula
before that time, not in the steppe.

>Yet amongst all that contact over
>what would have been many millenia prior to IE, we can still connect IE
>to Uralic, a Steppe language??

Uralic is not a "Steppe language".  There's not a shred of
evidence that it was ever spoken in the Eurasian steppe.  Sure we
can connect IE to Uralic, if we accept some version of the
Nostratic hypothesis, but we can equally connect it with
Kartvelian or Afro-Asiatic.

>A European explanation is too far west because it doesn't take into
>account the linguistic ties to the Black Sea area, including that of
>North Semitic. Ironically, you would dismiss such a westerly adoption of
>a Semitic word in Etruscan... Hmmm. There's a paradox.

There is no "North Semitic".  The Semitic numerals we have been
discussing are found over the entire Mediterranean area.  We can
debate about whether Egyptian "6" <sjsw> and "7" <sfxw> are
cognate with the Semitic forms or borrowings.  Berber <sd.is> and
<sa> are almost certainly borrowings from Semitic *sidc^- and
*sab3-.  IE *s(w)ek^s and *sep(t)m and the Basque and Etruscan
forms have been discussed.  I don't dismiss the adoption of a
Semitic word in Etruscan.  Etruscan was spoken in Greece and
Western Anatolia before 1200 BC, closer to Semitic than IE.  I
think there may be reasons to doubt that Basque adopted the words
directly from Semitic (an IE intermediary, such as Celtic, seems
more likely).  I do not doubt that IE *s(w)ek^s and *septm are
ultimately of Semitic, nay Akkadian, origin, but they may have
been adopted whether PIE was spoken in Anatolia, the Balkans, the
Caucasus or the northern Pontic (the Caspian seems less likely).
None of this implies migrations of Semites to the shores of the
Black Sea, just direct or indirect trading contacts.

>>And since we're speculating, I have always thought the fact that the
>>archaeological evidence for metal-working (copper) points to the
>>Balkans as the oldest center looks supportive of my hypothesis that
>>the Neolithic Balkans (Vinc^a culture etc.) were at least partially
>>IE (Anatolian) speaking.

>Why must IE be the "oldest center" for metal-working? It doesn't seem to
>particularly point to anything at all.

The Balkans are one of the oldest copper working centers.
Archaeology says so.

>The Akkadian (eru^) and Sumerian (urudu) words for copper might well
>>be borrowings from PIE *H1reudh- "red; copper".

>...Or vice-versa.

No.  Akk. eru^ and Sum. urudu have, AFAIK, no etymology in
Akkadian or Sumerian (trisyllabic urudu is surely not a Sumerian
word).  IE *H1reudh- means "red".  And if the word has an
Indo-European etymology, as it surely has, the only explanation
is that the metallurgical centers in the Balkans were IE
speaking.  Sumerians and Akkadians would hardly have adopted this
word from a region that itself imported copper from the Balkans
such as the Pontic steppe.  And if there were trade contacts
between the Balkans, Anatolia and the Near East for the "copper"
word to go from IE to Akkadian, there's also a route for the
Akkadian words for "6" and "7" to have gone from Akkadian to
Etruscan and IE.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam


From semartin at pacifier.com  Wed Feb  3 15:49:40 1999
From: semartin at pacifier.com (Sam Martin)
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1999 07:49:40 -0800
Subject: wh
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.03.9901301036490.565-100000@rsuno.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <WED.3.FEB.1999.074940.0800.SEMARTIN@PACIFIER.COM>

In my (now I realize "old-fashioned") midwestern version of /hw/ I
perceive a definite [h] segment, followed after a quick voweless [w] by a
voiced [w], so I have no difficulty with the phonemic analysis as a
cluster. I do the same sort of thing with the "hu-" of "huge", "human" and
stress-downgraded "humanity": [h] followed by [yuw] with a voiceless y
(ich-laut) between that is only brief, at best. For the record I am
familiar with many speakers in the northeast (and probably elsewhere) who
fail to distinguish "Hugh" or "hew" from "you", just as they cannot hear
the difference between "which" and "witch".

I should think this would lead to spelling problems, but then who bothers
to spell any more?


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Wed Feb  3 16:10:08 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1999 10:10:08 -0600
Subject: Germanic and B-S
In-Reply-To: <009e01be4bca$5e4af400$513863c3@niywlxpn>
Message-ID: <WED.3.FEB.1999.101008.0600.RMCCALLI@SUNMUW1.MUW.EDU>

[snip]
	Could you give examples?

>(a) nouns in -o- make derivatives in -a-  (B-S, not Celtic, partly in Germ)

	Is this the same phenomenon as -tut- in Latin?
	BTW: how does this relate [if at all] to Latin -tat-

>(b) adjectives make abstract nouns in -tu:t  (Celtic, not B-S, partly in
>Germ)

	So you see the influence of Greek & Iranian [which leads others to
propose Indo-Iranian/Greco-Armenian as due to influence as well?

	So maybe, following this model, Germanic & Armenian split somewhere
around S. Poland/S. Belarus, NW Ukraine c. 2000-1600 BCE and either Iranian
[or someone else's] expansion on the plains moved Armenian south to the
Balkans, and then into Anatolia?

>This supports a wave model more than a generic model.  An early separation
>of Germanic (or Germ-Armenian), with later influence from both Celtic and
>B-S, seems a good explanation.

[snip]


From mcv at wxs.nl  Wed Feb  3 16:07:04 1999
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1999 16:07:04 GMT
Subject: IE in Balkans and Semitic?
In-Reply-To: <l03130307b2d7f6f493b2@[207.120.3.55]>
Message-ID: <WED.3.FEB.1999.160704.GMT.>

Rick Mc Callister <rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu> wrote:

>I was thinking of the root of taurus & steer [I'll let someone else come up
>with the exact root].

PSem *t_awr- (or *c^awr-), PIE has *steur-, *st(H)uHr-
(*st(h)u:r-), *stewHr- (*stew at r-), *tHwr-/*t at ur-, with the usual
mess when laryngeal meets semivowel (is that *(s)tewH2r-,
*(s)teH2wr- or *(s)tH2ewr- ?)  Not everybody is convinced that
the forms with s- (e.g. ON stjo:rr) are related to the forms
without (e.g. ON thjo:rr).  Not everybody is convinced that the
IE and Semitic forms are related, and those that think so are I
guess divided into three camps: (a) the relationship is genetic
(from memory, please correct if I'm wrong, Alan Bomhard lists
this as a Nostratic root), (b) the word was borrowed from Sem.
into IE, (c) the word was borrowed from IE into Sem.  Again, as
with the "copper" word, I'm not sure if the Semitic word has an
internal etymology within Semitic.  In IE, the word may be
connected to the root *(s)teH2w- "be strong", and again there is
some archaeological evidence that cattle was indeed a later
Anatolian or SE European addition to the original Near Eastern
Neolithic inventory of livestock (sheep and goats).  So I would
lean towards the third camp.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Wed Feb  3 18:30:33 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1999 12:30:33 -0600
Subject: Pre-IE and migrations
In-Reply-To: <19990125055941.8336.qmail@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <WED.3.FEB.1999.123033.0600.RMCCALLI@SUNMUW1.MUW.EDU>

	HMMM. Uralic was to the north of IE but not as far north as now.
As I remember, from what I read, it's generally posited at the line between
the steppes and the taiga --in far E. Europe.
I'm guessing that line was a bit farther to the south.

	The question is just how far south the line was at that time but
also far west the boundary went.

	If the line went west of the steppes into Poland, Slovakia, Hungary
or whatever. Both of you could be right. I have read --I forget where--
that the Saami are said to have once occupied all of Scandinavia --but I
don't know how accurate that claim is.

	But I fully admit my ignorance of the geography of that time.
	Any ideas?

[snip]

>At any rate, back to IE and Anatolia, if IE were in Anatolia for such a
>long time, one would expect that Semitic, Caucasian or another non-IE
>Anatolian language would "do a number" on IE just as Rick McCallister
>describes Armenian's Turkic influence. Yet amongst all that contact over
>what would have been many millenia prior to IE, we can still connect IE
>to Uralic, a Steppe language?? It still doesn't sit well with me and I
>think for good linguistical reason.

>A European explanation is too far west because it doesn't take into
>account the linguistic ties to the Black Sea area, including that of
>North Semitic.

[snip]


From donncha at eskimo.com  Wed Feb  3 18:18:56 1999
From: donncha at eskimo.com (Dennis King)
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1999 10:18:56 -0800
Subject: Dating of Changes in Germanic and Insular Celtic
In-Reply-To: <5b614ddf.36b21f9a@aol.com>
Message-ID: <WED.3.FEB.1999.101856.0800.DONNCHA@ESKIMO.COM>

JoatSimeon at aol.com:

> The earliest Insular Celtic recorded (Ogham inscriptions, etc.)
> is a perfectly standard early, inflected IE language -- not much
> different from Gaulish or Lepontic and structurally similar to Latin,
> Lithuanian or Sanskrit.

This may or may not be true, but I don't think the "Ogham inscriptions,
etc." are going to prove it.

The Ogam corpus consists almost entirely of nouns, mostly personal
names, virtually always in the genitive.  The early inscriptions all
conform to a number of simple formulas such as MAQI CAIRATINI AVI
INEQAGLAS = [lia] Maic Ca/erthainn Ui/ Enechglais = [the stone] of
son of Caerthann of descent of Enechglas.  A lot of them are shorter.

Not one of them contains verbs, adjectives, or prepositions, nor
any more than the one syntactical pattern.

The amount that the inscriptions fail to disclose about structure of
Primitive Irish is simply enormous.  They can neither confirm nor
disprove its resemblance to garden variety IE (Latin, etc.).  The
little syntax and grammar that they do reveal happens to be the sort
that hasn't changed significantly from IE down to present day Irish.

Dennis King


From tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de  Wed Feb  3 23:09:48 1999
From: tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de (Theo Vennemann)
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 00:09:48 +0100
Subject: IE-Semitic connections
Message-ID: <THU.4.FEB.1999.000948.0100.TVN@CIS.UNIMUENCHEN.DE>

>Theo:

>>In particular, you receive an elegant solution for Germanic and
>>Etruscan (and Basque)...

>In retrospect, I forgot about Basque "zazpi". Hmm, but I wonder what the
>mainstream theory is on that word. Larry Trask mentioned that Latin "s"
>becomes "z" in Basque borrowings. Latin, at least Vulgar Latin, as far
>as I am aware, reduced /m/ before vowel to a nasal vowel. I can't see
>how "zazpi" can be related to a t-less Semitic form because of the
>second -z- which has to be a soft representation of a previous /t/ (what
>else could it possibly be??) Hence zazpi might actually come from a late
>version of Latin septem which perhaps was pronounced /sept(s)@~/ at the
>time (@~ = nasal schwa).

>To be honest it probably can't be explained as a Classical Latin
>borrowing (cf. Lat apta- > hauta- "choose") but couldn't this be a late
>Latin borrowing? It's definitively not from a t-less Semitic form. Maybe
>an _m-less_ one at most and then we have to explain why Semitic *b
>becomes Basque /p/!

>Glen Gordon

I carefully put "Basque" in parentheses. I should not have mentioned it at
all. (But the zp part is too suggestive ...) The fact remains that Etr.
semph and Goth. sibun have a straightforward derivation from a borrow-
ed *sebm, as opposed to the *septm of all non-Gmc. IE languages. I com-
pared this pair of forms to Akkadian sebum (circumflex on the u) /
sebettum in my 1995 GinkgoBaum article but was told on the Net that
that was old hat (viz., had been proposed long ago in the Russian lin-
guistic literature). The latter fact at least makes it possible for me to talk
about the hypothesized connection, because the culture I am operating in
pretty much forbids saying in public what you have already published.

T.V.


From tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de  Wed Feb  3 23:11:04 1999
From: tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de (Theo Vennemann)
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 00:11:04 +0100
Subject: axe
Message-ID: <THU.4.FEB.1999.001104.0100.TVN@CIS.UNIMUENCHEN.DE>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

>>Well, we have a problem then because there was definitely some kind of
>>contact (whether direct or indirect) between IE and Semitic.

>-- and probably the word for "axe", too.  However, these could equally easily
>be wander-words, or relayed through other languages.  They don't imply
>geographical propinquity in the same way as the much more numerous PIE-Finno-
>Ugrian loans.

Gk. pe'lekus, Skt. paras'u'- is clearly Semitic (root family p-l-K- 'to
split, to divide', which is pretty close to what you do with a battle-axe),
and on account of its meaning is likely to be a wanderwort.  The greater
problem is:  How did folk 'division (of an army)' and plow "divider of the
soil" (from the same family of Semitic roots) find their way into Germanic
(and only Germanic)?  Put more generally: Why do we seem to find more such
correspondences with Germanic than with other Indo-European languages? (I say
"seem" because in this part of the world I appear to be the only one looking,
and I can with a clear professional conscience only look in Germanic.)

Theo Vennemann
3 February 1999


From tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de  Wed Feb  3 23:11:47 1999
From: tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de (Theo Vennemann)
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 00:11:47 +0100
Subject: NSemitic borrowings: in response to Greg Web
Message-ID: <THU.4.FEB.1999.001147.0100.TVN@CIS.UNIMUENCHEN.DE>

Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl wrote:

>Upon re-reading that passage, I find we are in agreement on
>Etruscan semph, as well as the Akkadian/IE/Basque/Etruscan
>correlation of 6 ~ 7 with s^- ~ s- (credit for the identification
>of Etruscan s'a with "6", not "4", by an alternative and
>plausible re-interpretation of the Tuscan dice, should be given
>to Beekes and van der Meer).

I am glad you straightened that out. It is so difficult in etymolo-
gicis to trace views to their origin. And who wants to be consid-
ered a pirate? Yet who wants to hush entirely?

>The Basque forms <sei> and <zazpi> are a bit problematical,
>however.  From (East-)Semitic *s^es^s^- and *seb- we would have
>expected to see <ses-> and <zeb-> c.q. <sesi> and <zepzi>, with
>-zi appended as in zortzi "8" and [analogical] bederatzi "9" <
>*bederatzu.  As to <sei>, Larry Trask's "The History of Basque"
>mentions a few cases of sibilant dissimilation through loss
>(*Sanso > Anso "Sancho"), but these affect the first, not the
>second, sibilant.  The <a> in <zazpi> is mysterious, and we need
>a metathesis *zapzi > zazpi, which in itself isn't too much of a
>problem, not in a borrowed item.  I'd like to know what the <a>
>is doing in Welsh saith (< *saxt < *sapt- ??).  Do we know the
>Gaulish or Celtiberian for "6" and "7"?  My guess would be,
>preliminarily, that the Basque forms are more likely to be
>borrowings from Celtic (We. chwech, saith) than directly from
>Semitic.

I am happy to see that you are willing to make those connections,
rather than, e.g., declare them to be "look-alikes". However, trying
to solve the Basque problem by referring to Gaulish or Celtiberian
is a bit like ignotum per ignotius.

Theo Vennemann
3 February 1999


From tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de  Wed Feb  3 23:13:12 1999
From: tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de (Theo Vennemann)
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 00:13:12 +0100
Subject: Dating of Changes in Germanic and Insular Celtic
Message-ID: <THU.4.FEB.1999.001312.0100.TVN@CIS.UNIMUENCHEN.DE>

>>I was happy to read about those cases of superstratum influence. That is
>>exactly the way I view the Atlanticization of Germanic: Germanic as"broken"
>>Indo-European.

>-- this would be an attractive hypothesis, except that the characteristic
>sound shifts in Proto-Germanic seem to be quite late; no earlier than about
>500-600 BCE.  Prior to that PG would have sounded much more typically IE.

Did anyone mention sound shifts in this connection? Besides, to the extent that
they are prehistoric (and even the Second Consonant Shift is prehistoric), no-
one knows when they occurred.

>So if the changes were due to influence from another language, we'd be left
>with the rather odd notion that the linguistic ancestors of Germanic only
>moved into its historic territory in Scandinavia and northern Germany late in
>the 1st millenium BCE!  Or that the other "Atlantic" language persisted in the
>area for thousands of years after the first IE speakers arrived.

>There's no archaeological discontinuity in northern Europe after the Corded
>Ware/Battle Axe horizon arrives, and no historical record of such an invasion
>either.

>And where would it come from?  By 600 BCE, the other branches of IE were
>differentiated.  You can't get proto-Germanic by "broken Baltic", after all.
>(Eg., Balto-Slavic had long since undergone satemization by that date.)

These may all be defensible views. Wish you did not make them sound as if
they were mine. E.g., I assume speakers of  early forms of Germanic to have
lived in Northern Europe since about -4000.

>>Insular Celtic however is different. It is not "broken" but "transformed"
>>Indo-European

>-- again, we have a chronological problem here.  The earliest Insular Celtic
>recorded (Ogham inscriptions, etc.) is a perfectly standard early, inflected
>IE language -- not much different from Gaulish or Lepontic and structurally
>similar to Latin, Lithuanian or Sanskrit.

>The extremely radical restructuring to the Old Irish stage for Gaelic seems to
>have occurred only after about 200-300 CE.

>Since the Celts must have entered the British Isles a fair spell before that,
>if a substrate is responsible, why did the changes not show up until so late?

>>Having developed on an Insular Celtic substratum,

>-- however the Old English stage -- say as late as the 900's CE -- shows
>virtually no Celtic influence lexically.  A grand total of about 12 loan-
>words, if memory serves me correctly.
> ...
>How was this Insular Celtic influence transmitted across centuries when the
>languages were no longer in close contact?  If the Old English which emerges
>in the 700's CE, when we have written records, is still so close to its West
>Germanic cousins, and if it remains so in 1000 CE, how does the existance of a
>Celtic substratum 500 years earlier carry over into the grammatical
>restructuring of the period 1000-1500 CE?

These are all known questions which have been answered to my satisfaction by
those scholars who have advanced the theory. If you are not satisfied by their
arguments, let us hear where you think they are flawed.

>It seems to me that it would be wiser to attribute the later restructuring of
>English to purely internal forces, or possibly to contact with Scandinavian
>and French, or to a mixture of the two causes.

It may be wiser.

>In this context, it's interesting that Frisian, the closest relative of
>English, underwent some of the same structural changes.  And _it_ certainly
>wasn't in contact with Insular Celtic at any time!

I would be grateful for your material on this comparison.

Theo Vennemann, 3 February 1999
Preferred mailing address:
Tannenstr. 28
D-86510 Ried


From tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de  Wed Feb  3 23:27:53 1999
From: tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de (Theo Vennemann)
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 00:27:53 +0100
Subject: IE-Semitic connections
Message-ID: <THU.4.FEB.1999.002753.0100.TVN@CIS.UNIMUENCHEN.DE>

>>Those and related problems do not exist if the earliest Semitic-IE
>>contacts are assumed to have occurred in Europe.

>Why must we assume anything in the first place??

Good question.

>The Pontic-Caspian theory accounts for much

All theories do.

>and yet for some reason, still unspecified by
>Miguel et al, we are throwing it away for something very conjectural and
>unbased on the linguistic evidence.

Do not throw it away before you have studied alternatives. The theory
of a Hamito-Semitic / West Indo-European contact connection is a lin-
guistic theory, based on linguistic evidence. May I guess that you have not
studied it? Well, do. You may even find arguments against it.

>As far as I know and reason, Semitic
>existing outside of the Middle East at the time we are working with here
>is not accepted by most linguists and it seems that some have trouble
>with Semitic ever reaching even the Black Sea shores let alone Europe!!

This is none.

Greetings, T.V.
3 February 1999

PS. In a later posting you write:

>When I post, I post because I'm inquisitive and to
>provoke discussion that would otherwise not go on. I'm one of those
>silly people who thinks that an open discussion leads to better
>understanding (for myself at least).

By calling some linguists' views "something very conjectural and unbased
on the linguistic evidence" you may quell a discussion just as easily as pro-
voke one. It just does not sound inquisitive.


From iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu  Thu Feb  4 00:14:32 1999
From: iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu)
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1999 18:14:32 -0600
Subject: Anglo-Saxon conquest
In-Reply-To: <l03130301b2d9719f2041@[207.120.0.99]>
Message-ID: <WED.3.FEB.1999.181432.0600.>

On Sat, 30 Jan 1999, Rick Mc Callister wrote:

> 	The Angles, Saxons et al. arrived by c. 400. For the first 100
> years or so, the Angles & Saxons were pretty much bottled up in the SE
> [south of the Humber].  The real body blow was when they took Chester,
> which I think was around 600. The NE fell pretty soon after that. But even
> then, it would take a couple of hundred more years to take the NW & SW.

> 	Someone who has more precise dates [and facts] can fill us in.

> 	The point is that by the time the Angles & Saxons moved out of the
> SE, the local population had presumibly been acculturated by the Angles &
> Saxons and perhaps had even stopped speaking Briton. My guess is that
> pretty much the same thing, although probably to a lesser degree, would
> have happened when the Anglo-Saxons expanded from Mercia & Wessex. Many of
> the "Anglo-Saxons" who moved into these areas were likely accultured
> Britons looking for a better life.

	Yes.  I agree mainly in order to draw attention to what has been
written here so that I do not have to re-write it myself.  A good source
for such heresy is Higham (various), who unfortunately, being a pure
historian, labors under the delusion that there is no evidence of Celtic
influence in English, having had to take the linguists' word for it.  The
problem is that the linguists are wrong ..

					DLW


From manaster at umich.edu  Thu Feb  4 01:58:00 1999
From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu)
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1999 20:58:00 -0500
Subject: Breakup of Persians and East Indians (Avestan and Vedic)
In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19990130223029.0085d100@mail.web4you.dk>
Message-ID: <WED.3.FEB.1999.205800.0500.>

I have always wondered about this too.  And it is not just
language.  Isn't it the case that through language we can
also tell for example that their common ancestors did not
believe in killing cows (which are called literally
'not-to-be-killed ones' in both lgs)? And so forth?

And isn't there something about Zarathustra having
had a hard a time converting the priests of the
old (i.e., Vedic-like) religion till he converted
King who-is who may have been Darius's father?
Also I vaguely recall Firdausi saying something
about Z. dying in a holy war in Bactria or someplace
(which would mean that some traditional lore about
Z. had survived in Iran for centuries but is not
in the Avestan material).  This is all very vague and
old recollection, though.

AMR

On Sat, 30 Jan 1999, Carol Jensen wrote:

> I have often wondered why I have never read anything about the fight, if
> there was one, between the Avestans and Vedics.

> The languages are so close, they must have broken up shortly before the
> various hymns were written down.

> In the Avestan hymns, one learns of the reformer Zarasthustra. Now it is
> obvious that what he has reformed is the Vedic religion. Was there a fight
> before they split? Could it be the Persians referred to in the Vedic texts
> ("We broke down their walled town", etc.)

[ moderator snip ]


From manaster at umich.edu  Thu Feb  4 03:15:21 1999
From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu)
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1999 22:15:21 -0500
Subject: nykh-
Message-ID: <WED.3.FEB.1999.221521.0500.>

I just looked through whatever sources I can find
here and I STILL cannot find any evidence that the
*kwt cluster in *nekwt-/nokwt- 'night' (or whatever
the original meaning was) has to come
from *kw + *t rather than *gw + *t or *ghw + *t
(unless Bartholomae's Law is assumed to be the
original state of affairs, because then *ghw + *t
would have given *neghwdh-/noghwdh-, which is of
course wrong, but I cannot see BL as original).

So why can we not simply say that *nekwt/nokwt-
comes from a root *ne/o/0ghw- plus *-t-?

Am I missing something?

AMR


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Thu Feb  4 04:31:59 1999
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1999 23:31:59 EST
Subject: Evolution
Message-ID: <WED.3.FEB.1999.233159.EST.>

In a message dated 2/3/99 9:28:19 PM, you wrote:

<<Yes, it just goes, quite significantly constrained by various
functional considerations.  Language might be said to do the same, since
the intent of users is in effect subsumed by functional considerations:
what does not work to communicate cannot survive.>>

Just a tiny little nit.  Evolutions has no functional considerations, it has
no considerations at all.  Survival value only dictates what will be subjected
to the random process next (although "punctuated equilibrium" will prolong the
effects of survival value.)

If we did this in language at the most basic level it would be equivalent to
my saying a completely random set of sounds and seeing what you do.  If I
liked what you did, I would say it again until you stopped.  Then I would
start randomly altering those sounds or create new sounds (since in sound
production I am not limited by biological genetics for my raw material - I
don't have to stick to my prior sounds at all - I can and will try some
completely different sounds just as soon as work with the old ones) till you
did something I wanted again.  And on and on.

Intention (not a feature of evolution) changes this.  I suddenly have an
objective - communicative predictability.  I want you to recognize the same
sounds.  I don't want to keep making random sounds.  This is a lot more
practical for my purposes and yours than randomly picking sound combinations
to see if they work.  And it also means you and I can pass these roughly
predictable sounds to others or to a next generation.  (And that is a key to
creating human culture.)

Now genetics does this to some degree in biology.  Combined genes create
hybrids, just like combined words create new functions for words.  Language
changes like genetics - dominant and recessive genes, hyrids, small controlled
changes.  Animal breeding.  Like Grimm's law.

But what evolution does to biological genetics is change it for no point at
all. No function at all.  That change is not designed to create survival - it
is not designed to create anything at all.  Survival is only an occasional,
unintended after-effect.

When humans make a mistake in language, or some equivalent of randomness, we
are nevertheless intending to communicate.  And afterwards we will consider
whether that mistake communicates.  And sometimes even if that mistake does
communicate, we do not retain the change.  All that is really, really counter-
evolution.

A language that mirrored biological evolution should not be easily
recognizable from day to day.  Most of what we would hear would be random
combinations of sounds, with a rare occasional thing that made staggeringly
good sense in between.

For this reason such a language is basically dysfunctional.   EXCEPT, of
course, when you do something like use a computer to break a password,
generating high-order random language events in order to acheive a
functionality.  And other such special occasions which I know about only from
hearsay. :)

Hope this make sense,

Regards
Steve Long


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Thu Feb  4 05:43:06 1999
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 00:43:06 EST
Subject: STATISTICS IN LINGUISTICS
Message-ID: <THU.4.FEB.1999.004306.EST.>

In a message dated 2/3/99 10:14:54 PM, you wrote:

<<Above, I said that the coincidence of A and B was 100%. That 100% defines
causality.>>

This is no true.  That 100% is a correlation and nothing more.  Coincidence
does not equal causality.

<<If A then B, every time, and there is no reason to think that will
ever change, then, whether we ever correctly understand the modality of the
causation, there is a causal relationship between A and B.>>

This is not true.  A and B may be the independent effects of a common cause
with NO causal relation between them. You have no way of knowing that based on
this information alone.  ( Every time neutrons appear, mu mesons follow.
Neutons do not however cause mu mesons.)  "No reason to think this will ever
change" is not a valid way to make an inference in statistics.  It is in not
one of the books on the subject, except as an unacceptible assumption.

>The classic classroom example is: EVERYTIME you see people carrying
umbrellas,
>it ends up raining.  Based on that, you conclude that umbrellas cause rain.

<<Sophomoric! The correct causal relationship is:
1. Whenever there is a perceived prospect of rain (A), people carry
umbrellas (B).>>

You've jumped the gun again.  ALL YOU KNOW in this example is that the
appearance of umbrellas are followed by rain.  "Perceived prospects" are not
within the given observations.  And, a bigger sin, you switched the dependent
variable.  The question we were addressing is the "effect": rain.

Also you have missed a critical question that would answer our question using
statistics.  The statement is that the appearance of umbrellas are always
followed by rain.  You have not asked me if it ever rains when I don't first
see umbrellas.  That would be what indicates that there are other variables
controlling rain than umbrellas.

To call this sophomoric may be correct.  Actually freshman would be probably
more accurate.

<<Why is the prospect of analyzing linguistic data rigorously, employing
mathematical models, so frightening to you?>>

Given this little exercise, do I really have to answer that?

<<I can see why you prefer not to deal with mathematical models. If you have
100 trials, and the same cause has the same effect, the probability of the
cause creating the same effect again is 100%. Not 99%. Not 98%. Infinity is
not a factor in this equation.>>

All of this is completely not true.  That is not how probability is
calculated.

Remember that if you use probability to predict, you cannot ever be 100%
certain that the next event will match your prior events, no matter how many
incidences you have measured.  And the number of incidences will affect your
percentage of certainty especially in a random distribution.  All probability
is basically measured against random distribution.

By your logic, if I flip a coin three times and it is always heads, then "the
probability of the cause (flipping) creating the same effect (heads) is 100%."
I don't need to tell you that is not the probability of getting heads next
time.

For a better idea of what those percentages mean, check a bell curve at the
far end and see what percentage is at the very farthest end. That is
probability at its extreme. I wouldn't get into infinity at this point.

<<There are no limitations to statistics.>>

There are some things that can only be submitted to statistical analysis after
they are properly analyzed.  And there are many times that simply do not
provide isolatible variables.  These are automatic limitations on
"statistics."

I don't think your wrong about the value of statistics, but I do believe that
if you try to apply it to a very specific problem, you will see that it does
have its ups and downs.

With your formidable knowledge of historical linguistics, you might try
analyzing a manageable, short-term statistical problem.  Like possible
correlations with the occurences or non-occurence of a particular sound shift
in the written records of a very limited historical period.  The excercise
might be sobering.  On the other hand, you might also prove me wrong about all
this.

Regards,
Steve Long


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Thu Feb  4 06:58:45 1999
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 01:58:45 EST
Subject: Chomsky
Message-ID: <THU.4.FEB.1999.015845.EST.>

In a message dated 2/3/99 10:45:20 PM, GregWeb at aol.com wrote:

<< Chomsky apparently cannot explain how a universal grammar
template would come to exist in the brain although it makes sense that it
does.   Pinker makes a rather convincing argument for its evolution and
existence, and he does not posit the existence of a grammar gene.   Neither
does he imply that humans suddenly began speaking with lots of vowels,
consonants and vocabulary roots.>>

The problem here is that if we did not have this grammar gene, would we have
to conclude that we could not have developed grammar?

A large amount of prefrontal capacity and human larynx, unusual among apes,
may have been all we needed at that point in historical time.  Just as all we
needed was that and thumbs (and a few other things) to be able to eventually
build chariots, cars, airplanes and what ever comes next.  We don't have to
conjecture an airplane building gene.

The basic reason language must follow basic rules is the same reason airplane
technology must follow basic rules about structure.  Otherwise they don't
work.

Its not impossible that these structures are built into our make-up.  But it
seems much more likely that we learn the demands - the rules - of airplane
building and of language building, because we are capable of dadjusting to new
rules when the situation demands it.  As hard as it might be to imagine a
world where airplanes don't need wings and not all verbs need nouns, we might
be able to adapt to such a world.

There really is no problem with considering language an "acquired trait" like
so many other human things that are passed on from one generation to the next.
The question of why we are so good at passing on acquired traits and improving
on them is however worthwhile.  The gene passes on pre-wired traits from
generation to generation.  What gene helps us pass on a learned trait like
language?

A gene that makes us want to imitate sounds might be worth looking into.  It
appears to be a true inherited trait in birds, like the Mynah.  Perhaps it is
in human babies, if not human adults.  It may also explain why we sometimes
"can't get a tune out of head."

Grammar, on the other hand, may be no more than a reflection of how the world
is.  And by the time we are old enough to use grammar, we have already learned
that the world is divided into things and actions and attributes and so forth.
And that we need to discriminate between these things to describe them.  Any
other arrangement would not work.  Imagine if we only saw the world as actions
and there were no objects.  We'd be missing an important aspect of reality.

Our ancestors help us out by giving us a language - developed over many
generations - very adept at those discriminations and already loaded with
considerable detail.  Otherwise each individual human might have to develop
aorist on its own. :)

Regards,
Steve Long

[ Moderator's note:
  This thread, while interesting, is marginal with respect to Indo-European
  studies.  Unless there is something to be said about IE directly, let's
  move the discussion to private e-mail, or the Evolution-and-Language list.
  --rma ]


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Thu Feb  4 07:39:16 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 02:39:16 EST
Subject: IE and Semitic
Message-ID: <THU.4.FEB.1999.023916.EST.>

>Odegard at means.net (Mark Odegard <Odegard at means.net>)

>For whatever reason (perhaps the final pulse of sea level rising
>sometime before 3000 BCE), the Anatolians became restricted to
>Anatolia, and by 2000, pre-Greek was/had infiltrated Greece, while
>the main body of IE-speakers was found up and beyond the
>Vardar-Morava corridor.

-- this runs into the lexical chronology problem again.

However early Anatolian separated from PIE, it still had the same 4th-
millenium vocabulary for draught, horses, etc.


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Thu Feb  4 07:46:35 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 02:46:35 EST
Subject: Hurrians in N. Mesopotamia
Message-ID: <THU.4.FEB.1999.024635.EST.>

>On Fri, 29 Jan 1999, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote:

> There were no Hurrians in Northern Mesopotamia and Syria until
> 2200 BC or so.

-- Saggs places them there considerably earlier.

"The native name for what we call the "Hurrian" language was the 'tongue of
Su-bir', and third-millennium Sumerian texts mention Su-bir (hich we normally
anglicize as 'Subarian') as what seems to have been a population element in
north Mesopotamia, with no indication that they were thought of as immigrants.
Moreover, Hurrians had already formed a small kingdom in the Habur river
region of Syria as early as the twenty-fourth century BC, which implies a
Hurrian presence in the Near East substantially earlier."

-- in other words, Hurrians were established in the area at the earlies
attested dates.


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Thu Feb  4 07:52:23 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 02:52:23 EST
Subject: Germanic and Semitic
Message-ID: <THU.4.FEB.1999.025223.EST.>

>tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de (Theo Vennemann)

>The greater problem is: How did folk 'division (of an army)' and plow
>"divider of the soil" (from the same family of Semitic roots) find their way
>into Germanic (and only Germanic)?

-- well, to put it mildly, this isn't generally accepted.


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Thu Feb  4 07:58:22 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 02:58:22 EST
Subject: Divergences
Message-ID: <THU.4.FEB.1999.025822.EST.>

>tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de (Theo Vennemann)

>Besides, to the extent that they are prehistoric (and even the Second
>Consonant Shift is prehistoric), no-one knows when they occurred.

-- if the Celtic ironworking loans underwent the first shift, then the first
shift must postdate the loans.  Since Germanic couldn't have acquired a Celtic
ironworking terminology until ironworking spread to Central Europe, that puts
a fairly precise date on the shift, QED.  No earlier than 700 BCE, probably a
bit later.

>These may all be defensible views. Wish you did not make them sound as if
>they were mine. E.g., I assume speakers of  early forms of Germanic to
>havelived in Northern Europe since about -4000.

-- well, compromise on 3500 BCE and we're square... 8-).

But these couldn't really be "early forms of Germanic"; they're just late
Indo-European.  There's no sign the northwestern IE stocks started diverging
before the 2nd millenium BCE, and plenty that they didn't.  Talking about
proto-Germanic before the 1600-1200 BCE range isn't very meaningful, IMHO.  Of
course, I'm just following Mallory and Adams, there.


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Thu Feb  4 08:24:34 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 03:24:34 EST
Subject: Agricultural dispersals
Message-ID: <THU.4.FEB.1999.032434.EST.>

>glengordon01 at hotmail.com (Glen Gordon)

>I don't see why the agriculturalists that moved into Europe and who show up
>in genetic data of what's-his-name-Sforza have to be speaking Indo-European
>of all things.

-- well, I agree that they don't.  In fact, Cavalli-Sforza's gene maps also
show a dispersal from north of the Sea of Azov dating to the _late_ neolithic,
which fits in perfectly with a North Pontic homeland for IE.

>As Indo-European spread across Europe later on, it would have wiped out
>almost all traces of the earlier non-Indo-European languages.

-- agreed.  In fact, given that the initial agricultural colonization seems to
have petered out in Western Europe, replaced by adoption of Neolithic
technologies by native mesolithic populations, the intrusive Indo-European
probably replaced _both_ the language(s) brought in by the agricultural wave
of advance _and_ the remaining descendants of the mesolithic population's
language(s).

Except Basque and Etruscan, of course.


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Thu Feb  4 08:35:58 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 03:35:58 EST
Subject: Chariots
Message-ID: <THU.4.FEB.1999.033558.EST.>

>vidynath at math.ohio-state.edu (Vidhyanath Rao)

>You mean that the actual chariot was found. My understanding, based on
>photographs, (and what Littauer and Crowell explicitely say) is that only
>indentations made by the wheels and the axle part extending out were found,
>and the superstructure was fully decayed away. If a photograph (not a
>skectch) of whatever superstructure was ever found, I would like a reference.

-- ""The vehicles were placed in the burials with their wheels fitted into
holes dug into the grave floor.  As the buried rims and spokes rotted they
left stains in the earth that indicate their shapes.  In a burial at the
Krivoe Ozero cemetery north of Sintashta, stains from portions of a chariot
superstructure were also preserved...

Sintashta-Petrovka chariot wheels had eight to 12 spokes..."

-- that's Anthony and Vinogradov in "Archaeology".  They're chariots; light
spoked wheels, bentwood and wicker construction, and paired draught by horses.

There are also the interesting parallels to Vedic ritual at the burial sites,
of course; not surprising, since we're almost certainly talking about very
early Indo-Iranians here.


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Thu Feb  4 08:44:17 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 03:44:17 EST
Subject: Anatolians
Message-ID: <THU.4.FEB.1999.034417.EST.>

>mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)

>Who says?  I date the entry of Anatolian into Anatolia no different from
>Mallory, i.e. ca. 3000 BC (Troy I).  Where Idiffer is that I put the
>Anatolians in the Balkan >peninsula before that time, not in the steppe.

-- well, so does Mallory, in that they have to _cross_ the Balkans to get to
Anatolia in the first place.

>Uralic is not a "Steppe language".

-- No, it's a language of the northern Eurasian forest zone, _north_ of the
steppe and forest-steppe areas, on both sides of the middle Ural range at the
earliest known dates.

This reinforces the notion that PIE was directly south of there in the forest-
steppe and steppe zones.

>Sure we can connect IE to Uralic, if we accept some version of the Nostratic
>hypothesis, but we can equally connect it withKartvelian or Afro-Asiatic.

-- the connection that's relevant in this context is borrowed lexical items,
rather than a genetic link.

>Etruscan was spoken in Greece and Western Anatolia before 1200 BC, closer to
>Semitic than IE.

-- this is, to say the least, not generally accepted.


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Thu Feb  4 09:07:32 1999
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 09:07:32 +0000
Subject: rate of language change
In-Reply-To: <l03130304b2d9782fab0b@[207.120.0.99]>
Message-ID: <THU.4.FEB.1999.090732.0000.LARRYT@COGS.SUSX.AC.UK>

On Sat, 30 Jan 1999, Rick Mc Callister wrote:

[LT]

> >> Paul, Marie, elle a couche avec.
> >>you won't find this construction in any
> >>reference grammar of French.

> 	My colleague in French blanched when she saw this. She said this
> was the kind of French that "you heard in the Metro but that no one would
> admit to speaking."

Well, yes -- tremendous observation, and exactly my point.
Self-reporting and self-conscious judgements are not, in general,
reliable guides to the way a language is genuinely spoken.  Languages
change faster than we care to admit, and often in ways we don't care to
admit.

Recall the case of the Italian "personal a".  It's not described in any
grammar of Italian; Italian-speakers apparently often deny its existence
-- and yet observation has revealed that it is frequent.  Very likely
the Spanish "personal a" got started in the same way: as a vulgarism
that was beneath notice.  But today it's an established part of the
standard language, and omitting it where it's required constitutes "bad
Spanish".

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Thu Feb  4 09:11:20 1999
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 09:11:20 +0000
Subject: rate of change
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.4.05.9902020024260.256-100000@breakout.rs.itd.umich.edu>
Message-ID: <THU.4.FEB.1999.091120.0000.LARRYT@COGS.SUSX.AC.UK>

On Tue, 2 Feb 1999 manaster at umich.edu wrote:

[LT]

> > *First* we have to agree on what *exactly* it is that we want to try to
> > measure.  "Measuring the rate of language change" is every bit as
> > diffuse a concept as "measuring the rate of social change".

> But there is well-known work on specific rates of specific kinds
> of change, e.g., the rate at which words are replaced in the
> 100-item Swadesh list.  We know for certain, even Swadesh
> towards the end conceded, that this rate is not the same
> for all languages,  There are examples of the rate being
> much slower than Swadesh's norm (Icelandic) and ones of it being
> much faster (Eastern Greenlandic).  This much is or should
> be widely known.

Sure.  That was my point.

If we identifically *one specific type of change*, then we can at least
approach the problem of trying to measure the rate of that change --
though not necessarily successfully.

But this is utterly different from trying to measure the overall rate of
change -- which is the suggestion I was sismissing.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Thu Feb  4 09:15:36 1999
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 09:15:36 +0000
Subject: IE-Semitic connections
In-Reply-To: <19990202072519.3379.qmail@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <THU.4.FEB.1999.091536.0000.LARRYT@COGS.SUSX.AC.UK>

On Mon, 1 Feb 1999, Glen Gordon wrote:

[on Basque <sei> `six', <zazpi> `seven']

> Whoops almost missed that one. Good thing I re-read. Basque? This brings
> up that ugly topic again of where Basque got those numbers from. I
> fathomed that they are perhaps some kind of Late Latin/Romance borrowing
> out of a blind guess. Larry Trask would know but he's probably busy
> battling Bengtson's Dene-Caucasian theory right now :)

I've already commented on <zazpi>.  As for <sei>, a Romance source looks
very implausible.  All the western Romance languages appear to retain
some kind of final sibilant in the word for `six', and hence a loan into
Basque should have produced something like *<seits> or *<zeitz> or maybe
*<seis>, but not the observed <sei>.  Probably a chance resemblance.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Thu Feb  4 09:21:52 1999
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 09:21:52 +0000
Subject: wh
In-Reply-To: <28db1d6.36b717fa@aol.com>
Message-ID: <THU.4.FEB.1999.092152.0000.LARRYT@COGS.SUSX.AC.UK>

On Tue, 2 Feb 1999 ERobert52 at aol.com wrote:

> BTW, Larry Trask is exaggerating to say /hw/ is dead in England. I
> visit England frequently and still occasionally hear it from native
> English people. My wife, who is English, reports that her mother
> told her as a child that not saying /hw/ was sloppy.  My wife has
> retained /hw/, but her mother has now moved to /w/.

Very interesting.  Whenever I hear somebody with an English accent using
[hw-], I immediately think "You're Scottish!"  In fact, I did this
yesterday.  I got a phone call from a distinguished archaeologist with
an impeccable upper-class English accent -- and he used [hw-].  So I
said "I've just realized you're Scottish", and he was.

I know that a few people in England retain [hw-] as a kind of personal
idiosyncrasy.  But I'll have a look at John Wells's Accents of English
later to see if Wells recognizes [hw-] anywhere in England.

Right now, gotta teach.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk


From sw271 at cus.cam.ac.uk  Thu Feb  4 10:57:31 1999
From: sw271 at cus.cam.ac.uk (Sheila Watts)
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 10:57:31 +0000
Subject: St Jerome
In-Reply-To: <011a01be4eee$b0675ea0$7e3963c3@niywlxpn>
Message-ID: <THU.4.FEB.1999.105731.0000.SW271@CUS.CAM.AC.UK>

>> St Jerome must issue forth the
>>official Latin Vulgate "in good language."

>The Latin of the vulgate is clearly very late Latin, not "good latin" in
>your sense.   For example it includes phrases such as "dixit quoniam" (= he
>said that ...).   In "good Latin" quoniam means because.

I don't know how Peter/Graham determines which sense of 'good Latin' is
meant. Jerome certainly agonised a good deal over his translation, knowing
that the Latin fell short of the high classical standards:

"I myself not only admit but freely claim that when I translate the Greeks,
except for the Holy Scriptures, where even the order of the words is a
mystery, I do so not word for word but sense for sense
[...]
It is a pious work but dangerously presumptive to pick the one right text
from all the possible texts, to change the language of an old man and to
drag an aging world back to the beginnings of childhood. For who, learned
so much as unlearned, when he picks up the book and reads it closely and
sees that it is different from the sweet flavour he once drank, who will
not cry out that I am a sacrilegious forger because I have dared to add,
change or correct anything in the old books?
[...]
  A translation for the Church, even if it has beauty of style, ought to
hide and even shun it, so as to speak not to the elite schools of the
philosophers with their handful of disciples, but to the whole human race."

(Quoted in David Norton, A History of the Bible as Literature, CUP 1993).

Sheila Watts
_______________________________________________________
Dr Sheila Watts
Newnham College
Cambridge CB3 9DF
United Kingdom

phone +44 1223 335816


From W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de  Thu Feb  4 11:03:32 1999
From: W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de (Wolfgang Schulze)
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 12:03:32 +0100
Subject: Caucasian languages and Asia Minor
Message-ID: <THU.4.FEB.1999.120332.0100.W.SCHULZE@LRZ.UNIMUENCHEN.DE>

Rick Mc Callister schrieb:

>         Hattic, Hurrian & Urartian are often said to be N. Caucasian
> --which in modern times is almost always found on the north slope and north
> of the Caucasus.
>
>         I seem to remember reading that formerly, N Caucasian languages
> were spoken even farther to the north. [which obviously doesn't preclude
> them having a larger territory to the south as well].
>
>         It's possible that Kartvelian may have divided Hattic et al.
> [assuming they are NC] from N. Caucasian and pushed them to the west &
> south, perhaps even as far as Greece --where they are some claims that
> "pre-Pelasgian" languages may have been from the Caucasus. Kaska --just a
> name on the map as far as I know-- has also been claimed as Caucasian.
>

Let me first say this: The claim that Hattic and Hurro-Urartian should
beclassified as "North Caucasian" first presupposes that we do have something
like "North Caucasian". However, the genetic relationship between West
Caucasian (West- and East Circessian, Ubykh, Abaza, and Akbkhaz) and East
Caucasian (about 29 languages) ist far from being proven (if ever such a proof
is possible). Today, "North Caucasian" is strongly advocated for by S.L.
Nikolayev and S.A. Starostin (North Caucasian Etymological Dictionary, Moscow
1994 (Asterisk) [NCED]), and many people refer to this work just as THE final
word on this question. Yet, the NCED is full of methodological errors,
incorrect data, false integration of loan words etc. (see current reviews (e.g.
in _Diachronica_)). There are many others proposals concerning this question,
e.g. that East Caucasian once was located in the Kuro-Alazani region of (now)
Westerns Azerbajdzhan, whereas West Caucasian had a trong orientation towards
the Ponctic region (see Schulze 1998:169-186 and the references mentioned
there). From this it would follow that the "North Caucasian" hypothesis merely
results from the phantasies of the "trained comparativists [...] trained by
aficionados of the Nostratic school" as Dixon has put it (Dixon 1997:135, fn.
11).

    But this is only the one side of the problem. Rick says that "N Caucasian
languages were spoken even farther to the north". What is this assumption based
on? Loan words? Anthroponyms? Place names etc.? Ethnonyms (a very dangerous
criterion, as everybody should know)? As far as I know, only variants of the
(now) northern West Caucasian languages (that is, Circessian) are liable to
have be spoken more nothernly (in the Eastern Pontic area). The northernmost
East Caucasian language, namely Chechen, had probably never been spoken north
of the Terek river (which is understandable if we assume that the speakers of
Nakh (Chechen-Ingush and Bac) probably immigrated from the South East (remeber
the Old Armenian name for "Chechen language" _naxch'amatyan_ which can perphaps
be read as chech. _nouxchiyn mout:_ ("language of the Chechen") as well as the
name for the region of Nakhichevan, perhaps more than a folk etymology often
referred to by Chechens).

    The question of  "a larger territory to the south" occupied by speakers of
"North Caucasian" has never been substantiated. The only thing that we know for
sure is that the southernmost East Caucasian language (Udi) once covered a
broader areal in Western Azerbajdzhan, perhaps down to Nagornyj Karabax. But
that' all. No place names, no (older) loans words in the southern languages
that could identified as "East Caucasian". The problem is surely linked with
the status of Hurro-Urartian. Diakonoff/Starostin 1986 have claimed that this
language cluster qualifies as East Caucasian (but see Schulze 1987). This claim
still is maintained in the NCED. But the qualitiy of the "proof" is VERY poor.
According to my opinion, the sound laws proposed by Diakonoff/Starostin are
rather ad hoc and very often based on a hapax legomenon; their comparative
treatement of the grammars of (actual!) East Caucasian languages and
Hurro-Urartian is a complete failure.

    Again we can observe this fatal trend in historical linguistics or
omnipcomparativism: A language isolate cannot be accepted; such a status would
be an offense or at least a challenge to the researchers. Every language in the
Ancient Middle East etc. has to belong to one of the major language groups
(with all the Nostraticism behind). Naturally every language has its history
and it is clear that every language has its ancestors. But why should this
ancestor be represenetd by one of the language groups we know of today?
Language diversity probably was much stronger in ancient times than nowadays,
and Asia Minor was a melting pot of the descendants of many such "ancestors".
There is no scientific need to put all the languages (or language fragments or
rumors on language fragments stemming from ancient sources via ethnonyms) into
one or two baskets.

    What I have said for Hurro-Urartian is even more valid for Hattic. Exepct
for one or two pseudo-etymlogies which have the qualitity of comparing English
_cat_ and Lak (East Caucasian) _ch:it:u_ ("cat", as all of you know a
wanderwort), the claim of Hattic as then "West Caucasian" is based on
typological aspects (prefix-agglutination, some kind of ergativity etc.). But
if we (errously) accept typology as a feature of genetic affiliation (which we
should NEVER do) it would be much better to compare West Cauacsian to the
Non-Pama-Nyunga languages of Australia. Though we cannot prove
"non-relationship" out of methodological reasons it seems rather unlikely that
Hattic has something to do with any kind of "North Caucasian".

    The less we know about a language the more it is likely that the language
is subjected to the kind of claims discussed above. This is especially true for
"Pelasgian". I never have seen any serious treatement of Pelasgian (or even
"pre-Pelasgian") elements by someone who has an explicit knowledge of East or
West Caucasian. Again, we have to deal with a rumor, an on-dit, already
established in the Early 20th Century by people who had to fill in gaps in
those times of romantic comparativism (which obviously realizes a strong
revival today).

    What has been said so far is also (and the more) valid for all assumptions
about "Kaska" (nothing but a place name!) or other so-called "languages" etc.
E.g., the Gutian language (bab. the peole _q'uti:m_;  midth of the 2nd
millenium in Babylonia) is sometimes identified as a ancestors of what now is
Udi, just becasue there are Aremian and Urartian sources that mention a region
_q'uti_ etc. in South East Caucasia. It is so simple to claim the loss of
initial *q'- in Udi (which by no means is a sound law in Udi) and then to
propose the match _q'ut'-_ / _udi_. All we know from Gutean is a list of 14
king names (and two or three very very doubtfull "loans" into Babylonian): None
of these king names has ever been identified as Udi (even only approximately)
[I confess I tried to, but it doesn't work].

To conclude: Whatever the linguistic situation in Asia Minor, Greece etc. has
been before or by the time of the arrival of IE speakers: Up to now there is NO
serious and scientifically substantiated evidence that North Caucasian
languages have ever been spoken in the area. It may well have been, who knows
[though I doubt]! But it is little helpfull to rely on rumors etc. without any
thoroughfull knowledge of West and East Caucasian, both snychronically and -
much more important - diachronically. Remember that Historical Linguistics with
respect to these two language groups still is in its infancy. It has the
quality of IE linguistics in the beginnings of the last century. We work hard
to improve the situation but it will take its time. Referring to historical
aspects of these languages today in order to subtantiate any claim of
affiliation to language isolates is nothing but (in a metaphorical sense)
nostratic science fiction. And this surely isn't a good basis for any serious
discussion of the major problem of IE urheimat.

Wolfgang

References:

Diakonoff, I.M. & S.A. Starostin 1986. _Hurro-Urartian as an East Caucasian
Language. Muenchen: Kitzinger.
Dixon, R.M.W. 1997. _The rise and fall of languages_. Cambridge: CUP.
Nikolayev, S.L. & S.A. Starostin. _A North Caucasian Etymological Dictionary_
Moscow: Asterisk.
Schulze, W. 1987. Review of Diakonoff/Starostin 1986. _Kratylos_ 32:154-159.
Schulze, W. 1997. Review of Nikolayev/Starostin 1997. _Diachronica_
XIV,1:149-161.
Schulze, W. 1998. _Person, Klasse, Kongruenz. Fragmente einer
Kategorialtypologie des einfachen Satzes in den ostkaukasischen Sprachen. Vol 1
(in two parts): Die Grundlagen._
Muenchen: LINCOM Europa.

--
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schulze
Institut fuer Allgemeine und indogermanische Sprachwissenschaft
Universitaet Muenchen
Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1
D-80539 Muenchen
Tel: 089-21802486 (secr.)
       089-21802485 (office)
Email: W.Schulze at mail.lrz-muenchen.de
http:///www.lrz-muenchen.de/~wschulze/


From tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de  Thu Feb  4 12:12:51 1999
From: tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de (Theo Vennemann)
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 13:12:51 +0100
Subject: IE-Semitic connections
Message-ID: <THU.4.FEB.1999.131251.0100.TVN@CIS.UNIMUENCHEN.DE>

>Theo Vennemann

[ moderator snip ]

>Well. If mcv is correct, the solution is obvious. Pre-PIE is to be
>found in Western Anatolia, Greece, the Aegean and parts perhaps a
>bit south. Considering that sea level was something like 50 feet
>lower ca. 5500 BE than today, what would be the most revealing
>neolithic sites would seem to be inundated (below the present deltas
>of the Nile, the Orontes, the Vardar, etc). This permits *direct*
>contact between A-A/proto-Semitic speakers.

>For whatever reason (perhaps the final pulse of sea level rising
>sometime before 3000 BCE), the Anatolians became restricted to
>Anatolia, and by 2000, pre-Greek was/had infiltrated Greece, while
>the main body of IE-speakers was found up and beyond the
>Vardar-Morava corridor.

I meant to say in Western Europe.

T.V., 4 February 1999


From mcv at wxs.nl  Thu Feb  4 12:21:27 1999
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 12:21:27 GMT
Subject: IE-Semitic connections
In-Reply-To: <19990129234743.19379.qmail@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <THU.4.FEB.1999.122127.GMT.>

"Glen Gordon" <glengordon01 at hotmail.com> wrote:

>I can't see
>how "zazpi" can be related to a t-less Semitic form because of the
>second -z- which has to be a soft representation of a previous /t/ (what
>else could it possibly be??)

There is no sound law ti > zi in Basque itself, so if a
hypothetical *zapzi comes from something like *sapti, the source
of the borrowing must be some language that tended to assibilate
dentals before front vowels.  Or the *-ti was changed to *-zi
under the influence of zortzi "8" (just like bederatzu "9" became
bederatzi in W & C Basque under the influence of the word for
"8").  All of this assuming zazpi was metathesized from *zapzi,
as indeed we must if we want to relate the Basque word to the
Mediterranean Wandernumeral.  Larry may rightly object that there
is no evidence for metathesis in this word.

>To be honest it probably can't be explained as a Classical Latin
>borrowing (cf. Lat apta- > hauta- "choose") but couldn't this be a late
>Latin borrowing?

No.  Latin septem > sEpte~ > sEtte > sEte > sEt (Occ.) or siete
(Cast.)

>It's definitively not from a t-less Semitic form. Maybe
>an _m-less_ one at most and then we have to explain why Semitic *b
>becomes Basque /p/!

Basque b automatically becomes p when it meets <z> (which is
voiceless, remember).

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam


From W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de  Thu Feb  4 13:00:37 1999
From: W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de (Wolfgang Schulze)
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 14:00:37 +0100
Subject: MSS
Message-ID: <THU.4.FEB.1999.140037.0100.W.SCHULZE@LRZ.UNIMUENCHEN.DE>

Sun, 31 Jan 1999 13:42:12 -0500 (EST), Alexis MR wrote:

> Does anybody know what's going on with the editors
> of MSS and why they would not be responding to
> repeated letters?  Alexis MR

MSS people are - as far as I - know very active. Heinrich Hettrich
(Wuerzburg) is the main editor, together with Klaus Strunk (Muenchen).
The last volume (57) appeared 1997 (published by  J.H. Roell-Verlag,
Dettelbach, Germany).

Hope that helps!

--
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schulze
Institut fuer Allgemeine und Indogermanische Sprachwissenschaft
Universitaet Muenchen
Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1
D-80539 Muenchen
Tel:    +89-21802486 (secr.)
          +89-21802485 (office)
Email: W.Schulze at mail.lrz-muenchen.de
http:///www.lrz-muenchen.de/~wschulze/


From GregWeb at aol.com  Thu Feb  4 13:22:04 1999
From: GregWeb at aol.com (GregWeb at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 08:22:04 EST
Subject: Evolution seed/saw
Message-ID: <THU.4.FEB.1999.082204.EST.>

Actually, I think the child is saying seed because he or she has learned,
without being specifically taught, but by listening to adults, that the past
tense is made by adding "ed".   This is because the brain is programmed to
look for, analyze and learn the past tense in whatever language the child is
learning, from listening to adult speakers.   The child has to specifically
memorize irregular forms like saw, taught, caught, etc., which are not
naturally learned, so that even if the child has heard saw, he or she may
continue to fall back on seed until forced by the educational system to speak
"correctly."

[ Moderator's note:
  We've moved far from Indo-European here.  Let's close up this discussion.
  --rma ]


From oldgh at hum.au.dk  Thu Feb  4 14:47:51 1999
From: oldgh at hum.au.dk (George Hinge)
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 14:47:51 MET
Subject: Greek question
Message-ID: <THU.4.FEB.1999.144751.MET.OLDGH@HUM.AU.DK>

Even though I suppose that the Moderator is right in rejecting
*nog(w)h-t-, I am not sure that it can be ruled out completely on the
basis of Bartholomae's Law.

The law is restricted to Indo-Iranian and is a late procedure. It is
at least possible that the assimilation of dh-t bh-t gh-t has
happened twice (or over a longer period): the Proto-Indo-European
assimilation was limited and did not cross the morpheme-boundary,
while the post-Indo-Iranian was complete. Then, one has to argue,
that there is a closer affinity between -t- and the stem in *nogwh-t-
than -to- and the stem in, say, *bhudh-to-.

Or, one can explain the problem away generatively, arguing that
Bartholomae's Law was a synchronic rule in Proto-Indo-Iranian, an
expression of the relationship between cognate stems with a
particular segment at the root-boundary (*baudh- ~ *buddha-). The
only derivation of the stem *negwh- in Indo-Iranian was *nogwh-t-,
and there was no "need", then, for marking original root-structure,
ergo > *nakt-.

In spite of all these badly phrased and idle considerations, I'm
still sceptical towards *nogwh-t-. Maybe Greek nykh- is a false
interpretation, not of the nominativ nyks (cf. Chantraine), but of
nykt|, on the analogy of lektron ~ lekhomai, thaptos ~ taphos etc.
The forms ennykh(i)os and pannykh(i)os are poetic and may be
artistic creations of the epic tradition.

George Hinge
oldgh at hum.aau.dk


From CeiSerith at aol.com  Thu Feb  4 14:02:25 1999
From: CeiSerith at aol.com (CeiSerith at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 09:02:25 EST
Subject: Evolution
Message-ID: <THU.4.FEB.1999.090225.EST.>

<<  Evolution's "method" is random change. >>

   Not at all true.  Evolution's method is natural selection, a feedback
process which creates change at a much faster rate (and in a more viable
direction) than random change.  This is a mistake often made by
fundamentalists in their arguments against evolution.

Ceisiwr Serith

[ Moderator's note:
  Let's move this discussion to private e-mail, or the Evolution-and-Language
  list.  It has moved far from Indo-European.
  --rma ]


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Thu Feb  4 14:49:44 1999
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (Patrick C. Ryan)
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 08:49:44 -0600
Subject: Greek question
Message-ID: <THU.4.FEB.1999.084944.0600.PROTOLANGUAGE@EMAIL.MSN.COM>

Dear Rich and IEists:


-----Original Message-----
From: Patrick C. Ryan <proto-language at email.msn.com>
Date: Thursday, February 04, 1999 4:11 AM

[ moderator snip ]

>[ Moderator's comment:
>  But this violates Bartholomae's Law:  The Sanskrit evidence shows us -kt-,
>  which could not arise from PIE *-ght- (which gives Sanskrit -gdh-).
>  --rma ]

Good point *if* the compound had been formed independently in each branch
*after* the Indo-Iranians were separated.

I am under the impression that though Kurylowicz and others have been
interested in extending the "law" back to PIE times, this has not met
general acceptance but perhaps I am not privy to the latest information.

If  *ne(u)k(h)-to- had already become compounded in PIE, Bartholomae's Law
would not have come into play, would it?

Pat


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Thu Feb  4 15:19:29 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 09:19:29 -0600
Subject: wh
In-Reply-To: <009d01be4bca$5d691f80$513863c3@niywlxpn>
Message-ID: <THU.4.FEB.1999.091929.0600.RMCCALLI@SUNMUW1.MUW.EDU>

	<wh> is sometimes described as /hw/ [especially in non-linguistic
media: English books, etc.] but more often [I believe] described as a
single --un-ASCII-able-- phoneme. I think "voiceless /w/" would work fine.
The sound is rapidly dying out in the US. When I was growing up, people
would sneer at those couldn't distinguish between Wales & whales. But now
when people speak of the "Prince of /weylz/" it's hard to know whether
they're talking about Charles or Moby Dick.

At 8:37 PM +0000 1/29/99, Peter &/or Graham wrote:
>Larry writes of initial /hw/ as if it were indeed /hw/.   I have seen this
>description of it in the text books, and been puzzled by it.   In my dialect
>(NZ) it is a voiceless /w/.   There is no /h/ at all.
>
>I'm just checking back, I guess.   Do some speakers actually say /h/+ /w/?
>I always thought the textbooks were wrong.
>
>Peter

[ Moderator's note:
  This discussion has moved far from Indo-European.  Let's consider it closed
  on this list.
  --rma ]


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Thu Feb  4 15:24:26 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 09:24:26 -0600
Subject: rate of language change
In-Reply-To: <19990129224613.9437.qmail@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <THU.4.FEB.1999.092426.0600.RMCCALLI@SUNMUW1.MUW.EDU>

	I always perceived /hy- > y-/ as a New York City area phenomenon
that's been around for years. Carl Sagan used it, remember "yoomans"?

[ moderator snip ]

>I notice it but I and many others rarely use /hw/ in Manitoba anymore. I
>find the /hw/ pronunciation overly pronounced. I prefer to mangle all my
>words if possible. The /hj/ > /j/ change and the /hw/ > /w/ are not
>hand-in-hand since here, the pronunciation of "huge" is definitively
>/hju:d3/, not /ju:d3/, unless one is constipated. :)

[ Moderator's note:
  This discussion has moved far from Indo-European.  Let's consider it closed
  on this list.
  --rma ]


From manaster at umich.edu  Thu Feb  4 15:41:54 1999
From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu)
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 10:41:54 -0500
Subject: Greek question
In-Reply-To: <001001be4e4a$b35cc360$0e9ffad0@patrickcryan>
Message-ID: <THU.4.FEB.1999.104154.0500.>

I am pleased and impressed.  I did not think that Mr.
Ryan and I would ever agree on anything, but although
I dont see as yet how we can invoke *newgh- because
the *ew does not agree with the vocalism of *nokwt-/*nekwt-
(the -u- in Greek is a late development explained
by a law stated by Cowgill if memory serves, so
we cannot posit a proto-form with *u/w),
I myself just yesterday proposed precisely that we could
have *neghw-/*noghw- plus -t- and I anticipated our
moderator's objection by pointing out that there it
is NOT clear that Bartholomae's Law was in effect
in early PIE (or Pre-PIE).  But much needs to be done
before we can glibly assert any of this, both with
regard to BL and with regard to the IE vocalism
and the original meaning of *nokwt-/*nekwt- and
of course to any extra-IE connections.

On Mon, 1 Feb 1999, Patrick C. Ryan wrote:

[snip]

> I would like to put forward a thought based on my own comparative efforts.

> I believe the base of <nu:kto/s> is IE *neugh-, and therefore contrasts with
> all the other derivatives listed under Pokorny's *nekw-, which are derived
> from an alternative form: *negh-; both of which having the meaning 'black'.

> When the IE stem with -to was originated, the final consonants of both stems
> were de-voiced to *k(h).

> The entry in Pokorny that comes closest to being related to the Greek forms
> is *neuk(h)-, 'dark', from earlier *neugh- + -s/t- (metathesis in Latin
> nuscitio:sus).

> The root without -u- is also attested in Egyptian nHzj, 'Nubian = black
> (man)'.

> Pat

> [ Moderator's comment:
>   But this violates Bartholomae's Law:  The Sanskrit evidence shows us -kt-,
>   which could not arise from PIE *-ght- (which gives Sanskrit -gdh-).
>   --rma ]


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Thu Feb  4 16:14:44 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 10:14:44 -0600
Subject: agglutination in Scandinavian languages
In-Reply-To: <199902011425.PAA21962@tyr.diku.dk>
Message-ID: <THU.4.FEB.1999.101444.0600.RMCCALLI@SUNMUW1.MUW.EDU>

Any historical reason why Jutland was an exception?

[snip]
Carol Jensen wrote:

>   To Mark Hubey, who probably knows this, I will remind him that except in
>   Jutland in Denmark, the Scandinavian languages agglutinated the definite
>   article (only to the noun) rather suddenly as such things go.

[snip]


From manaster at umich.edu  Thu Feb  4 16:14:26 1999
From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu)
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 11:14:26 -0500
Subject: rate of change
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.4.05.9902020024260.256-100000@breakout.rs.itd.umich.edu>
Message-ID: <THU.4.FEB.1999.111426.0500.>

I don't know this, Rich, and would be very grateful
for a reference or specifics.  I have only come
across a handful of examples that were widely
off the mark, Icelandic, E Greenlandic, and
I thik the one Swadesh himself admitted was
Carib or some other lg in that area.  But I
could be wrong, of course.  Starostin incidentally
has some refinements to the American G/L methods
which is not well known here. I do not advocate it
but he does seek to deal with some of the
problems in an interesting way. I have
abrief account of some salient points in
a book review I did a couple of years back.
I think otherwise it is all in Russian,
but maybe that too is wrong (anybody?).

A.

>[ Moderator's comment:
>  I was under the impression--given by a supporter of glottochronology, Dyen--
>  that G/L dates for the Romance languages, for example, are wildly off when
>  compared to the known history.  Given that no testable languages have ever
>  agreed with Swadesh's hypothesis, can we really treat this method as "almost
>  always right" with regard to those languages we cannot otherwise date?
>  --rma ]

[ Moderator's response:
  I'll have to check some old notebooks and references and get back to you.
  I know I've seen some figures for various Romance languages, but it's been
  too long ago to remember any details without refreshing my memory.
  --rma ]


From manaster at umich.edu  Thu Feb  4 16:18:01 1999
From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu)
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 11:18:01 -0500
Subject: rate of change
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.03.9902040908360.429-100000@rsuno.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <THU.4.FEB.1999.111801.0500.>

So Larry and I agree, as we do actually often do.
I am sorry. I think I must have misinterpreted
Larry's earlier posting and thus gotten
a wrong sense of what he was saying.  Thank
you for the clarification.  I WOULD love to
know if you have any feeling about my
probabilistic reinterpretation of Swadesh's
methods (i.e., they can fail abysmally but
not often) and/or about replacing time depth
with some other measure of how complex,
or ramified a lg family is and how difficult
it shouldbe to reconstruct a protolg.

On Thu, 4 Feb 1999, Larry Trask wrote:

> On Tue, 2 Feb 1999 manaster at umich.edu wrote:

> > But there is well-known work on specific rates of specific kinds
> > of change, e.g., the rate at which words are replaced in the
> > 100-item Swadesh list.  We know for certain, even Swadesh
> > towards the end conceded, that this rate is not the same
> > for all languages,  There are examples of the rate being
> > much slower than Swadesh's norm (Icelandic) and ones of it being
> > much faster (Eastern Greenlandic).  This much is or should
> > be widely known.

> Sure.  That was my point.

> If we identifically *one specific type of change*, then we can at least
> approach the problem of trying to measure the rate of that change --
> though not necessarily successfully.

> But this is utterly different from trying to measure the overall rate of
> change -- which is the suggestion I was sismissing.


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Thu Feb  4 16:44:13 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 10:44:13 -0600
Subject: rate of change
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.4.05.9902020024260.256-100000@breakout.rs.itd.umich.edu>
Message-ID: <THU.4.FEB.1999.104413.0600.RMCCALLI@SUNMUW1.MUW.EDU>

	In the case of Romance languages, Latin was the joker, in that they
were always borrowing and reborrowing from Latin. This happenend to the
exent that Mediterranean Romance languages superficially resemble one
another to a great degree than Germanic languages resemble each other
superficially. And Germanic separated at a later date.

	They borrowed a lot, of course from one another as one or another
Romance language became a regional standard [e.g. Gallaico-Portuguese was
the Ibero-Romance literary standard until the Renaissance, when it was
superceded first by Leonese, then by Castillian]
	or happened to be dominant in a specific field [e.g. Spanish
nautical terms often come from Catalan until the 1400s, when they begin to
often come from Portuguese].
	Swadesh, I believe, shows Castillian and Portuguese as "splitting"
c. 1500. In reality, you can tell they are separate languages from the
earliest texts from around the early 1st millenium [earlier for some
Spanish & Ibero-Romance dialects/languages]. Spanish & Portuguese are still
cross-pollenating to the extent that many South Brazilians speak a
Portuguese that sounds like Spanish with a Brazilian accent and few lexical
and grammatical differences thrown in.

	I don't know Slavic languages, but I'd guess that Old Church
Slavonic probably played a similar, if lesser role.

	If cross-pollenation [when known] could be taken into account by
the Swadesh lists, it would help square things a bit.

>Anyway, if it were true that Swadesh's norm was
>ALMOST always right, with only very occasional
>exceptions, then of course we could still use
>his methods of glottochronology and lexicostatistics
>but the results would always be subject to a small
>amount of uncertainty.

>I conjecture that this is in fact the
>case.

>AMR

>[ Moderator's comment:
>  I was under the impression--given by a supporter of glottochronology, Dyen--
>  that G/L dates for the Romance languages, for example, are wildly off when
>  compared to the known history.  Given that no testable languages have ever
>  agreed with Swadesh's hypothesis, can we really treat this method as "almost
>  always right" with regard to those languages we cannot otherwise date?
>  --rma ]


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Thu Feb  4 17:27:20 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 11:27:20 -0600
Subject: IE-Semitic connections
In-Reply-To: <19990202072519.3379.qmail@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <THU.4.FEB.1999.112720.0600.RMCCALLI@SUNMUW1.MUW.EDU>

	Semitic settlements [more likely trading posts] in the W
Mediterranean go back to c. 1200 BC --according to some sources. Aquitanian
was likely spoken as far south as the coast. The Phoenicians and
Carthaginians dominated trade in that region until the Punic Wars. So there
were very likely contacts between Semitic and Vasconic.

	One can also add Theo Vennemann's idea of an Atlantic branch of AA,
either closely related to or part of Semitic.

	Some have suggested contacts between the French & Spanish
Mediterranean and Berber [or NW AA, if you wish to avoid a possible ethnic
slur]. There are a handful of words common to Berber, Ibero-Romance,
Sardinian and even Basque. Sardinian, from the meager reading I done on it,
seems to have the closest ties to Berber in terms of linguistic and
possibly grammatical substrate [occasional use of t-, th-, tl- as a
prefixed article]. However, given that I don't have access to any material
about Berber, I don't know how close it is to Semitic.

At 11:25 PM -0800 2/1/99, Glen Gordon wrote:
>MIGUEL:
>>The same happens in Etruscan (s'a ~ semph) and Basque (sei ~ zazpi).
>
>Whoops almost missed that one. Good thing I re-read. Basque? This brings
>up that ugly topic again of where Basque got those numbers from. I
>fathomed that they are perhaps some kind of Late Latin/Romance borrowing
>out of a blind guess. Larry Trask would know but he's probably busy
>battling Bengtson's Dene-Caucasian theory right now :)
>
>How would Basque acquire Semitic numbers?? It would be hard via an IE
>language - I can't think of one that would fit. Are you proposing that a
>moyl got lost in the Mediterranean? And what would he do with words like
>"six" and "seven" outside of the Middle East? Things that make you go
>hmmm....
[snip]


From mcv at wxs.nl  Thu Feb  4 17:18:08 1999
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 17:18:08 GMT
Subject: IE-Semitic connections
In-Reply-To: <19990202071227.14650.qmail@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <THU.4.FEB.1999.171808.GMT.>

"Glen Gordon" <glengordon01 at hotmail.com> wrote:

>MIGUEL:
>>The contrast between the initial consonants of the words for "6"
>>and "7" does indeed suggest a NE Semitic origin.  Akkadian, and
>>no other Semitic language, has a contrast between 6 s^is^s^(et)
>>and 7 sebe(tt), i.e. shibilant vs. sibilant.

>I think you mentioned this before, however now it seems more intriguing.
>:) Why would Kartvelian have the opposite however? Is there cause to
>reinterpret the reconstruction?

The Kartvelian forms have plenty of other problems.  It's not
clear to me how (and I sometimes think whether) they are related.
Until somebody comes up with some good ideas about them, it's
probably best to leave them aside.

[ moderator snip ]

>Why do you doubt "uk"'s kinship? Where else could it be from?

Not from *eg-.  I just don't see how e- (or o-) can become u- in
Hittite.  I'd sooner see it as a shortened for of ammuk,
unsatisfactory as that may be.  [Hittite /u/ can also come from
*m., but I don't consider *mg a very credible reconstruction.
Maybe *m-go if <uga> is the old form besides <uk>].

>I've heard
>about this analysis of *eg'oh but it seems awkward to explain it as
>*e-g'e-hwe (or *(H1)e-ge-H3e, if you like).

I prefer *H1e-g(h)o-H2 (o: from o-grade of a:)

>1. The word *e is a demonstrative, not an attested 1rst person on its
>own, no?

>2. Why don't other pronouns like *tu: undergo the same process?
>   Say, **twe-g'e-s? Or **ns-g'e-mes??

In Dutch, <ik> ("I") has an emphatic form <ikke>.  No other
pronoun does something similar.  But Greek has su-ge besides
eme-ge or ego:-ge, and Germanic has mi-k, Ti-k, si-k (mich, dich,
sich).  It's just that the 1st. person pronoun is more prone to
acquire emphatic forms (earlier).

>3. How and why would the pronoun be conjugated like a verb?

Anatolian -mu is not a verbal suffix, but a possessive.  If
*e-g(h)o- is an emphatic deictic "right here", *e-g(h)o-m might
be, in Pokorny's words, "meine Hier(heit)" (what Pokorny, quoting
Schmidt, actually suggests is "(meine) Hierheit", with -om the
nominal neuter ending).

The -H2 that we find in most languages is the old stative 1p. sg.
ending (hi-conjugation, perfect, mediopassive).  We should expect
stative personal endings to be affixed to (pro)nouns in archaic
forms, as that was surely their original function.

>4. Hittite ammuk could just as well be interpreted as akin to *@me, a
>variant of *me. (Perhaps those that are bent-up on *H's will like
>the reconstruction of *H1me or *?me better, preserved
>coincidentally in Greek as such initial laryngeals should be) In
>fact, couldn't *@me explain the plural form *ns "us" (< *@ns <
>*@me-s) just as we find the accusative plural in *-ns (<*-m-s)?

Maybe.  But again, I don't see how to get Anatolian /u/ from *e
in ammu(k).

>   How do we know that the prothetic vowel is honestly from **e-?

>5. The ending -m is found in other pronouns in Sanskrit: aham,
>tvam, vayam, yuyam, etc. and doesn't show that it's specific to the
>1rst person. How do we know IE meant *-m as a first person ending as
>opposed to something else?

That's only in Sanskrit.  Slavic ([j]azU < *e:gom < *egom) has
*-m only in the 1st p. form.  But you're right, I can't prove it
(as Schmidt's alternative suggestion of neuter -om shows).  I
just think that in view of the -H and -mu in other languages, a
connection with 1st p. sg. *-m (despite that it's purely verbal
in non-Anatolian IE) is plausible.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam


From manaster at umich.edu  Thu Feb  4 19:07:49 1999
From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu)
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 14:07:49 -0500
Subject: Basque numerals
In-Reply-To: <19990202072519.3379.qmail@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <THU.4.FEB.1999.140749.0500.>

I dont see why Basque numeruals are being dicussed
on teh IE list, although I applaud it, since
the numerals at issue seem to be such big
Wanderwo"rter and hence of IEnist interest,
but in any event it has long been proposed that
Basque 6 and especially 7 are connected not
with Semitic but with Egyptian/Coptic.  In the
case of 7 this is really striking since Coptic
is something like (sorry doing this is from
memory) sas^ef (Basque zazpi), which is all
thbe more cruious since the Coptic involves
a metathesis of the last two fricatives as
compared with Egyptian.  These comparisons,
at least as old as Schuchard, are briefly
and intelligently discussed by Pedersen in his Discovery of Lg
in the sec. on Basque.  So it really seems to me that
whereas PIE *septm still looks like a loanword
from Semitic, the Basque word is likely to be
borrowed from another AA source, not Semitic.

On Mon, 1 Feb 1999, Glen Gordon wrote:

[ moderator snip ]

> How would Basque acquire Semitic numbers?? It would be hard via an IE
> language - I can't think of one that would fit. Are you proposing that a
> moyl got lost in the Mediterranean? And what would he do with words like
> "six" and "seven" outside of the Middle East? Things that make you go
> hmmm....


From mcv at wxs.nl  Thu Feb  4 19:37:33 1999
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 19:37:33 GMT
Subject: How weird is Hittite? Not weird enough :)
In-Reply-To: <199901312104.QAA24623@math.mps.ohio-state.edu>
Message-ID: <THU.4.FEB.1999.193733.GMT.>

Vidhyanath Rao <vidynath at math.ohio-state.edu> wrote:

>I don't find it obvious that the secondary endings expressed tense
>originally: The PE are SE extended with -i (meaning ``here and now''?).
>The imperative looks like just SE (in 2nd pl) or SE extended with -u
>(3rd), except in 2nd sing. Optative is built on SE. If SE expressed
>tense, how did these evolve? In particular, present = past + ``here and
>now'' looks strange.

Exactly, the fact that the imperative has the secondary (short)
endings shows that these were the unmarked, neutral ones.
Present (Non-past) = neutral + ``here and now''.  The forms
without the -i extension then become past forms (aorist or
imperfect) by default.  But the distinction was already in
Anatolian (-mi present vs. -m past).

>I also find Szeremenyi's objections to the view of PIE in any stage had
>morphologically expressed aspect convincing and think that they apply to
>any stage that includes both Greek and Indo-Iranian . In particular I am
>not sure that Greek and Indo-Iranian show similar verb systems.

The Greek and Indo-Iranian verbal systems are not identical of
course, but they are very very similar.  Much more similar to
each other than to any other IE verbal system.

Some features that are unique to the "Indo-Greek" verbal system
are:

- the perfect as a separate "aspect", besides present (impfv.)
and aorist (pfv.).  Balto-Slavic has lost practically all traces
of the perfect (only the praeterito-preasens OCS ve^de^ "I
know"), so we might hypothesize that it existed in
Pre-Balto-Slavic.  Elsewhere, the perfect has merged with the
aorist (I'm assuming that at least some of the Armenian aorist
personal endings are derivable from the perfect).  In Hittite,
the perfect is still simply the past tense of the stative (hi)
conjugation.

- the imperfect as a simple past tense of the present ((augment
+) present stem + secondary endings).  The Albanian j/n-imperfect
and the Baltic j-imperfects are similar, except that they always
include an explicit imperfective marker (j, n) even if the
present tense forms don't.  Elswhere we find a variety of
different formations of the imperfect (based on the optative in
Tocharian and Armenian, sigmatic forms in Slavic and the Albanian
sh-imperfect, forms with *a: in Latin, Irish, Baltic, etc.
Hittite and Germanic (unless the weak *dh forms were originally
imperfects) have no imperfect at all.

- the subjunctive (conjunctive) as a thematic (of athematic
verbs) or doubly thematic (of thematic verbs) formation, without
additional markers.  The only parallel is I think Latin ero:, the
future tense of "to be".

- The augment for past tenses.  Also found in Armenian (3rd.p.sg.
of monosylabic verbs only).

Additionally, another important feature of Greek and
Indo-Iranian, not shared by some of the other languages, are the
sigmatic aorist and future forms, which are probably related (as
in the Slavic languages, the present tense of the perfective
makes the future).  If so, in Skt. the s-marker of the future is
combined with imperfective/presentive *j, giving -sya-.  We find
sigmatic futures (subjunctives) also in Albanian (=optative),
Baltic, Celtic, and sigmatic aorists in Slavic, maybe in
Albanian, and mixed up with perfect forms in Latin, Old Irish and
maybe Tocharian.  Armenian has *(i)sk (-(i)c`-) instead
(subjunctive and aorist).  Hittite and Germanic lack sigmatic
forms (and I have my doubts about Tocharian).

Contrary to the traditional view, in which Hittite and Germanic
have lost categories such as the s-aorist and the imperfect, I
think that Hittite is closest to the original state of affairs.
The present tense of the mi- and hi-conjugations gave the
athematic (*-mi) and thematic (*-o-H2) present tenses (with
considerable mix-up of the two, as indeed in Hittite itself).
The past tense of the mi-conjugation (the m-past) was preserved
in the Indo-Greek imperfect and root aorist, but the general
tendency was to replace it with extended forms (sigmatic aorist,
the different "innovative" imperfects).  The past tense of the
hi-conjugation, with its characteristic endings (*-H2e, *-tH2e,
*-e/*-s), became the perfect in Indo-Greek (and maybe once
Balto-Slavic?), the unmarked past tense (preterite) elsewhere.
Additional markers were often added (reduplication [if not
original], the Greek k-perfect, the w-perfect, etc.)

In summary, I'd say that the Greek and Indo-Iranian verbal
systems have many things in common and are closest to the fully
developed "Brugmannian" model [which contains some features which
are archaisms, such as the simple "m-past" (imperfect/root
aorist)].  Despite the fact that Balto-Slavic has developed new
perfective/imperfective categories (using preverbs) which have
eliminated the old system (e.g. aorist and imperfect) in most of
the modern languages (incl. all the Baltic ones), Balto-Slavic
seems to come closest to the Indo-Greek system, especially the
OCS root and sigmatic aorists ("uncontaminated" by perfect
forms).  Italic, Celtic and Albanian also share the "sigmatic"
isogloss with Greek, Indo-Iranian and Balto-Slavic, but their
forms are best described as s-preterites.  Additionally Italic,
Celtic and (possibly) Albanian are characterized by the use of
secondary endings in the present tense (loss of functionality of
the primary-secondary distinction?).  The Armenian verbal system,
despite the presence of the augment, seems to have little in
common with the "Indo-Greek" one.  The use of *sk in the aorist
and subjunctive cannot be simply equated with the sigmatic forms
we find elsewhere.  And if the Armenian imperfect is indeed
derived from the optative, that's a remarkable Armenian-Tocharian
(and Italo-Celtic?) isogloss.  The most archaic verbal systems
(or at least the ones least similar to Greek and Indo-Iranian)
are those of Tocharian, Germanic and especially Hittite.

If we take the active past tense forms with *s as our primary
isogloss, we have:

1) no -s or *-s is a 3rd.p.sg. personal marker: Hittite, Tocharian, Germanic.
3) *-(i)sk-: Armenian.
4) s-preterite: Italic, Celtic, Albanian.
5) s-aorist: Greek, Indo-Iranian, Slavic(-Baltic).

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam


From glengordon01 at hotmail.com  Thu Feb  4 20:00:35 1999
From: glengordon01 at hotmail.com (Glen Gordon)
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 12:00:35 PST
Subject: Greek question & the pre-history of *nekwt
Message-ID: <THU.4.FEB.1999.120035.PST.GLENGORDON01@HOTMAIL.COM>

PATRICK:
>I believe the base of <nu:kto/s> is IE *neugh-,

You make it sound like a religion. Who else believes in the Church of
*neugh? :)

My suspicion rather is that the word is indeed old but of the form
*nekwt (which is not so contraversial at all) from an earlier verb
**nekw- "to sleep". We have Hittite nekuz, not to mention English
"night", which show that there was no *-u- in the word. As far as I
understand, Greek -y- was the result of the following labiovelar
affecting the previous vowel (anticipatory labialisation as in Latin).

Without getting too entangled in a flimsy Nostratic explanation that
ignores all IE laws as Patrick has done, *nekwt is similar to words in
Uralic (Finnish nukkua) that mean "to sleep". Hence, "sleep time" ->
"night". I recall there might be similar words in Altaic? However, no
proposals of *gh need apply in its etymology nor imaginative comparisons
to Egyptian of all things. This still begs the question of why there is
-kh- in Greek and, that part, I dunno.

--------------------------------------------
Glen Gordon
glengordon01 at hotmail.com

Kisses and Hugs
--------------------------------------------


From petegray at btinternet.com  Thu Feb  4 20:43:12 1999
From: petegray at btinternet.com (Peter &/or Graham)
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 20:43:12 -0000
Subject: Greek question
Message-ID: <THU.4.FEB.1999.204312.0000.PETEGRAY@BTINTERNET.COM>

Alexis said:
>Part of the answer must surely be that we cannot
>start with an unanalyzed stem nykt-.  Rather
>we must start with nyk-t-, next to which there
>can be a nyk-H- perhaps.

Clearly;  and both the -t and -H extensions are well known.   What is less
well known (at least to me) is the phenomenon of voiceless aspirates in
Greek arising from voiceless stop +laryngeal.   The only other case I can
think of is in the verbal system, the -sthe ending, which is in any case
disputed.   Are there other clear examples?

Peter


From petegray at btinternet.com  Thu Feb  4 20:29:43 1999
From: petegray at btinternet.com (Peter &/or Graham)
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 20:29:43 -0000
Subject: wh
Message-ID: <THU.4.FEB.1999.202943.0000.PETEGRAY@BTINTERNET.COM>

>I should think this would lead to spelling problems, but then who bothers
>to spell any more?

Interestingly, I work in an area with both pronunciations, and some of my
students do indeed have spelling problems with these words.   "wether" is a
very common misspelling.

Peter

[ Moderator's note:
  We've moved far beyond Indo-European.  Let's consider this discussion closed
  on this list.
  --rma ]


From petegray at btinternet.com  Thu Feb  4 20:56:42 1999
From: petegray at btinternet.com (Peter &/or Graham)
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 20:56:42 -0000
Subject: Greek question
Message-ID: <THU.4.FEB.1999.205642.0000.PETEGRAY@BTINTERNET.COM>

Patrick said:>
>The entry in Pokorny that comes closest to being related to the Greek forms
>is *neuk(h)-, 'dark', from earlier *neugh- + -s/t- (metathesis in Latin

Mann suggests *nokw-t-s alternating with nokw-t-is,  and points in evidence
to Lith. nakvoti, and hesitantly also to Hittite nekuc.  He gives other
parallel examples of *-okw- > -ukw- to explain the Greek -u- vocalism.
Both the -i- stem and the consonant stem are found in Vedic.

He is working, as you see, with a PIE vowel system which includes /o/.

Peter


From manaster at umich.edu  Thu Feb  4 21:45:04 1999
From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu)
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 16:45:04 -0500
Subject: Greek question
In-Reply-To: <00b001be5083$92c870a0$215cac3e@niywlxpn>
Message-ID: <THU.4.FEB.1999.164504.0500.>

I think you have me there, Peter.  I think
I better withdraw this suggestion.

On Thu, 4 Feb 1999, Peter &/or Graham wrote:

> Alexis said:
> >Part of the answer must surely be that we cannot
> >start with an unanalyzed stem nykt-.  Rather
> >we must start with nyk-t-, next to which there
> >can be a nyk-H- perhaps.

> Clearly;  and both the -t and -H extensions are well known.   What is less
> well known (at least to me) is the phenomenon of voiceless aspirates in
> Greek arising from voiceless stop +laryngeal.   The only other case I can
> think of is in the verbal system, the -sthe ending, which is in any case
> disputed.   Are there other clear examples?


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Thu Feb  4 23:15:45 1999
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (Patrick C. Ryan)
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 17:15:45 -0600
Subject: Modality-Independent Evolution
Message-ID: <THU.4.FEB.1999.171545.0600.PROTOLANGUAGE@EMAIL.MSN.COM>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

Dear Steve and IEists:

-----Original Message-----
From: X99Lynx at aol.com <X99Lynx at aol.com>
Date: Thursday, February 04, 1999 11:16 AM

>I wrote:

><<In between the old and new - there is much more that goes on in biology.
>A word, not being an entity or a species, does not have to go through natural
>selection to emerge differently.>>

>In a message dated 2/1/99 10:54:13 PM, DLW wrote:

><<I was not talking about words, I was talking about languages.>>

>Without trying to obstruct or snipe, the parallel is still tough to draw.
>Evolution's "method" is random change.  It would be equivalent to generating
>thousands of random languages that could not survive (that don't work to
>communicate) in order to get one that does.  It would be the equivalent of
>untold numbers of random versions of, say, German that were tried and dropped
>before getting a version that survived.  (And then immediately starting the
>process all over again.)

This is exactly what happens when a child begins to learn his language. Many
sounds are produced which native speakers do not recognize, and they are
corrected.

A child that cannot learn how to speak properly will be protected today but,
in ancient times, probably would not have survived to reproduce.

>That was my point with saying that culture and language are Lamarckian.
>There is intentionality that guides them.

Sorry, I disagree. There is simple accretion of changes but no overriding
intentionality.

>Intention guides change in a very different, much less explosive but much less
>wasteful way.  Language is aimed at an objective - communication.  Biological
>evolution however has no objective, does not care where its going, it just
>goes.

That may be true of the ultimate objective of evolution (although I differ
on this point), but at any given moment in time, the object of evolution is
to ensure reproduction and continuance of the organism.

>The piece in Scientific American I mentioned earlier is a good example of the
>difference.  The biochemists let natural selection loose in a test tube and it
>comes up with molecular combinations "that they could not have made
>themselves."  The process is very creative but very wasteful - all of the
>combinations but a very few are useless.

I think a very strong argument could be made for the uselessness of all
organisms.

[ moderator snip ]

Pat


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Thu Feb  4 23:38:26 1999
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (Patrick C. Ryan)
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 17:38:26 -0600
Subject: Greek question
Message-ID: <THU.4.FEB.1999.173826.0600.PROTOLANGUAGE@EMAIL.MSN.COM>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

Dear Peter and IEists:

-----Original Message-----
From: Peter &/or Graham <petegray at btinternet.com>
Date: Thursday, February 04, 1999 3:14 PM

>Patrick said:

>>The entry in Pokorny that comes closest to being related to the Greek forms
>>is *neuk(h)-, 'dark', from earlier *neugh- + -s/t- (metathesis in Latin

>Mann suggests *nokw-t-s alternating with nokw-t-is, and points in evidence to
>Lith. nakvoti,

If all we had we Lithuanian nakvo/ti, then, perhaps. But we do have
Lithuanian nakti\s. Is it not equally possible that the <t> has been lost in
this cluster as Pokorny's nak(t)vo/ti suggets?

>and hesitantly also to Hittite nekuc.

Sturtevant lists nekuz, 'evening', on page 58 of his A Comparative Grammar
of the Hittite Language, under the heading "IH g' = IE gh, g^h, or the velar
part of ghw". As you are aware, S. considers the normal Hittite spelling of
voiceless stops in Hittite to be doubled intervocalicly.

Also, p. 181 gives the phonetic interpretation of ne-ku-uz as "neguts".

I believe the Hittite example strengthens rather than weakens a case for IE
*negh-. It certainly appears that Sturtevant reconstructed *negh-.

Pat


From mcv at wxs.nl  Thu Feb  4 12:21:29 1999
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 12:21:29 GMT
Subject: gender
In-Reply-To: <36B2AF49122.4A15SEAN@smtp.lares.dti.ne.jp>
Message-ID: <THU.4.FEB.1999.122129.GMT.>

Sho Sakuma <sean at lares.dti.ne.jp> wrote:

>    Had there been any possible process of grammaticalization
>that has dichtomizeted  the noun of the languages, belonging to
>the branch of IE, into a label of gender as masculine or feminine?
>...or adding neuter in a case. I just wondering what was the notion
>to give the noun a subdivision with gender.

Originally, PIE distinguished between animate and inanimate
(neuter) gender.  The split of the animate gender into masculine
and feminine is a later development, which e.g. Hittite did not
participate in.

>    I have once presented same question in other list last year from a
>very curious. One of those who gave me the reply with taking a example
>from Japanese and reminded me a awkward point of the language. That we
>count apples with the suffix --ko-, rabbits with --wa-, books with
>--satu-, and Kentucky Fried Chicken with --piece-- is certainly seemed
>to me strange feature of Japanese.

This use of different classifiers with different nouns is indeed
similar to the concept of "gender" (animate/inanimate,
masculine/feminine) or "noun classes" (Bantu being the best known
example).  I don't think there's a meaningful answer as to why
languages do this.  Some do, some don't.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Fri Feb  5 02:20:49 1999
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 21:20:49 EST
Subject: agglutination in Scandinavian languages, etc.
Message-ID: <THU.4.FEB.1999.212049.EST.>

In a message dated 2/1/99 5:03:18 PM, AMR wrote:

<<Speaking of which, does anybody have a handy list of
clear examples showing what happens to PIE *-tn- and *-dn-
in Slavic?  The bigger the list, the better.>>

Did you ever get a reply to this?  I looked but didn't see if ever was
answered.

Regards,
Steve Long


From iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu  Fri Feb  5 03:33:15 1999
From: iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu)
Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 21:33:15 -0600
Subject: Celtic influence in English
In-Reply-To: <a0f60317.36b74cc3@aol.com>
Message-ID: <THU.4.FEB.1999.213315.0600.>

On Tue, 2 Feb 1999 JoatSimeon at aol.com wrote:

>iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu

>>Yes.  Isn't it past time we retired the quaint notion that thereis no Celtic
>>influence in English?

>-- "very little", rather than "no".

>>If we know where to look (grammar rather than lexicon or phonology), Celtic
>>influence is pervasive in English.

>-- undemonstrated.  And how did Celtic manage to influence the grammar
>profoundly without adding loan-words?  Lexical influence is easier and more
>common in cases of prolonged language contact than changing grammatical forms.

	The processes of grammatical and lexical influences occur by
different mechanisms and do not necessarily co-occur.  The well-known case
that Emenou discovered(?) in India is a good example:  very high
grammatical influence, very low lexical influence.  Borrowing of words is
volitional, dependent on probable reception and other considerations,
whereas foreign accents are not, being created by very real limitations in
language-acquisistion ability after a point.  Thus it is entirely
conceivable that Britons could have an "accent" in (Old) English,
and yet choose not to carry over any great number of British words,
essentially because of the status differential.

					DLW


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Fri Feb  5 05:32:59 1999
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 00:32:59 EST
Subject: Chariots, Bits and Greeks
Message-ID: <FRI.5.FEB.1999.003259.EST.>

In a message dated 2/3/99 11:45:48 PM, vidynath at math.ohio-state.edu wrote:

<<No. Spruytte, based on representations, showed that Classical greeks
used a dorsal yoke and what is a primitive version of breast traction.
His experiments with reconstructions based on chariots found in Tut's
tomb prove that traction comes from the yoke saddles (neck forks) and
not from the bands arounds the horses' necks. There is enormous
difference between the two that cannot be waved away.>>

But Homer (Illiad 19.393-94) has Achilleus' chariot horses not only yoked but
also specifically says that bits were placed within their jaws - "en de
chalinous gampheleis ebalon."

This word, "cha^li_nos", continues to be used throughout the Classical period
as applying to the bit specifically - e.g., Herodotus, (Histories, 1.215),
clearly distinguishing the Scythian's reins, cheekplates and bits - "ta de
peri tous chalinous kai stomia kai phalara chrusoi".  See also Xenophon, On
the art of horsemanship 3.2, regarding horses with "soft mouths".  It seems
the bit was or could be used from fairly early on.

It is also clear that Homer considered the reins, not the "neck forks", the
way to control a chariot.  See Aeneas offering Hector the reins of his chariot
in Illiad, 5.226.

And finally, it is hard to see how chariots in Tut's tomb prove anything about
how horses were bridled in Classic Greece.

Regards,
Steve Long

[ Moderator's comment:
  Homer also describes chariots leaping across ditches, and doing other things
  that a chariot could not do, but a bridled horse could.

  By the time the Homeric epics were coming into the forms we would recognize,
  the chariot was obsolete in Greek warfare.  Homer described what he could not
  know in terms with which he was familiar.  Unless we have evidence for bits
  in Mycenaean contexts, I would be very hesitant to cite Homeric evidence for
  how chariots were controlled.
  --rma ]


From Georg at home.ivm.de  Fri Feb  5 07:27:38 1999
From: Georg at home.ivm.de (Ralf-Stefan Georg)
Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 08:27:38 +0100
Subject: The mummies
Message-ID: <FRI.5.FEB.1999.082738.0100.GEORG@HOME.IVM.DE>

A few days ago Carol Justus announced a newspaper article In "The Guardian"
about a recent book by Elizabeth Barber on the Xinjiang mummies and,
especially, their clothing.
I responded to that with a rather sneerful remark.
In the meantime, having received a clarifying message by Carol Justus, I've
learned that the bit I was objecting to, that the mummies were Celts, was
in fact part of that newspaper's sensationalizing report on the book, and
is not an accurate representation of neither E. Barber's, let alone Carol
Justus' views. I take it the mentioned book does deserve serious attention,
since the findings reported in it do raise important questions for the
historian of the Turkestan region. Not having read this book, I now think
it wiser to read it myself (as I should have in the first place) and hope
interested persons will follow this example, rather than that which I gave
when all I had to say about it was "o tempora".

Stefan Georg
Heerstrasse 7
D-53111 Bonn
FRG
+49-228-69-13-32

[ Moderator's addendum:
  The original comment by Stefan Georg was to a posting from Nicholas Widdows,
  reporting the newspaper article on Barber's book.  I'm afraid that I, too,
  am guilty of pre-judging based on insufficient information, and allowed both
  his comment and another to go through unremarked.

  On the other hand, Carol Justus' endorsement of the book on this list clearly
  indicated that it is a important scholarly work.  I look forward to reading
  it.
  --rma ]


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Fri Feb  5 07:55:40 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 02:55:40 EST
Subject: Avestan & Vedic religion [was (no subject)]
Message-ID: <FRI.5.FEB.1999.025540.EST.>

>AMR

>Isn't it the case that through language we can also tell for example that
>their common ancestors did not believe in killing cows (which are called
>literally 'not-to-be-killed ones' in both lgs)? And so forth?

-- well, no, on that  particular subject.  It's clear from both linguistics
and archaeology that the earliest IA-speakers were beef-eaters. (I once heard
a Hindu fundamentalist explain that those verses were put in by demons...8-).

They certainly did _value_ cattle very highly; but that's an old IE trait,
with "herd" and "wealth" generally being related terms.  (Eg., Latin
'pecuniam').

They were very similar, though.  Avestan and Vedic Sanskrit are close enough
to be mutually comprehensible fairly often, and there's a broad lapover of
deities (Mitra, etc.).  In the 'reformed' Zarathustran religion many of the
ancient Indo-Iranian gods become demons, of course.


From Odegard at means.net  Fri Feb  5 03:12:00 1999
From: Odegard at means.net (Mark Odegard <Odegard@means.net>)
Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 03:06:00 -6
Subject: On a First Reading of Mallory.
Message-ID: <FRI.5.FEB.1999.030600.6.>

I've been immersed for the past couple days in J.P. Mallory's book,
_In Search of the Indo-Europeans_.

Lots of questions have been answered, most of them of the 'where did
that idea come from' species. It's a persuasive book. For the few
(if any) of you who have not read him, I affirm it is *required*
reading. I did not find it particularly difficult, though for someone with
zero introduction to linguistics, Indo-European studies and
archeology, this book would be forbiddingly difficult. There is,
however, a lot of information to assimilate, especially names and
dates. After you've read him,  you instantly see that everyone is
more or less quoting him -- even if they disagree with him.

Anyway. As y'all know, he refuses to come out plainly in favor of a
Dneiper-Donets-Sea of Azov PIE homeland (Sredny Stog culture,
4500-3500), but simply points to it as the most logical candidate.
These are the folks who domesticated the horse and invented the bit.

This region as the homeland, however, leads to some other problems.
Mostly, we're required to accept the model of Aryan hordes invading
the Danube basin. He mentions some evidence of this (demise of the
LBK culture and domestic copper production concurrent with the
appearance of kurgans (steppe style burials) in the region, but
never makes the obvious conclusion. As for the Anatolian problem, he
carefully points out that an entry via the western shore of the Black
Sea fits the bill best while attempting to keep a personal distance
for such an assertion.

MCV prefers an older homeland, centered in the Danube basin. If I
remember this right, this is a position held by someone named
Georgiev. For myself, this feels right. Except for the historically
understood Magyar intrusion, this region has *always* been IE, and
meets all the particulars for what the earliest vocabulary suggests,
as well as providing the kind of geography that encourages wide lingustic
divergence in a relatively confined space.

Mallory intimates that NOT placing the IE homeland out on the Steppe
brings up an 'Indo-Iranian problem', i.e., explaining how I-I
developed and extended itself as it did. Mostly, Sredny Stog is not
particularly agricultural, and seems to have gone from Neolithic
hunter-gathering to pastoral nomadism without any evidence of serious
agriculture intervening, whereas LBK in Hungary was agricultural --
and there is no transitional culture that links the two beyond trade links.

My head is a little overheated at all this new and as-yet undigested
information.

One thing though. It's my impression that the Steppe was essentially
*empty* before the domestication of the horse. There were thousands
of miles of steppe with only a few stray hunter gatherers. And way
back then, Central Asia was less desertified. It must have been
paradisical, a golden age, a time when you, your brothers, your
horses and your stock could ride unchallenged clear to Mongolia and
North China. In historic terms, it would have been all in the blink
of an eye, the only real restraint on expansion being the ability of
themselves and their animals to reproduce. The Cavalli-Sforza number
for agriculturalist spread is about 1 km per year on average. On
horseback, the spread could have been an average of 1 km per *week*.

I'm thinking it wasn't Indo-Iranians who filled the Steppes, but
undifferentiated Indo-Europeans, at least at first. The IIs came
later, with new and improved technology (something to do with
bronze, I think), and probably, a better-structured social system.

My mind is overheated. I'm speculating into areas I'm not really
qualified for. Still, it's a wonderful topic.

I have his _The IndoEuropeanization of Europe_ on order. After this,
what's the next book?
--
Mark Odegard   mailto:odegard at means.net


From jrader at m-w.com  Fri Feb  5 09:33:59 1999
From: jrader at m-w.com (Jim Rader)
Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 09:33:59 +0000
Subject: NSemitic borrowings: in response to Greg Web
Message-ID: <FRI.5.FEB.1999.093359.0000.>

The Middle Welsh form is <seith>.  The development of  Mod. Welsh
<saith> from British Celtic <*sext-> is completely regular except for the
preservation of initial <s>.  The Gaulish ordinal for "seven" is
<sextametos>, if I remember correctly, and for "six" <suexos>.
Details on the forms and the values of <x> in Gallo-Latin
inscriptions are in Lambert's <La langue gauloise>, which I don't
happen to have in the office today.

Jim Rader

>  I'd like to know what the <a>
> is doing in Welsh saith (< *saxt < *sapt- ??).  Do we know the
> Gaulish or Celtiberian for "6" and "7"?  My guess would be,
> preliminarily, that the Basque forms are more likely to be
> borrowings from Celtic (We. chwech, saith) than directly from
> Semitic.
> =======================
> Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
> mcv at wxs.nl
> Amsterdam


From vidynath at math.ohio-state.edu  Fri Feb  5 15:48:38 1999
From: vidynath at math.ohio-state.edu (Vidhyanath Rao)
Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 10:48:38 -0500
Subject: Chariots, Bits and Greeks
Message-ID: <FRI.5.FEB.1999.104838.0500.VIDYNATH@MATH.OHIOSTATE.EDU>

[ snip of private note to moderator ]

X99Lynx at aol.com  wrote:
> But Homer (Illiad 19.393-94) has Achilleus' chariot horses not only yoked but
> also specifically says that bits were placed within their jaws - "en de
> chalinous gampheleis ebalon."

Dorsal yokes may not go back before the `geometric period'. That is
apparrently when such representation on vase painting appear. Bits,
on the other hand, date back to 14th c. BCE. On the other hand,
spiked cheek-pieces have also been found in Myc. sits. In the Near
East both co-existed for a while.

And then there is the problem of dating Homer and knowing the
extent of anachronistic descriptions of arms in his work.

> It is also clear that Homer considered the reins, not the "neck forks",

I am afraid that you are confusing traction (the transmission) with
control (steering). Neck forks transmit the push of the horses as
pull to the body of the chariot via the yoke and the pole. [BTW,
I ought to have added that this is a rather inefficient and primitive
form of horse collars. The push comes from the same place in both
neck forks and horse collars.]

Anyway, both nose-bands and bits use reins. The difference is in how the
pulling the reins affects the horse.

> And finally, it is hard to see how chariots in Tut's tomb prove
>anything about how horses were bridled in Classic Greece.

I thought that I explicitely said that the yoking systems were
different and that I said nothing about the bridles of Classical
Greece. [I don't know any direct evidence about Myc. Greece.]

Regards
-Nath


From mcv at wxs.nl  Fri Feb  5 17:23:25 1999
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 17:23:25 GMT
Subject: Atlantic substrate of Insular Celtic
In-Reply-To: <199902030700.IAA33278@noel1.noel.gv.at>
Message-ID: <FRI.5.FEB.1999.172325.GMT.>

"Mag.Hans-Joachim Alscher" <hans.alscher at noel.gv.at> wrote:

>The "Anlautpermutation" (morphological change of the initial consonant) of
>Insular Celtic
>resembles the same feature in "(Western) Atlantic" languages, one of the
>branches of Greenberg4s "Niger-Congo"-languages. The most important languages
>of this family are Ful, Wolof and Serer in Senegal. Hans G. Mukarovsky has
>drawn a picture of possible relations between this family and the Berberic
>and Basque language, see "Mukarovsky, Hans G.: Die Grundlagen des Ful und das
>Mauretanische", Wien, Herder, 1963. Following this hypothesis one must assume
>that "Mauretanic" is the "missing link" substratum to (Insular) Celtic.
>Nevertheless, neither Semitic nor whole Afro-Asiatic (or branches of
>Afro-Asiatic)

nor Basque

>show the characteristic "Anlautpermutation" of Atlantic and
>Insular Celtic, a very rare feature amongst the world4s languages. Therefore
>connections between Atlantic and Insular Celtic should be considered rather
>than Semitic.

Initial mutation is a feature of Fulani (Fula, Fulbe, Fulfulde,
Peul). The following alternations occur:

b  <-> w/g
d  <-> r
g  <-> w/y
dZ <-> y
tS <-> s
p  <-> f
k  <-> h

According to the Encyclopaedia Britanica, "A feature of Fulani
that is shared systematically with some of the other West
Atlantic languages is an "alternation" whereby both the
beginnings and the endings of words go through parallel changes
according to grammatical considerations. This feature is found in
its greatest elaboration only in Fulani; it is represented in
either vestigial or undeveloped form in most of the other West
Atlantic languages."   This does not totally convince me that the
feature is old in West Atlantic.  Initial mutation certainly
isn't old in Insular Celtic (it's completely absent from
Continental Celtic).  The fact that it's absent from Gaulish and
absent from Berber and Basque makes the connection even more
doubtful.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam


From mcv at wxs.nl  Fri Feb  5 17:56:09 1999
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 17:56:09 GMT
Subject: IE, Genetic Data, Languages of Anatolia
In-Reply-To: <19990203013123.23096.qmail@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <FRI.5.FEB.1999.175609.GMT.>

"Glen Gordon" <glengordon01 at hotmail.com> wrote:

>Yes, of course. My brain froze and I couldn't recall the Anatolian side
>of the cognate at all. Thanx. Anyways then, we can say with some degree
>of certainty that IE (Indo-Anatolian) speakers spoke of horses. I guess
>the contention Miguel has is whether these horses were domesticated or
>wild.

The problem is whether Luw. asuwa is native or a borrowing from
Indo-Iranian (think of Kikkuli).

>I don't see why the agriculturalists that moved into Europe and who show
>up in genetic data of what's-his-name-Sforza have to be speaking
>Indo-European of all things. Indo-European just can't have been in the
>Balkans or Anatolia at such an early date. I reason that the most likely
>language candidate of these budding agriculturalists would be a language
>closely related to North-East Caucasian. As Indo-European spread across
>Europe later on, it would have wiped out almost all traces of the
>earlier non-Indo-European languages.

That's funny.  I tend think of North Caucasian (NEC/NWC) as the
primary candidate for the original language of the steppe lands.
The Northern Caucasus is a "residual zone", in Johanna Nichols'
terminology.  It contains the linguistic residue of the peoples
that were once dominant in the neighbouring "spread zone" (the
steppe).  At the outer layer we have Russian, then Mongol
(Kalmyk) and Turkic (Nogai, Karachai, Balkar etc.), then Iranian
(Ossetian), and the inner layer is formed by NWC and NEC.  This
suggests that before IE, the steppe was peopled by North
Caucasians.  And if there's indeed a genetic link between North
Caucasian, Yeniseian and Sino-Tibetan (the Sino-Caucasian
hypothesis), that's indeed what we would expect.

Likewise comparing the linguistic, archaeological and genetic
maps of Europe shows a large amount of overlap between
Indo-European, the initial agricultural expansion from Anatolia
to Holland, and the main genetic component.  Of course Renfrew
and Cavalli-Sforza are excessively naive in simplifying that to
complete equivalence.  On linguistic grounds, Proto-Indo-European
cannot be placed in Anatolia in the 8th millennium BC [although
some language ancestral to PIE (and Etruscan) can be], and on
archaeological grounds there surely was a movement from the
steppe into the Balkans around 3500 BC.  But the "steppe" or
"Kurgan" model cannot adequately explain all the archaeological
facts (cultural change, but no evidence for invasions in Northern
and Western Europe) or all the linguistic facts (why the gap
between Anatolian and the rest of IE, why Germanic).
Furthermore, history shows that steppe invadors have never
penetrated linguistically beyond Hungary and the Balkans.  Even
where steppe invasion or infiltration is the only possible
solution, as in the case of India, Indo-Aryan did not succeed in
wiping out all traces of the languages of the earlier Neolithic
population, far from it.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Fri Feb  5 18:47:01 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 12:47:01 -0600
Subject: wh
In-Reply-To: <28db1d6.36b717fa@aol.com>
Message-ID: <FRI.5.FEB.1999.124701.0600.RMCCALLI@SUNMUW1.MUW.EDU>

	I've read that in the Highlands and in parts of Ireland that due to
the influence of Gaelic, /f, ph/ was perceived as a local "lenited form"
where others /wh, w, bh/ and that pronunciation passed over to English,
where it was also equated with /f, ph/, and occasionally back to Gaelic
hence English "whiskey" [from uisge beatha ?sp?] occasionally became
"fuisce".
	I'm sure someone else can explain this a lot better.

[snip>
>Yes. I say /h/ + /w/. (I am Scottish). There is also a flavour of bilabial f
>because of anticipatory lip rounding. The degree of the anticipatory lip
>rounding varies according to the register I am speaking in. In Scotland /hw/
>is still almost universal, but I am starting to hear it replaced by /w/ in
>some young people.
[snip]


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Fri Feb  5 19:19:31 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 13:19:31 -0600
Subject: IE, Genetic Data, Languages of Anatolia
In-Reply-To: <19990203013123.23096.qmail@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <FRI.5.FEB.1999.131931.0600.RMCCALLI@SUNMUW1.MUW.EDU>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

[snip]

>I don't see why the agriculturalists that moved into Europe and who show
>up in genetic data of what's-his-name-Sforza have to be speaking
>Indo-European of all things.

Cavallo-Sforza, I think, the "black horse" of genetics

>Indo-European just can't have been in the
>Balkans or Anatolia at such an early date.

	As I'm reading the posts, it wasn't necessarily IE but the
precursor of IE, Etruscan et al.

>I reason that the most likely
>language candidate of these budding agriculturalists would be a language
>closely related to North-East Caucasian.

	Do we have any trace whatsoever of NEC? What your reason for
positing NEC? My understanding is that NEC was originally spoken north of
the Caucasus [as well as the north slope].

	I've read about some Greek lexicon [mainly from Hesikhios] that
purportedly had Kartvelian origins. It was in a published dissertation. I
think the guy's name was Brown and was from the UK. But if I remember
correctly, Kartvelian arrived rather late to the Caucasus from the Wast.

>As Indo-European spread across
>Europe later on, it would have wiped out almost all traces of the
>earlier non-Indo-European languages.

	There does seem to be a bit of pre-IE substrate vocabulary out
there, so  they weren't completely wiped out.

[snip]


From petegray at btinternet.com  Fri Feb  5 20:04:02 1999
From: petegray at btinternet.com (Peter &/or Graham)
Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 20:04:02 -0000
Subject: Greek question
Message-ID: <FRI.5.FEB.1999.200402.0000.PETEGRAY@BTINTERNET.COM>

Pat said:
>. It certainly appears that Sturtevant reconstructed *negh-.

On what basis, without Hittite?

Peter


From softrat at pobox.com  Fri Feb  5 20:39:38 1999
From: softrat at pobox.com (softrat)
Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 20:39:38 GMT
Subject: STATISTICS IN LINGUISTICS
In-Reply-To: <001c01be4f15$a5fbc240$179ffad0@patrickcryan>
Message-ID: <FRI.5.FEB.1999.203938.GMT.>

On Tue, 2 Feb 1999 19:33:57 -0600, Patrick C. Ryan wrote:

> I said that the coincidence of A and B was 100%. That 100% defines
>causality.

Not true! For example if C causes both A and B and nothing else does,
the correlation of A and B will be 100%. This is a very simple
example. I am afraid that Mr. Ryan does not understand mathematical
statistics as well as he apparently thinks he does.

In general correlation is _not_ the same as causality, no matter what
the correlation coefficient.

George D. Freeman IV
the softrat
mailto:softrat at pobox.com
---
"I am a man of immense learning and no culture."

[ Moderator's note:
  This is the last round on this topic.  Take any resposnes to private e-mail.
  --rma ]


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Fri Feb  5 21:07:30 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 15:07:30 -0600
Subject: IE in Balkans and Semitic?
In-Reply-To: <37746d33.2044578598@mail.wxs.nl>
Message-ID: <FRI.5.FEB.1999.150730.0600.RMCCALLI@SUNMUW1.MUW.EDU>

Correct me if I'm wrong but my understanding is that cattle were already
domesticated in the Middle Wast BEFORE IE developed and that the
domestication of cattle was reason of the Berber occupation of the whole of
North Africa c. 8K BCE or so.
[btw: if this would be more appropriate on the Nostratic list, we can
discuss it there]

[ moderator snip ]

>some archaeological evidence that cattle was indeed a later
>Anatolian or SE European addition to the original Near Eastern
>Neolithic inventory of livestock (sheep and goats).  So I would
>lean towards the third camp.
>=======================
>Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
>mcv at wxs.nl
>Amsterdam

[ Moderator's note:
  The discussion of external relations of the Indo-European speaking peoples
  are not off-topic here; rather, once a discussion leaves Indo-European behind
  it is more appropriately discussed on another list.  If there is more to be
  said from an IE perspective, it can stay here, even if it strays afield.
  --rma ]


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Fri Feb  5 21:45:55 1999
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (Patrick C. Ryan)
Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 15:45:55 -0600
Subject: gender
Message-ID: <FRI.5.FEB.1999.154555.0600.PROTOLANGUAGE@EMAIL.MSN.COM>

Dear Miguel, Sho, and IEists:

-----Original Message-----
From: Miguel Carrasquer Vidal <mcv at wxs.nl>
Date: Friday, February 05, 1999 11:24 AM

>Sho Sakuma <sean at lares.dti.ne.jp> wrote:

<snip>

>This use of different classifiers with different nouns is indeed
>similar to the concept of "gender" (animate/inanimate,
>masculine/feminine) or "noun classes" (Bantu being the best known
>example).  I don't think there's a meaningful answer as to why
>languages do this.  Some do, some don't.

I think the answer is very simply that classifiers and gender are simple
vocabulary building processes.

Without IE -*H(1)a, a completely new word for 'queen' would have had to have
been invented in Latin.

Pat

[ Moderator's query:
  Do you mean the a-coloring laryngeal, or the e/non-coloring laryngeal, above?
  --rma ]


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Fri Feb  5 21:51:21 1999
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (Patrick C. Ryan)
Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 15:51:21 -0600
Subject: Greek question
Message-ID: <FRI.5.FEB.1999.155121.0600.PROTOLANGUAGE@EMAIL.MSN.COM>

Dear Peter and IEists:

-----Original Message-----
From: Peter &/or Graham <petegray at btinternet.com>
Date: Friday, February 05, 1999 2:06 PM

>Pat said:
>>. It certainly appears that Sturtevant reconstructed *negh-.

>On what basis, without Hittite?

I am not sure I really understand this question. Sturtevant did mention the
Greek forms with <kh>, which, of course, normally result form IE <*gh>.

Pat


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Fri Feb  5 22:33:02 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 16:33:02 -0600
Subject: IE-Semitic connections
In-Reply-To: <v01510102b2ddfb0705d2@[129.187.26.119]>
Message-ID: <FRI.5.FEB.1999.163302.0600.RMCCALLI@SUNMUW1.MUW.EDU>

Basque <z> is /s/, so the idea that it may have come from Romance *septe >
*sepce, *sepci; *sepse, *sepsi and then metathesized to /saspi/ sounds
sounds interesting. The problem is that [afaik] none of those forms are
documented in Ibero-Romance --I don't know about S. Gallo-Romance. There is
also the question of whether open /E/ would go to /a/ in Basque. Larry
Trask would know that.

At 12:09 AM +0100 2/4/99, Theo Vennemann wrote:

[ moderator snip ]

>I carefully put "Basque" in parentheses. I should not have mentioned it at
>all. (But the zp part is too suggestive ...) The fact remains that Etr.

[ moderator snip ]


From glengordon01 at hotmail.com  Fri Feb  5 23:04:49 1999
From: glengordon01 at hotmail.com (Glen Gordon)
Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 15:04:49 PST
Subject: Pre-IE and migrations
Message-ID: <FRI.5.FEB.1999.150449.PST.GLENGORDON01@HOTMAIL.COM>

RICK McCALLISTER:

>	HMMM. Uralic was to the north of IE but not as far north as now. As I
>remember, from what I read, it's generally posited at the line between the
>steppes and the taiga --in far E. Europe.
>I'm guessing that line was a bit farther to the south.

Ugh, yes. I guess I didn't explain that I consider Uralic part of a
"Steppe" grouping (also Yukaghir, Altaic, EskAleut and IE) because I
reason that this is the area that they came from previously and doesn't
refer to where they eventually ended up. Yes, Uralic is in the forested
regions off the steppe. I do not dispute this.

>	If the line went west of the steppes into Poland, Slovakia, Hungary or
>whatever. Both of you could be right.

But is Uralic said to be that far west? I thought it is agreed that the
area of the Volga is the place of the Uralic speaking core. Closer to
the Urals (hence the name). I'll admit my ignorance too. It seems like a
good strategy to avoid Manaster's all-pervading ire :)

Other than the lack of horses and Uralic similarity to IE, those are the
best two arguements I can think of to resist Miguel's idea. I'm losing
my imagination, I think. :)

MIGUEL:
>That's funny.  I tend think of North Caucasian (NEC/NWC) as the
>primary candidate for the original language of the steppe lands.

Even funnier, so do I! However, I think of North Caucasian (or at least
NEC) as the original languages spoken also in Northern Anatolia as well
(some consider Hattic and Hurro-Urartean as related to NEC as far as I
know) and I have a hunch this was the state of affairs many millenia
prior to IE (even during that genetic expansion mentioned) possibly even
back to a time of Nostratic (if I may mention the N-word in connection
with IE migrations).

--------------------------------------------
Glen Gordon
glengordon01 at hotmail.com

Kisses and Hugs
--------------------------------------------


From ERobert52 at aol.com  Fri Feb  5 23:24:38 1999
From: ERobert52 at aol.com (ERobert52 at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 18:24:38 EST
Subject: Anatolians
Message-ID: <FRI.5.FEB.1999.182438.EST.>

JoatSimeon at aol.com writes:

> [MCV]

>>Etruscan was spoken in Greece and Western Anatolia before 1200 BC, closer to
>>Semitic than IE.

> -- this is, to say the least, not generally accepted.

One does not have to believe Herodotus' story that the Etruscans originated
in Lydia. Nor is there any reason for associating them with Troy other than a
vague (chance?) similarity of the name.

However, the Etruscans, or their ancestors, are associated with the area, in
particular with the island of Lemnos, and anybody who says they aren't
indigenous to the area (e.g. Mallory) has to account for the following:

Etruscan and Lemnian are closely related (I think it is safe to say this is
generally accepted), so Etruscoid peoples had a presence in the area at
the time of the main Lemnos inscription (6th century BC?). But, Etruscan
and Lemnian are not the same language (also not a controversial point of
view), so we are not talking about a temporary trading post because they
would more likely have used proper 6th century BC Etruscan and written in
the correct alphabet. There is no reason to think it is some wandering
artefact gone astray like the 'Zagreb' mummy because there are also fragments
of pottery that may confirm Lemnian as a local language. (Or at least Larissa
Bonfante thinks so; Massimo Pallottino thinks the fragments are not helpful
linguistically).

The degree of similarity between Etruscan and Lemnian is of the order one
would expect for languages with a common ancestor several hundred years
previously, e.g. 1200 BC. That one of its daughter languages should arrive or
develop in one relatively small island in the middle of the northern Aegean
without having or having had a presence elsewhere in the vicinity is unlikely.

This does not of course mean that the Proto-Tyrrhenian homeland can be
located here with any confidence (insofar as 'homeland' is a useful notion in
times of much sparser populations than today). Nor does it say anything about
any remote relationship that might exist with IE or Indo-Anatolian or anything
else.

Secondly, that apart, the Etruscans were in close touch with Semitic speakers
anyway as the Pyrgi tablets prove.

Ed. Robertson


From gordonselway at gn.apc.org  Sat Feb  6 01:19:16 1999
From: gordonselway at gn.apc.org (Gordon Selway)
Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 01:19:16 +0000
Subject: (no subject)
Message-ID: <SAT.6.FEB.1999.011916.0000.GORDONSELWAY@GN.APC.ORG>

Two or three interesting, and maybe productive in terms of hypothesis, but
maybe not in terms of falsifiability (if we can be Popperish) arise:

(i) if language is something we are peculiarly adapted to as a species,
both in the configuration of our respiratory tracts and in the way our
brains work, then there are several immediate (and of course many more
mediate) changes required to permit us the language ability, and maybe
evolution (in a Darwinian sense) might have refined the ability since it
first arose.  However, as with almost any evolutionary change (as I
understand it), it must have arisen 'abruptly' in the sense that the
parents did not have the ability (except in an inchoate form with all but
one or however many of the change needed already in place, but the last
voussoir not in place as it were, so that the arch of language cannot bear
weight) but the offspring did.

(ii) in practice we do pick up a wide repertory of vowels and consonants
within a short time, when we first acquire language.  When we grow up, it
appears that most of us find it more and more difficult to add to our sound
repertories.  If the ability to acquire language has been more or less
consistent during its existence, then the potential for all those sounds
ought in theory to have arisen at one time.  Whether it could be realised
is obviously a different question.

(iii) some of the objections made to these points seem to me to have the
same savour as some of the objections made to the theory of the evolution
in the 19th century, looking to rhetoric for their effects, rather than the
facts.

Gordon Selway
<gordonselway at gn.apc.org>

At 4:14 pm 2/2/1999, manaster at umich.edu wrote:

>I can't speak for Noam, but I think I am his ilk, and I did talk to him
>recently about the evolution of lg capacity.  I think the view he has
>(which I dont accept) is that the lg capacity did come about rather
>abruptly, but this does not say anything about how long it then took for
>people to figure out how to use it.  That is, this capacity can only be
>used if you have specific phonemes, specific roots, etc., and no one
>doubts that these are not innate and may have taken time to evolve. It's
>like the human ability to do theoretical computer science.  Obviously we
>are born with some degree of ability in this regard, unlike say a
>parakeet, but until the 1930's, there was no way to use this faculty.

[ moderator snip ]


From manaster at umich.edu  Sat Feb  6 01:20:49 1999
From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu)
Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 20:20:49 -0500
Subject: axe
In-Reply-To: <v01510107b2de162564b8@[129.187.26.119]>
Message-ID: <FRI.5.FEB.1999.202049.0500.>

But (a) this is not PIE and (b) is it really Semitic?
Is not a foreign word in Semitic itself? I am not saying
it is, mind.  I am asking because although I once knew
I can't remember.

On Thu, 4 Feb 1999, Theo Vennemann wrote:

> Gk. pe'lekus, Skt. paras'u'- is clearly Semitic (root family p-l-K- 'to
> split, to divide', which is pretty close to what you do with a battle-axe),
> and on account of its meaning is likely to be a wanderwort.  The greater
> problem is:  How did folk 'division (of an army)' and plow "divider of the
> soil" (from the same family of Semitic roots) find their way into Germanic
> (and only Germanic)?  Put more generally: Why do we seem to find more such
> correspondences with Germanic than with other Indo-European languages? (I say
> "seem" because in this part of the world I appear to be the only one looking,
> and I can with a clear professional conscience only look in Germanic.)


From mcv at wxs.nl  Sat Feb  6 01:28:02 1999
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 01:28:02 GMT
Subject: NSemitic borrowings: in response to Greg Web
In-Reply-To: <v01510108b2de1b249122@[129.187.26.119]>
Message-ID: <SAT.6.FEB.1999.012802.GMT.>

tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de (Theo Vennemann) wrote:

>Miguel Carrasquer Vidal mcv at wxs.nl wrote:

>>The <a> in <zazpi> is mysterious, and we need
>>a metathesis *zapzi > zazpi, which in itself isn't too much of a
>>problem, not in a borrowed item.  I'd like to know what the <a>
>>is doing in Welsh saith (< *saxt < *sapt- ??).

Oops.  *s- should have given h- wouldn't it?  Now I really don't
understand that Welsh form...  Can anybody please shed some
light?

>However, trying
>to solve the Basque problem by referring to Gaulish or Celtiberian
>is a bit like ignotum per ignotius.

Not really.  Welsh is pretty well known.  And Gaulish and
Celtiberian are better attested than, if you don't mind me saying
so, "Atlantic".

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam


From glengordon01 at hotmail.com  Sat Feb  6 20:37:35 1999
From: glengordon01 at hotmail.com (Glen Gordon)
Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 12:37:35 -0800
Subject: IE-Semitic connections
Message-ID: <SAT.6.FEB.1999.123735.0800.GLENGORDON01@HOTMAIL.COM>

[ Moderator's note:
  This response to Theo Vennemann's comment was accidentally addressed to the
  Nostratic list rather than Indo-European.  I have, with Mr. Gordon's consent,
  posted it to the correct mailing list.
  --rma ]

To all those angry with me,

>By calling some linguists' views "something very conjectural and
>unbased on the linguistic evidence" you may quell a discussion just
>as easily as provoke one. It just does not sound inquisitive.

Yes, I make opinions on who's views are more likely than others but I
don't name names and I don't write off anybody completely. Whether one
feels someone's ideas are based or not based on linguistic evidence is a
subjective opinion but I guess I can't win, can I? Everything I say can
and will be turned around. All I want is peace.

                             #######
                          ###   #   ###
                         #      #      #
                        #      ###      #
                        #    ## # ##    #
                         #  #   #   #  #
                          ###   #   ###
                             #######

                   Can't we all just get along??
--------------------------------------------
Glen Gordon
glengordon01 at hotmail.com

Kisses and Hugs
--------------------------------------------


From BMScott at stratos.net  Sat Feb  6 01:42:10 1999
From: BMScott at stratos.net (Brian M. Scott)
Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 20:42:10 -0500
Subject: STATISTICS IN LINGUISTICS
Message-ID: <FRI.5.FEB.1999.204210.0500.>

Patrick C. Ryan wrote:

> What I find amazing is that you would think a "100% CORREKATION" does not
> establish a cause and effect relationship.

It obviously doesn't.  Imagine a large, square room whose sides are
oriented east-west and north-south.  The floor of the room is blue in
the northern half and red in the southern half.  The ceiling is blue in
the eastern half and red in the western half.  A track runs through this
room between the SW and NE corners.  Mounted on the track is an opaque
cubical with a window in the ceiling and another in the floor.  You are
riding in this cubical, which moves slowly but erratically back and
forth along the track.  From time to time a buzzer sounds, the window in
the floor opens momentarily, and, as it closes, the window in the
ceiling opens.  You find that every time you see a blue (resp. red)
floor, you also see a blue (resp. red) ceiling a moment later.  The
correlation is perfect, but there is clearly no cause-and-effect
relationship between the floor color and the ceiling color.

> I can see why you prefer not to deal with mathematical models. If you have
> 100 trials, and the same cause has the same effect, the probability of the
> cause creating the same effect again is 100%. Not 99%. Not 98%. Infinity is
> not a factor in this equation.

No.  I flip a fair coin (the 'cause') 100 times and get tails (the
'effect') 100 times -- unlikely, but certainly possible.  The
probability that I get tails on the 101-st toss is still 1/2, not 1.

Brian M. Scott
Dept. of Mathematics
Cleveland State Univ.


From manaster at umich.edu  Sat Feb  6 01:45:40 1999
From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu)
Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 20:45:40 -0500
Subject: (no subject)
In-Reply-To: <v01540b01b2e058771947@[193.149.71.196]>
Message-ID: <FRI.5.FEB.1999.204540.0500.>

On Sat, 6 Feb 1999, Gordon Selway wrote [in response to my
defense of Chomsky and others who hold that it is at least
possible thate the language CAPACITY did not evolve gradually]

[snip]

> (i) if language is something we are peculiarly adapted to as a species,
> both in the configuration of our respiratory tracts and in the way our
> brains work, then there are several immediate (and of course many more
> mediate) changes required to permit us the language ability, and maybe
> evolution (in a Darwinian sense) might have refined the ability since it
> first arose.  However, as with almost any evolutionary change (as I
> understand it), it must have arisen 'abruptly' in the sense that the
> parents did not have the ability (except in an inchoate form with all but
> one or however many of the change needed already in place, but the last
> voussoir not in place as it were, so that the arch of language cannot bear
> weight) but the offspring did.

I dont see that.  The parents can have it to a slightly smaller
degree than the offspring.  When whiteness and then blondness
evolved in certain human populations, you did not have brown-
skinned and black-haired parents with white/blonde kids.  Same
with the loss of the tail or the opposable thumb or anything
else.  Why not language capacities?

> (ii) in practice we do pick up a wide repertory of vowels and consonants
> within a short time, when we first acquire language.  When we grow up, it
> appears that most of us find it more and more difficult to add to our sound
> repertories.  If the ability to acquire language has been more or less
> consistent during its existence, then the potential for all those sounds
> ought in theory to have arisen at one time.  Whether it could be realised
> is obviously a different question.

That is circular.  The circularity has to do with your assuming that
"the ability to acquire language has been more or less
consistent during its existence...".  Obviously those who think that
lg capacities evolved gradually presumably do not grant this assumption.

> (iii) some of the objections made to these points seem to me to have the
> same savour as some of the objections made to the theory of the evolution
> in the 19th century, looking to rhetoric for their effects, rather than the
> facts.

I am lost as to which side you are condemning.  For the record, I think
that both positions (viz., gradual AND abrupt) rise of the language
capacity in our species (Pan sapiens) are consistent with everything
we know and with what we know of how evolution works in general (viz.
sometimes gradually and sometimes abruptly). So whoever you are
criticizing, I am herewith/hereby? standing up for that side.

AMR


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Sat Feb  6 01:59:31 1999
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 20:59:31 EST
Subject: Chariots, Bits and Greeks
Message-ID: <FRI.5.FEB.1999.205931.EST.>

In a message dated 2/5/99 10:48:43 AM, vidynath at math.ohio-state.edu wrote:

<<I thought that I explicitely said that the yoking systems were
different and that I said nothing about the bridles of Classical
Greece.>>

Yes, indeed.  I read your note too quickly and did misunderstand.  Sorry.

<<And then there is the problem of dating Homer and knowing the
extent of anachronistic descriptions of arms in his work.>>

True.  On the other hand, Homer is often consistent with external evidence
and in other circumstances can offer evidence that has to be taken into
account.  And of course Homer's horses were all yoked.

Regards,
Steve Long


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Sat Feb  6 02:55:28 1999
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (Patrick C. Ryan)
Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 20:55:28 -0600
Subject: axe
Message-ID: <FRI.5.FEB.1999.205528.0600.PROTOLANGUAGE@EMAIL.MSN.COM>

Dear Theo and IEists:

-----Original Message-----
From: Theo Vennemann <tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de>
Date: Friday, February 05, 1999 3:54 PM

<snip>

>Gk. pe'lekus, Skt. paras'u'- is clearly Semitic (root family p-l-K- 'to
>split, to divide', which is pretty close to what you do with a battle-axe),
>and on account of its meaning is likely to be a wanderwort.   Pat

Would you be kind enough to explain why this is "clearly Semitic"?

Pat


From iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu  Sat Feb  6 03:18:47 1999
From: iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu)
Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 21:18:47 -0600
Subject: Evolution
Message-ID: <FRI.5.FEB.1999.211847.0600.>

	I guess I had better compose a response to Steve Long ... ugh, I
would rather not.   That will teach me to start something I don't feel
like finishing.

	Mutations occur within an overall system, within which they are
effectively meaningful. Those that failed this test would not be
considered mutations.  (Say if the copying process had for some bizarre
reason produced not a nucleotide, but H2O.)  Thus rhetorical courtesy
requires that the proposed parallel with language be similarly constrained
to include only innovations that occur within the system of the language
in question.  The sort of random noise-making that Steve Long suggests is
implied by my parallel does not qualify, any more than H2O qualifies as a
nucleotide.

	Moving right along, and attempting to end a conversation which
most members probably consider annoying/boring, I suggest that the main
difference between linguistic evolution and biological evolution is that
virtually every aspect of an individual organism has a functional purpose,
such that it cannot be other than it is, whereas many aspects of language
have no functional purpose.  By this I mean there is no reason that we
must call cats "cats" and dogs "dogs".  Indeed, without this little bit of
leverage, we historical linguists would be in big trouble trying to do
what we do.

	Evolutionary biologists do, by the way, have a great deal of
trouble trying to do what they do without this leverage.  Since virtually
every aspect of a skeleton has a function, sorting out convergence from
common descent can indeed be tricky business.  For example, a group of
very cat-like carnivores, the nimravids, were considered cats until
somebody noticed that the structure of the middle ear (fairly marginal for
predators, compared to teeth and claws, etc.) was significantly different.
The striking resemblance between nimravids and felines was thereupon
declared due to convergence.

	There is more, as always, but I am hoping I will not have to write
more on this.

					DLW


From CONNOLLY at LATTE.MEMPHIS.EDU  Sat Feb  6 02:29:51 1999
From: CONNOLLY at LATTE.MEMPHIS.EDU (CONNOLLY at LATTE.MEMPHIS.EDU)
Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 21:29:51 -0500
Subject: Why *p>*f?
Message-ID: <FRI.5.FEB.1999.212951.0500.>

>Larry Trask <larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk> wrote:

>>In High German, providing we follow the traditional view, and not
>>Vennemann's bifurcational theory, */p/ changed to /pf/ -- an
>>extraordinary development, rarely if ever seen elsewhere.

>But we find this "High German" consonant shift in English as well
>(e.g. Liverpudlian, which has -t > -ts, -k > -kx and -p > -pf if
>I'm not mistaken).

>In any case, neither the Grimm nor the High German shifts are
>cases of a direct shift [p] > [(p)f].  In both cases the
>precondition, which may be a necessary precondition for this
>sound shift, was an aspirated pronunciation of /p/ as [ph].

Precondition?  That's hard to prove.  The fact that Germanic languages (other
that Dutch) lacking this shift do have the aspirates does not prove that
aspiration was in fact a precondition.

>The same applies to Greek (/ph/ > /f/), probably pre-Latin (*bh >
>*ph > f)

PIE *bh yields Latin f only initially; medially we find b.  As for the Greek,
we should remember that the change did not occur in isolation, as it were:
there were two series of voiceless stops, and the development of one series to
fricatives led to greater acoustic differentiation. -- Look, I'm not trying to
*deny* that aspiration may have *favored* these developments, but I don't see
how we can prove that it was in any sense a necessary condition.

Leo

Leo A. Connolly                         Foreign Languages & Literatures
connolly at latte.memphis.edu              University of Memphis


From manaster at umich.edu  Sat Feb  6 04:28:45 1999
From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu)
Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 23:28:45 -0500
Subject: IE in Balkans and Semitic?
In-Reply-To: <37746d33.2044578598@mail.wxs.nl>
Message-ID: <FRI.5.FEB.1999.232845.0500.>

On Wed, 3 Feb 1999, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote:

> PSem *t_awr- (or *c^awr-), PIE has *steur-, *st(H)uHr-
> (*st(h)u:r-), *stewHr- (*stew at r-), *tHwr-/*t at ur-, with the usual
> mess when laryngeal meets semivowel

[snip]

>Not everybody is convinced that the
> IE and Semitic forms are related, and those that think so are I
> guess divided into three camps: (a) the relationship is genetic
> (from memory, please correct if I'm wrong, Alan Bomhard lists
> this as a Nostratic root),

He used to.  He just wrote to me pointing that he has, as Michalove
and I have urged on him in print, accepted that Illich-Svitych
was right to treat it as loanword

>(b) the word was borrowed from Sem. into IE,

As Illich-Svitych did.

>(c) the word was borrowed from IE into Sem.

I know you are not kidding, but... Are you kidding?  How
many PIE words with this vocalism do you posit?

> Again, as
> with the "copper" word, I'm not sure if the Semitic word has an
> internal etymology within Semitic.  In IE, the word may be
> connected to the root *(s)teH2w- "be strong",

Wurzeletymologie.

> and again there is
> some archaeological evidence that cattle was indeed a later
> Anatolian or SE European addition to the original Near Eastern
> Neolithic inventory of livestock (sheep and goats).  So I would
> lean towards the third camp.

Illich-Svitych gives specific reasons for position (b).
Why not respond to those first?

AMR


From manaster at umich.edu  Sat Feb  6 04:34:56 1999
From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu)
Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 23:34:56 -0500
Subject: Chomsky
In-Reply-To: <59652f21.36b7c827@aol.com>
Message-ID: <FRI.5.FEB.1999.233456.0500.>

On Tue, 2 Feb 1999 GregWeb at aol.com wrote:

>I found this post very interesting as I recently read The Language Instinct by
>Steven Pinker.   Chomsky apparently cannot explain how a universal grammar
>template would come to exist in the brain although it makes sense that it
>does.

Can anyone?

>Pinker makes a rather convincing argument for its evolution and
>existence,

Pinker merely states a very general argument that it had to have
evolved.  He does not know how it evolved.  And the whole
thing does presuppose that Chomsky is right to say there is
such a "mental organ" as "universal grammar".  The evidence for
this is to my mind very weak since the crucial experiments
have not been done for obvious reasons.

>and he does not posit the existence of a grammar gene.

Does Chomsky posit one specific grammar gene?

> Neither
> does he imply that humans suddenly began speaking with lots of vowels,
> consonants and vocabulary roots.

I dont think Chomsky has ever said anything about where the
loads of phonemes and roots come from either.


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Sat Feb  6 04:44:44 1999
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (Patrick C. Ryan)
Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 22:44:44 -0600
Subject: STATISTICS IN LINGUISTICS
Message-ID: <FRI.5.FEB.1999.224444.0600.PROTOLANGUAGE@EMAIL.MSN.COM>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

Dear Steve and IEists:

-----Original Message-----
From: X99Lynx at aol.com <X99Lynx at aol.com>
Date: Friday, February 05, 1999 1:11 AM

<snip>

>Remember that if you use probability to predict, you cannot ever be 100%
>certain that the next event will match your prior events, no matter how many
>incidences you have measured.  And the number of incidences will affect your
>percentage of certainty especially in a random distribution.  All probability
>is basically measured against random distribution.

>By your logic, if I flip a coin three times and it is always heads, then "the
>probability of the cause (flipping) creating the same effect (heads) is 100%."
>I don't need to tell you that is not the probability of getting heads next
>time.

What is so damnably frustrating is that an intelligent man can write such a
thing and actually believe it.

If you flip a coin three times, and it comes up heads all three times, the
probability of it coming up heads is 100%.

Based on the *limited* trial you have made, that is the correct probability
whether you acknowledge it or not.

Now, to take your objection into consideration, let us say that the same
coin is tossed 1000 times. I expect, unless the coin is defective or has
been altered, that heads will come up 50% of the time but until an extended
test is made, and these new statistics experimentally established, the
statistic you have from the first experiment is that the probability of
heads coming up is 100%.

<snip>

Pat

[ Moderator's comment:
  The *probability* is still 1/2 for each coin toss.  The *experimental result*
  may differ wildly from the predictions of probability theory.  Using the
  statistics from the experiment, a different prediction may be made (and a
  search for why the probabilistic prediction failed begun), but that differs
  from saying that the *probability* is 100%.

  No further posts on this topic will be posted to the Indo-European list.
  -rma ]


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Sat Feb  6 05:08:58 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 00:08:58 EST
Subject: Chariots
Message-ID: <SAT.6.FEB.1999.000858.EST.>

>horses not only yoked but also specifically says that bits were placed within
>their jaws - "en de chalinous gampheleis ebalon."

-- I think the original reference was to how the horses were hitched for
traction, not how they were steered.

>Moderator's comment:
>Homer also describes chariots leaping across ditches, and doing other things
>that a chariot could not do, but a bridled horse could.

-- Chariots were used in Greece for display and sport in Homer's day,
particularly in aristocratic circles.  I'd think he was pretty familiar with
them.

[ Moderator's reply:
  The Romans of the first centuries of the common era also used chariots in
  festivals, but I doubt that either group understood how they would be used
  in warfare.  Certainly, a chariot would not behave as described by Homer.
  --rma ]


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Sat Feb  6 05:20:31 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 00:20:31 EST
Subject: Mallory
Message-ID: <SAT.6.FEB.1999.002031.EST.>

>Odegard at means.net (Mark Odegard <Odegard at means.net>)

>I affirm it is *required* reading. I did not find it particularly difficult,
>though for someone with zero introduction to linguistics, Indo-European
>studies and archeology, this book would be forbiddingly difficult.

-- I agree.  Good comprehensive survey.

>This region as the homeland, however, leads to some other problems.
>Mostly, we're required to accept the model of Aryan hordes invading
>the Danube basin.

-- more in the nature of "infiltrating and immigrating to" -- none of the
societies in question had a state level of political development, after all.

The Galla invasions of Ethiopia would be a good historical analogue.

>For myself, this [Danube basin] feels right.

-- that just displaces the problem.  Instead of frenzied hordes of Indo-
European speakers slashing their way into the Danube Valley, you've got them
migrating from there all the way to the Punjab, cutting their way into the
work of the comparative philologists.  Either way, you've got a very small
area expanding over a very large one.

>Except for the historically understood Magyar intrusion, this region has
>*always* been IE

-- So has the Ukraine, except for the historically attested intrusions of
Altaic speakers.  It was IE-speaking at the dawn of history and stayed that
way for millenia.

>Mostly, Sredny Stog is not particularly agricultural, and seems to have gone
>from Neolithic hunter-gathering to pastoral nomadism without any evidence of
>serious agriculture intervening, whereas LBK in Hungary was agricultural --
>and there is no transitional culture that links the two beyond trade links.

-- I think you've slightly misinterpreted him.  Sredny Stog goes from
Mesolithic to a mixed agricultural/pastoral economy with an emphasis on
herding _in some areas_.

It was the domestication of the horse which allowed the exploitation of the
deep steppe zone; but full-blown pastoral nomadism of the type we're familiar
with is a _much_ later phenomenon.

The steppe zone cultures of the late Neolithic and Bronze Age were
_semi-_nomadic, some segments of them practicing mixed agriculture in more
favorable parts of the area (river valleys, the forest steppe, foothill zones)
while others moved seasonally to pasture areas.

>In historic terms, it would have been all in the blink
>of an eye, the only real restraint on expansion being the ability of
>themselves and their animals to reproduce. The Cavalli-Sforza number
>for agriculturalist spread is about 1 km per year on average. On
>horseback, the spread could have been an average of 1 km per *week*.

-- analagous to the expansion of the Plains tribes once they got the horse.

>I have his _The IndoEuropeanization of Europe_ on order. After this,
>what's the next book?

-- try Mallory and Adams, _The Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture_.
Dynamite.


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Sat Feb  6 05:35:15 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 00:35:15 EST
Subject: Anatolians
Message-ID: <SAT.6.FEB.1999.003515.EST.>

>mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)

>Likewise comparing the linguistic, archaeological and genetic
>maps of Europe shows a large amount of overlap between
>Indo-European, the initial agricultural expansion from Anatolia
>to Holland, and the main genetic component.

-- post hoc propter ergo hoc.  The initial agricultural colonization of Europe
probably carried _some_ language, but there's no evidence whatsoever it was IE
and plenty that it wasn't.  The time-frame is wrong, for instance.

>But the "steppe" or "Kurgan" model cannot adequately explain all the
>archaeological facts (cultural change, but no evidence for invasions in
>Northern and Western Europe)

-- well, that's Renfrew's main weakness.  It's historically demonstrable that
migrations resulting in complete language replacement _don't_ have to leave
any particular archaeological trace.  Some archaeologists hate to acknowledge
this.

Eg., as Mallory points out, there's virtually no trace of the Scotic migration
that carried Gaelic to Scotland -- and I strongly suspect that if it weren't
attested in the written sources, it would be denied.  The migrations out of
Zululand in the 19th century took Ngoni languages 2000 miles from their
original source in Natal in less that 30 years.  I would defy anyone to find a
single archaeological clue, although there would be plenty of _linguistic_
evidence.

The Corded Ware horizon (and the Beaker derivation therefrom) represents a
quite drastic break in the archaeological record from the Rhine to the Oka-
Volga area at about the right time and with many elements demonstrably related
to the steppe cultures of the time.

>or all the linguistic facts (why the gap between Anatolian and the rest of IE

-- "they moved first" seems adequate.

>why Germanic

-- why not?

>Furthermore, history shows that steppe invadors have never penetrated
>linguistically beyond Hungary and the Balkans.

-- the situation in the late Neolithic had few historical parallels --
population densities were much lower, there were no states, etc.  The Indo-
Iranians, uncontestably coming from the Steppe into areas of old Neolithic and
Early Bronze Age habitation in Iran, Afghanistan and India, replaced the local
languages over an area just as large and probably more populous than Europe.

>Indo-Aryan did not succeed in wiping out all traces of the languages of the
>earlier Neolithic population, far from it.

-- Well, I'd call it fairly complete.  Starting at a much later date than the
Indo-Europeanization of Europe, the whole area Iran-Afghanistan-northern
Indian subcontinent, larger than Europe, was reformatted to Indo-Iranian (and
the related Dardic/Nuristani) languages, and the process was still continuing
in historic times.

The only relic, besides the small area of Dravidian-related Brahui speakers
west of the Indus, is a scatter of Dravidian loan-words in Sanskrit and its
descendants.


From ECOLING at aol.com  Sat Feb  6 06:24:24 1999
From: ECOLING at aol.com (ECOLING at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 01:24:24 EST
Subject: Xinjiang mummies
Message-ID: <SAT.6.FEB.1999.012424.EST.>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

Just a note that I was present a year or so ago at a Smithsonian presentation
of this material, I think a series of lectures by several speakers, covering
chariots, horse burials, metallurgy, language (Ringe), genetics, etc.

I remained skeptical even after all the lectures, since it is so easy for
folks to emphasize what they wish to see, but to a linguist familiar with the
principle of shared innovations to determine subgrouping, a principle that
applies not merely to innovations in language, a central point would be that
the separation of these folks from the IE body were very early, and that the
separation of the Hittites, Celts, and Tocharians (the last Xinjiang?) from
the IE stem were also fairly early, the conclusion must be that these probably
represent shared retentions, not shared innovations, and thus show an archaic
level, not some special relations of Celts and Xinjian mummies (or: Celts and
Tocharians).

Read in that light (which we can understand newspaper articles are
not likely to convey clearly), the content seems less unreasonable.
That does not mean I have enough facts to regard the conclusions
as unassailable.

But not unreasonable either, when stated conservatively.

Lloyd Anderson
Ecological Linguistics


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Sat Feb  6 06:58:47 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 01:58:47 EST
Subject: IE and Etruscan
Message-ID: <SAT.6.FEB.1999.015847.EST.>

ERobert52 at aol.com

>One does not have to believe Herodotus' story that the Etruscans originated
>in Lydia.

-- it's not the origins of the Etruscans, but the genetic relationships of
their language.  Last time I looked, there was general agreement among
linguists that Etruscan is non-Indo-European.  Hell, we can't even read it!

Whether Etruscans came from Anatolia, or Etruscans went to Anatolia in the
post-1200 _Volkerwanderung_ (Sardinians went to the Levant, so why not?) is
irrelevant.


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Sat Feb  6 07:16:52 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 02:16:52 EST
Subject: Cattle Domestication Dates
Message-ID: <SAT.6.FEB.1999.021652.EST.>

>rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)

>Correct me if I'm wrong but my understanding is that cattle were already
>domesticated in the Middle Wast BEFORE IE developed

-- yes.  Cattle domestication dates to around 6000 BCE or a bit earlier in SW
Asia/Near East, and possibly around the same time or a bit earlier in N.
Africa.

>and that the domestication of cattle was reason of the Berber occupation of
>the whole of North Africa c. 8K BCE or so.

-- as far as I know, the Berbers are the result of development in place from
the original mesolithic inhabitants of North Africa, arriving prior to 8000
BCE.


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Sat Feb  6 12:38:03 1999
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 12:38:03 +0000
Subject: IE-Semitic connections
In-Reply-To: <l03130304b2e11a55d787@[207.120.3.57]>
Message-ID: <SAT.6.FEB.1999.123803.0000.LARRYT@COGS.SUSX.AC.UK>

On Fri, 5 Feb 1999, Rick Mc Callister wrote:

> Basque <z> is /s/, so the idea that it may have come from Romance
> *septe > *sepce, *sepci; *sepse, *sepsi and then metathesized to
> /saspi/ sounds sounds interesting. The problem is that [afaik] none
> of those forms are documented in Ibero-Romance --I don't know about
> S. Gallo-Romance. There is also the question of whether open /E/
> would go to /a/ in Basque. Larry Trask would know that.

Both Romance high-mid /e/ and low-mid /E/ are borrowed into Basque as
/e/ at all periods.  (Basque has only a e i o u/.)  After Romance /E/
and /O/ were diphthongized to /ie/ and /ue/, these too were generally
taken into Basque as /e/, as in <leku> `place', from some Romance reflex
of Latin LOCU of the approximate form *<lueco>.

Latin /pt/ was assimilated to */tt/ very early in Iberian Romance, and
there was no */ps/ stage.  The same thing happened in the ancestors of
French and of Italian.  I have no data for southern Gallo-Romance, but I
would be surprised if anything different happened here, since this kind
of cluster assimilation seems to have been a very widespread feature of
spoken Latin (Vulgar Latin).

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk


From tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de  Sat Feb  6 13:36:15 1999
From: tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de (Theo Vennemann)
Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 14:36:15 +0100
Subject: Anglo-Saxon conquest
Message-ID: <SAT.6.FEB.1999.143615.0100.TVN@CIS.UNIMUENCHEN.DE>

>A good source
>for such heresy is Higham (various), who unfortunately, being a pure
>historian, labors under the delusion that there is no evidence of Celtic
>influence in English, having had to take the linguists' word for it.  The
>problem is that the linguists are wrong ..

>                                        DLW

Most linguists, yes. But that will change rapidly. Watch out for
Hildegard Tristram (ed.) Celtic Englishes II.

                                          T.V.


From thompson at jlc.net  Sat Feb  6 13:55:02 1999
From: thompson at jlc.net (George Thompson)
Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 08:55:02 -0500
Subject: Breakup of Persians and East Indians (Avestan and Vedic)
In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19990130223029.0085d100@mail.web4you.dk>
Message-ID: <SAT.6.FEB.1999.085502.0500.THOMPSON@JLC.NET>

At 10:30 PM 1/30/1999 +0100, Carol Jensen wrote:

>I have often wondered why I have never read anything about the fight, if
>there was one, between the Avestans and Vedics.

There is evidence that both peoples skirmished with their neighbors and
amongst themselves, but no evidence of one big 'fight.'

>The languages are so close, they must have broken up shortly before the
>various hymns were written down.

Well, both sets of the oldest hymns, the Gathas of Zarathustra and the RV
hymns, were composed and transmitted orally. But you are right in this
sense: the languages at this earliest stage are close, as close as French
is to Italian or Spanish, perhaps. But later Avestan and classical Sanskrit
diverge and are no longer mutually intelligible.

>In the Avestan hymns, one learns of the reformer Zarasthustra. Now it is
>obvious that what he has reformed is the Vedic religion. Was there a fight
>before they split? Could it be the Persians referred to in the Vedic texts
>("We broke down their walled town", etc.)

Old Avestan is an East Iranian language that is roughly contemporary with
the RV; Old Persian is a Western Iranian language not attested until the
end of the Vedic period. The RV could not have known of 'Persians' of the
Persian Empire, but they did know of 'Parzavas', who were probably Persians
[cf. Old Persian 'PArsa']. References to 'walled towns' in Vedic are not
likely to be anything, even remotely, like Persepolis, say, or even like
the Indus Valley cities. The RV does not know of such monuments, nor does
Old Avestan.

Old Avestan and Old Vedic form a Kulturkreis [I would not call it 'Vedic',
by any means]. I believe I see the possibility of evidence for mutual
knowledge between the two wings of this Kulturkreis. The general
similarities between the two languages at this stage are, as you say,
obvious. They suggest that at this stage we are fairly close to the node at
which the two languages began to diverge [but I hesitate to date this].
There is strong evidence of a poetic formulaic diction shared in common, as
well as ritual and religious customs shared in common: it is simply common
Indo-Iranian, not 'Vedic'.

I think that most Indo-Iranists assume that the two branches at the stage
of our earliest texts are no longer in any contact with each other. But if
I am right about the possibility of mutual knowledge [and mutual
reference], then the Gathas of Zarathustra and the hymns of the RV are
roughly contemporaneous, and it may be assumed that even after the
'break-up' not only did mutual intelligibility continue for some time, but
some sort of contact also continued.

Needless to say, this part of my claim is speculative. But the rest is I
think generally accepted.

As for the 'not-to-be-killed ones', mentioned correctly by AMR as referred
to in both languages, I think that this reference merely shows that there
was some aversion against animal sacrifice in both wings of this
Kulturkreis. But it is clear that animal sacrifice persisted nevertheless,
particularly on the Vedic side, where the rejection of animal sacrifice,
and correspondingly the rise of vegetarianism, do not become dominant
cultural ideals until a later period [say around the rise of Buddhism,
Jainism, etc.]

For what it's worth.

George Thompson


From ERobert52 at aol.com  Sat Feb  6 17:03:20 1999
From: ERobert52 at aol.com (ERobert52 at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 12:03:20 EST
Subject: wh
Message-ID: <SAT.6.FEB.1999.120320.EST.>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu writes:

> I've read that in the Highlands and in parts of Ireland that due to
> the influence of Gaelic, /f, ph/ was perceived as a local "lenited form"
> where others /wh, w, bh/ and that pronunciation passed over to English,
> where it was also equated with /f, ph/, and occasionally back to Gaelic
> hence English "whiskey" [from uisge beatha ?sp?] occasionally became
> "fuisce".

In NE Scotland /hw/ is routinely replaced by /f/ in the local dialect of Scots,
so "wha", "whaur" and "whit" (who, where, what) become "fa", "faur" and "fit",
although when speaking standard English the locals use /hw/.  Traditionally the
phenomenon has also applied to words like "white" and "whisky", but less so
nowadays. It is localised to this particular area and does not occur as far as
I have noticed in Scotland in areas that were Gaelic-speaking more recently
(where Scots is less of a living language as compared with Scottish English),
or in more southerly dialects of Scots. If indeed NE Scotland was Gaelic
speaking at any time: it may have gone straight from Pictish, whatever that
was, to Scots.

So I don't know if there can be a connection between the NE Scots use of /f/
and the modern Scottish Gaelic aspiration rule of F > FH, i.e. /f/ is lenited
to /null/. I gather things are more complicated in Irish with the eclipsis of
F- to BHF- (/f/ to /v/, I think) being possible as a change as well as
aspiration, which seems another possible candidate. (Does this represent a
historically earlier stage?) I also notice Scottish Gaelic "uinneag" (window)
is "fuinneag" in Irish.

Do these things tell us anything about what language was spoken in the NE of
Scotland before Scots or when the transition maybe happened? As for the
Brythonic languages, of which Pictish might alternatively have been one, I
can't begin to remember what the mutation rules are, but I don't think any of
them relate F and WH. Of course, the sound change /hw/ to /f/ may have nothing
to do with Celtic at all.

Ed. Robertson


From iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu  Sat Feb  6 17:55:11 1999
From: iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu)
Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 11:55:11 -0600
Subject: Evolution and Language List
In-Reply-To: <c9bef121.36b94525@aol.com>
Message-ID: <SAT.6.FEB.1999.115511.0600.>

> [ Moderator's note:
>   This thread, while interesting, is marginal with respect to Indo-European
>   studies.  Unless there is something to be said about IE directly, let's
>   move the discussion to private e-mail, or the Evolution-and-Language list.
>   --rma ]
>
	So how do we (I) get on the Evolution-and-Language list?  I did
not know there was such a thing.

[ Moderator's response:
  I am surprised to see that it is not one of the mailing lists archived at
  LinguistList.org (I think I am, anyway).  I know that some of the readers
  of this list are, or have been, participants there in the past; perhaps one
  of them could provide an address.
  --rma ]


From iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu  Sat Feb  6 18:06:02 1999
From: iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu)
Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 12:06:02 -0600
Subject: Uralic Not a Steppe Language?
In-Reply-To: <l03130302b2df2c27010e@[131.111.204.34]>
Message-ID: <SAT.6.FEB.1999.120602.0600.>

	Since Hungarian became a steppe language in historical times, the
possibility of other Uralic languages having done the same in pre-historic
times cannot, it seems to me, reasonably be excluded.

					DLW


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Sat Feb  6 20:42:03 1999
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 15:42:03 EST
Subject: (no subject)
Message-ID: <SAT.6.FEB.1999.154203.EST.>

[To the moderator - there is a direct connection to historical linguistics at
the end of this message and also it does not leave the prior message's
statement about language's abrupt first appearance unanswered.]

In a message dated 2/6/99 2:00:54 AM, gordonselway at gn.apc.org wrote:

<<However, as with almost any evolutionary change (as I
understand it), it [language] must have arisen 'abruptly' in the sense that
the parents did not have the ability >>

This hardly ever appears to be the case.  What tends to happen is that some
morphological feature that had another function or was part of another
function gradually begins to serve a new function.  E.g., feathers do not
appear to have evolved in connection with flight, but possibly with protecting
the skin or cooling the body.  Gradually (and I emphasize gradually, not
abruptly) feathers started to acquire a function in flight, a trait which
already existed.

With regard to physical sound-making ability, apes communicate not that badly
(e.g., even use grammatical concepts such as verbs and nouns when using
"symbol machines" and such.)  However, though they have been taught to
articulate human words, they use our "speaking" sounds only with difficulty.
They are just not physically capable of finely controlling their sound making
organs.

The increase in sound-control capability that occurred in humans may very well
have been a gradual process, starting with a level of skill not much greater
than the other apes.  BUT it may not have been natural selection but cultural
favoritism that over time mainly increased the human physical ability to
articulate.

In other words, some very early culture (and continuing even as late as the
original PIE speakers' culture itself) may have given some social status or
other reproductive advantage to those who were less physically debilitated in
speaking.  The ability to share more effectively in the progressing innovation
of communication by the spoken word would logically be a social and therefore
a reproductive advantage.  This should not be a surprise, given our own
culture's long disfavor of those with speaking "disabilities."

This is not to say however that one can only take part fully in language as a
"speaker."  It only suggests that the development of language was dependent on
a gradual improvement in the ability to control sounds.

Given the subtlety of the differences in sounds a historical linguist must
deal with, it should be easy to see why fine control of sounds is essential to
the rich diversity found in even the most "proto" of languages.  It follows
that you must have the ability to do such fine controlling in sound BEFORE you
can use sounds to create subtle differences in case, tense, etc.  And that is
why the ability to fine-control sounds may have been the essential ingredient
that made human language possible.

Regards,
Steve Long


From ALDERSON at toad.xkl.com  Sun Feb 21 01:30:36 1999
From: ALDERSON at toad.xkl.com (Rich Alderson)
Date: Sat, 20 Feb 1999 17:30:36 -0800
Subject: Resumption of service
Message-ID: <SAT.20.FEB.1999.173036.0800.>

As a result of the large number of long messages to the Indo-European and
Nostratic mailing lists, the mail system which I have been using suffered
a (metaphorical) meltdown.  This affected not only the lists themselves,
but the mail for the company for which I work.  In good conscience, I had
to discontinue sending mail to the lists until I could work out a way for
them not to affect the rest of my universe.

This message is coming to you from the revamped mail system which I have put
in place.  Mail from these lists can no longer affect anything on systems
which are under my care.

Now is as good a time as any to announce an important change in the handling
of messages posted to these lists:  I will no longer approve for posting to
either list a message which is addressed to any recipient other than the list
in question.  This will avoid the problems created by postings which quote,
quite by accident, private messages from one list member to another:  If it
doesn't come from the list, don't quote it in a message to the list.

To facilitate this change in policy, postings to the list will have a header

	Reply-To: <list name>

added to them.  (I am already adding a Sender: header for the archives which
are maintained at linguistlist.org.)  I myself find this objectionable, but
I am finally persuaded that it is the best way to run a mailing list.

I will not apply this new policy to the backlog of messages on the two lists,
as that would make it difficult to maintain continuity.  However, all messages
received after 22 February 1999 must conform to the new policy to be sent out.

Thank you all for your patience and your continued interest.

								Rich Alderson
								List owner and
								moderator
-------


From mcv at wxs.nl  Sun Feb  7 01:47:53 1999
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Sun, 7 Feb 1999 01:47:53 GMT
Subject: Anatolians
In-Reply-To: <5e94c17d.36b95de1@aol.com>
Message-ID: <SUN.7.FEB.1999.014753.GMT.>

JoatSimeon at aol.com wrote:

[mcv:]

>>Etruscan was spoken in Greece and Western Anatolia before 1200 BC, closer to
>>Semitic than IE.

>-- this is, to say the least, not generally accepted.

R.S.P. Beekes and L.B. van der Meer ("De Etrusken spreken", 1991)
conclude that the question of origin of the Etruscans was solved
in 1886, when the Lemnos stele was discovered.  That's correct.
The exact date of their migration from the Aegean to Italy can be
argued over.  Everything points to the 12th century, though.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam


From manaster at umich.edu  Sun Feb  7 01:57:26 1999
From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu)
Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 20:57:26 -0500
Subject: Greek question
In-Reply-To: <22C2B9F36E0@hum.au.dk>
Message-ID: <SAT.6.FEB.1999.205726.0500.>

On Thu, 4 Feb 1999, George Hinge wrote:

> Even though I suppose that the Moderator is right in rejecting
> *nog(w)h-t-,

Why?

[snip]


From manaster at umich.edu  Sun Feb  7 02:09:00 1999
From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu)
Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 21:09:00 -0500
Subject: Greek question
In-Reply-To: <001401be504d$9c124720$779ffad0@patrickcryan>
Message-ID: <SAT.6.FEB.1999.210900.0500.>

On Thu, 4 Feb 1999, Patrick C. Ryan wrote:

> I am under the impression that though Kurylowicz and others have been
> interested in extending the "law" back to PIE times, this has not met
> general acceptance but perhaps I am not privy to the latest information.

> If  *ne(u)k(h)-to- had already become compounded in PIE, Bartholomae's Law
> would not have come into play, would it?

Hey, we do agree about something.  The BL issue is not closed
by any means.  Sihler in his book argues that it had to be
PIE because he can see no other way to explain the
variation between *-tlo- and *-dhlo- instrument derivational
suffixes.  But if I am not mistaken the Copenhagen school
has a better theory for this than BL (Jens, Benedicte, anybody?).

AMR


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Tue Feb  2 19:33:25 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1999 13:33:25 -0600
Subject: Various
In-Reply-To: <Pine.PMDF.3.96.990129090946.547473842A-100000@utxvms.cc.utexas.edu>
Message-ID: <TUE.2.FEB.1999.133325.0600.>

Edgar Polome' has an article in "When Worlds Collide", an interesting and
eclectic book.

At 9:15 AM -0600 1/29/99, iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu wrote:

>	I agree whole-heartedly with Rossi's speculations.  I don't think
>they are "provable" (an over-used word in this field), but I agree.
>Trojan <-> Etruscan/Tuscan <-> Tyrrhenian <-> Tursha.  They are all
>variants of the same word.  I just wonder whether "Tarsus" and "Taurus" go
>in there.

>	Polome (if that is what "Polomi" meant) did indeed do a study of
>non-IE substrate in Germanic.  I do not know precisely where.

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
MUW
Columbus MS 39701
rmccalli at sunmuw1.muw.edu


From mcv at wxs.nl  Sun Feb  7 02:33:06 1999
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Sun, 7 Feb 1999 02:33:06 GMT
Subject: Hurrians in N. Mesopotamia
In-Reply-To: <3135dfae.36b9505b@aol.com>
Message-ID: <SUN.7.FEB.1999.023306.GMT.>

JoatSimeon at aol.com wrote:

>-- Saggs places them there considerably earlier.

>"The native name for what we call the "Hurrian" language was the 'tongue of
>Su-bir', and third-millennium Sumerian texts mention Su-bir (hich we normally
>anglicize as 'Subarian') as what seems to have been a population element in
>north Mesopotamia, with no indication that they were thought of as immigrants.
>Moreover, Hurrians had already formed a small kingdom in the Habur river
>region of Syria as early as the twenty-fourth century BC, which implies a
>Hurrian presence in the Near East substantially earlier."

>-- in other words, Hurrians were established in the area at the earlies
>attested dates.

This is not what I gather from what I've been told by
Sumerologists/Akkadologists Piotr Michal/owski (on
sci.archaeology, IIRC) and Gonzalo Rubio.  In fact, according to
Gonzalo Rubio (p.c.), one theory about the name Sumer which is
accepted by *some* Sumerologists is that Shubur (Subaru) is in
fact the same word as Shumer (Steinkeller, footnote in "Early
Political Development in Mesopotamia...", in _Akkad: The first
World Empire_ ed. M. Liverani. Padova: Sargon srl, 1993).  The
modern consensus seems to be then that the Hurrians were
intrusive in Northern Mesopotamia.  Where they came from nobody
knows, maybe from the north (the related Urartian language is
later found in E. Anatolia), maybe from the east (Iran), which
would explain how the Mitanni had been in contact with
Indo-Iranians.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam


From mcv at wxs.nl  Sun Feb  7 02:43:27 1999
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Sun, 7 Feb 1999 02:43:27 GMT
Subject: Why *p>*f?
In-Reply-To: <01J7ED9N7E6W92A1C5@LATTE.MEMPHIS.EDU>
Message-ID: <SUN.7.FEB.1999.024327.GMT.>

CONNOLLY at LATTE.MEMPHIS.EDU wrote:

[mcv]
>>In any case, neither the Grimm nor the High German shifts are
>>cases of a direct shift [p] > [(p)f].  In both cases the
>>precondition, which may be a necessary precondition for this
>>sound shift, was an aspirated pronunciation of /p/ as [ph].

>Precondition?  That's hard to prove.  The fact that Germanic languages (other
>that Dutch) lacking this shift do have the aspirates does not prove that
>aspiration was in fact a precondition.

I said it *may be* a precondition, because in every example I
could think of, aspiration seemed to play a part.

>PIE *bh yields Latin f only initially; medially we find b.  As for the Greek,
>we should remember that the change did not occur in isolation, as it were:
>there were two series of voiceless stops,

As in Proto-Germanic.

>and the development of one series to
>fricatives led to greater acoustic differentiation. -- Look, I'm not trying to
>*deny* that aspiration may have *favored* these developments, but I don't see
>how we can prove that it was in any sense a necessary condition.

Disprove it.  My bald assertion was in fact a veiled invitation
for someone to come up with counterexamples.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Sun Feb  7 08:12:59 1999
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 7 Feb 1999 03:12:59 EST
Subject: Chariots
Message-ID: <SUN.7.FEB.1999.031259.EST.>

In a message dated 2/6/99 9:52:44 PM, you wrote:

<<Moderator's comment:
Homer also describes chariots leaping across ditches, and doing other things
that a chariot could not do, but a bridled horse could...Certainly, a chariot
would not behave as described by Homer.>>

I don't think Homer ever actually described a chariot leaping a ditch.
Just to give Homer his due:

"The trench" in the Illiad is the one protecting the Achaian ships.
The Greeks build it to keep back chariots and footmen (Illiad 7.340, Loeb)
The Greeks drive "through" the ditch when they need to get to the other side,
presumably up and down the banks, without leaping.  There is also a gate in
the fortifications behind the trench that they go through, which might have
led to an unmentioned bridge.

Hector DOES make a speech before the Trojan attack, where he tells his men
that "our horses shall lightly leap over the digged ditch."

HOWEVER when he gets to the ditch, Polydamas tells Hector that, "it is but
folly that we seek to drive across the trench our swift horses; hard in sooth
is it to cross, for sharp stakes are set in it, and close anigh them is the
wall of the Achaeans.  There is it no wise possible for charioteers to descend
and fight; for the space is narrow, and then methinks shall we suffer hurt.
... As for the horses, let the squires hold them back by the trench, but let
us on foot, arrayed in our armour, follow all in one throng after Hector; and
the Achaeans will not withstand us,..."  Illiad 12.50 et seq

Now various commentators have suggested that putting a makeshift bridge across
the trench or even carrying the chariots would not have been a problem.
However Homer's account solves the problem differently.  In a heavy rain,
Apollo becomes his Corps of Army Engineers:  "...and they all raised a shout,
and even with him drave the steeds that drew their chariots, with a wondrous
din; and before them Phoebus Apollo lightly dashed down with his feet the
banks of the deep trench, and cast them into the midst thereof, bridging for
the men a pathway long and broad, even as far as a spear-cast, ..."  (Iliad
15.344 et seq)

When the battle turns against them, the Trojans don't seem to find the bridge
back in their disorderly retreat: "nor was it in good order that they crossed
the trench again.... tbe hosts of Troy, whom the digged trench held back
against their will.  And in the trench many pairs of swift horses, drawers of
chariots, brake the pole at the end, and left the chariots of their lords...."
Iliad 16.369 (et seq)

To my knowledge, Homer never has anyone leaping the trench in a chariot, but
has them only saying they will.  But he does have chariots crashing in the
trench.

In defense of Homer:
It is worth remembering that before there was the slightest bit of evidence of
Mycenaeans, Bronze age Greeks, Troy,  chariots but not cavalry in battle, the
common line was that Homer made them all up.

I think it makes sense to think twice before dismissing anything in the Illiad
if there may be a favorable interpretation.  There is a fair body of
scholarship doubting Homer that went down the tubes once the archaeology
started, even with the admitted anachronisms and ambiguoties.

<<Chariots were used in Greece for display and sport in Homer's day,
particularly in aristocratic circles.  I'd think he was pretty familiar with
them.>>

And of course if the "Homers" (as many as eight said someone) were merely the
transcribers and editors of an oral tradition that went back as few as two-
four centuries, the preserved information in the Illiad could well be a first
hand account of Bronze Age battle chariots.

Regards,
Steve Long


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Sun Feb  7 08:54:55 1999
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 7 Feb 1999 03:54:55 EST
Subject: Mallory
Message-ID: <SUN.7.FEB.1999.035455.EST.>

In a message dated 2/7/99 1:21:37 AM, JoatSimeon at AOL.COM quoted:

<<...seems to have gone from Neolithic hunter-gathering to pastoral nomadism
without any evidence of serious agriculture intervening,... >>

This particular statement really bothers me. I also saw the "intervening
agriculture" stage as a requirement for pastoral nomadism repeated again and
again in Renfrew's Archaeology and Language where it was used to eliminate all
kinds of possibilities regarding the steppes.

I don't see why the nomadic pastoral culture has to go through an agricultural
phase, particularly if it has the resources to feed itself with what it has
(like horses, along with hunter - gatherer dietary supplements.)  And, if
there are any agriculturalists within range, than the nomads themselves
wouldn't seem to need to go through that phase, because they would always have
something to trade (like horses.)  And that would also include access to trade
on the Black Sea and along the long flowing rivers of the Steppes which could
carry grain, if that is really needed.  By 400 bce, the "nomadic" and "Royal
Scythians" seem to be have ready access to imported grain from the northwest,
with no reason to think that they didn't have an arrangement like this going
for them right from their first entree into "nomadic pastoralism."

Regards,
Steve Long


From petegray at btinternet.com  Sun Feb  7 11:49:16 1999
From: petegray at btinternet.com (Peter &/or Graham)
Date: Sun, 7 Feb 1999 11:49:16 -0000
Subject: wh
Message-ID: <SUN.7.FEB.1999.114916.0000.>

Rick said:

>Gaelic, /f, ph/ was perceived as a local "lenited form"
>where others /wh, w, bh/ and that pronunciation passed over to English,
...

The pattern of /w/ versus /wh/ might argue against this.   In my dialect at
least, /wh/ usually reflects the PIE *kw (what, which etc;  whether;  when,
whither;  wheel;  white).

You might have an argument for your point, in the cases of spelled wh which
are pronounced /w/ in /wh/ dialects, eg wharf, or cases where spelled wh
appears to be cognate with Greek /k/, eg. whirl (~/karpos/).

Peter


From tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de  Sun Feb  7 12:27:04 1999
From: tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de (Theo Vennemann)
Date: Sun, 7 Feb 1999 13:27:04 +0100
Subject: Atlantic substrate of Insular Celtic
Message-ID: <SUN.7.FEB.1999.132704.0100.>

Dennis King <donncha at eskimo.com> wrote on Fri, 29 Jan 1999:

>> Insular Celtic is structurally an Atlantic language (it is structurally
>> more similar to Arabic than to any non-Insular Celtic Indo-European
>> language), whereas Germanic is not.

>I can see, first off, that I really need to get hold of your
>"Etymologische Beziehungen im Alten Europa", which Dr. Hildegard
>Tristram recommended to me once before.

I am ready to help with any papers you find it difficult to obtain.

>In the meantime, would you be willing to summarize for us some
>telling evidence in favor of the Atlantic substrate hypothesis?

I had rather not. The evidence is much too massive and detailed. Be-
sides, there is a camino real: Morris Jones 1900, Pokorny 1927-30,
and Gensler 1993.

>I'd be especially interested in any specific words in Old Irish
>you can trace to such a substrate.

I prefer to leave that to specialists. But I would not expect there to
be many, in contrast with Germanic where the Atlantic languages
were, according to my view of the matter, superstratal and where
there are indeed quite a few.

T.V.
7 February 1999


From roborr at uottawa.ca  Sun Feb  7 12:35:32 1999
From: roborr at uottawa.ca (Robert Orr)
Date: Sun, 7 Feb 1999 07:35:32 -0500
Subject: rates of change
Message-ID: <SUN.7.FEB.1999.073532.0500.>

isn't there an item in Lehmann's Historical Linguistics suggesting that
English and german may have separated in c 400 AD, based on
glottochronological analysis?  That wouldn't be too problematic.

Robert


From petegray at btinternet.com  Sun Feb  7 17:40:16 1999
From: petegray at btinternet.com (Peter &/or Graham)
Date: Sun, 7 Feb 1999 17:40:16 -0000
Subject: St Jerome
Message-ID: <SUN.7.FEB.1999.174016.0000.>

Sheila mentions Jerome's Latin style, and names:
(a) the choice of Greeek text to translate:
>It is a pious work but dangerously presumptive to pick the one right text
>from all the possible texts,

(b) the problems of introducing new translations which are different from
those already in existence:
>cry out that I am a sacrilegious forger because I have dared to add,
>change or correct anything in the old books?

(c) the need for the stress to be on the message, not the beauty of style:
>  A translation for the Church, even if it has beauty of style, ought to
>hide and even shun it,

None of this has anything to do with the actual language.

Peter


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Sun Feb  7 03:39:24 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 21:39:24 -0600
Subject: IE-Semitic connections
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.03.9902061223200.683-100000@rsuno.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <SAT.6.FEB.1999.213924.0600.>

[snip]

>Latin /pt/ was assimilated to */tt/ very early in Iberian Romance, and
>there was no */ps/ stage.  The same thing happened in the ancestors of
>French and of Italian.  I have no data for southern Gallo-Romance, but I
>would be surprised if anything different happened here, since this kind
>of cluster assimilation seems to have been a very widespread feature of
>spoken Latin (Vulgar Latin).

The reason I was thinking about Gallo-Romance is that /pt/ remained. Even
though the /p/ has dropped out of Standard French, I've met people from
/sepcil/ <Sept Iles> Que'bec, so the fact that /pc/ still rears it ugly
little head in Canada means that it's something worth checking into.
Obviously /pt/ survived in France as late as the 1600s --or at least in
Brittany, where the que'bec,ois are said to hail from. I have no idea what
S. Gallo-Romance or Gascon have done with Latin /pt/.

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
MUW
Columbus MS 39701
rmccalli at sunmuw1.muw.edu


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Sun Feb  7 04:22:35 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 22:22:35 -0600
Subject: Caucasian languages and Asia Minor
In-Reply-To: <36B97E83.6C7B3F9D@mail.lrz-muenchen.de>
Message-ID: <SAT.6.FEB.1999.222235.0600.>

	[snip]
>Let me first say this: The claim that Hattic and Hurro-Urartian should
>beclassified as "North Caucasian" first presupposes that we do have something
>like "North Caucasian".

	Thanx for the indepth reply.

	I use N. Caucasian as a geographic term. I don't pretend to know
the answer to that complicated question. When I look at them, they look
something dropped in a mixer. There are parallels and then there aren't. My
uninformed intuition tells me that there's either one NC family [very
distantly related] or that quite a few families got scrambled together. But
I'll let someone else figure that boogar out.

	Re: claims of Hattic/Hurro-Urartian, I'm the messenger. I say N
Cauc. because I've read of claims linked them to different N Cauc languages
from NWC & NEC.

>    But this is only the one side of the problem. Rick says that "N Caucasian
>languages were spoken even farther to the north".

	I've read about IE loanwords in N. Caucasian langs., either in
Gamkrelidze & Ivanov or Bomhard & Kerns [this is off the top of my head, so
apologies if I'm wrong] and I think in When Worlds Collide. Basically, the
claims are that these languages were once spoken farther north. Again, I'm
the messenger. You'll have to shoot them mean ol' guys yourself :>

>    The question of  "a larger territory to the south" occupied by speakers of
>"North Caucasian" has never been substantiated.

	I thought that's what I said --barring the possibility of links to
Hattic & Hurrian, if such links do exist. I think I remember saying that
the only claimed Caucasian links to Greece that I've seen are from
Brown/e's dissertation on pre-Hellenic substrate, which attempts to connect
some etyma with Kartvelian --and I don't know how it is received. My point
was that IF Hattic & Urartian were N Cauc languages, Kartvelian would have
served to split them from any possible congeners

[snip]

>    The less we know about a language the more it is likely that the language
>is subjected to the kind of claims discussed above. This is especially
>true for
>"Pelasgian". I never have seen any serious treatement of Pelasgian (or even
>"pre-Pelasgian") elements by someone who has an explicit knowledge of East or
>West Caucasian.

	I'll volunteer you :>

	btw: I've been reading that Pelasgian is most likely Anatolian or a
language related to Lemnian. What's the word on that?

[snip]

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
MUW
Columbus MS 39701
rmccalli at sunmuw1.muw.edu


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Sun Feb  7 18:47:52 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 7 Feb 1999 13:47:52 EST
Subject: English and Celtic
Message-ID: <SUN.7.FEB.1999.134752.EST.>

>iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu

>Thus it is entirely conceivable that Britons could have an "accent" in (Old)
>English, and yet choose not to carry over any great number of British words,
>essentially because of the status differential.

-- illiterate peasants, in great numbers, managed to acquire all the Old
English vocabulary but didn't bring any loan-words across the language
boundary despite prolonged bilingualism?  Not even for everyday
rural/agricultural/household items?

This wasn't the way things happened anywhere else in the former territories of
the Roman Empire.

In any case, an _accent_ (which adult speakers of another language will find
it difficult to lose) doesn't affect the _grammar_ of a second language, just
the sounds.

(If it weren't for the chronology, I'd be very tempted to assume that Proto-
Germanic was IE spoken with an accent.)

If someone can acquire all the vocabulary, they can acquire the syntax.

Besides which, the grammar of Old English is quite conservatively West
Germanic.


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Sun Feb  7 19:30:03 1999
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 7 Feb 1999 14:30:03 EST
Subject: Modality-Independent Evolution
Message-ID: <SUN.7.FEB.1999.143003.EST.>

I wrote:
<<It would be the equivalent of untold numbers of
random versions of, say, German that were tried
and dropped before getting a version that survived.
(And then immediately starting the process all over again.)>>

In a message dated 2/7/99 9:17:50 AM, proto-language at email.msn.com replied:

<<This is exactly what happens when a child begins to learn
his language. Many sounds are produced which
native speakers do not recognize, and they are corrected.>>

I think this response raises an issue that's very important
to our understanding of what causes change in language.

Earlier in the thread, DLW had said that he was not referring
"not to individual words but to language."

As the note above says, early learning of sound making in a baby
is probably the closest we come to an "evolution" model in language.
(This kind of behavior is called "operant behavior" and
follows the paradigm R>S, instead of the reflexive Stimulus> Response.
As in biological evolution, the random response precedes the stimulus,
and its reoccurence will depend on the external consequences.
B.F. Skinner specifically analogizes this kind of learning to evolution and
natural selection.)

Obviously this process of change (baby first learning to make sounds)
is quite different from the language changes of historical linguistics.
Grimm's Law demonstrates they are not random, but follow rules.
The operant/evolutionary model would yield p>f, p>g, p>x, p>o, p>z, etc.,
in no particular order.  If something were retained, because of some
success in the specific environment, say p>f, then the process should
immediately begin again: f>a, f>b, f>c, etc.  Being random, there should be
no limitation on what sound comes next.

But because we find in IE that *p>p often enough over a long enough time
to know that language structure does not operate this way.

Phonemes are a lot easier to randomly mutate than biological organisms.
Yet, we find sound rules being much more conservative than the history of
biological change.  In the time period that p*>p, there have been
much more than a 100 million new species generated
by random mutation.  Yet, the number of times /p/ has been vocalized
unchanged in that period has been has been huge.  Once again, phonemes
and grammar rules are easier to mutate than organisms,
so why don't they mutate more than organisms.
Evolutionary change is not the main force at work here.

It's also important to distinguish between evolution
as a system of change and the laws of genetics.

To repeat, the number one consequence of biological evolution is diversity.
If evolution had stopped at the first sign of life, we would all still
be pretty much single cell organisms right now.  (No offense to any
single cell organisms on the list.)

The laws of genetics (inheritance of traits) however conserves forms.
It is most basically a source of the continuity we see in short
term biology.  It would have kept us all single cell organisms, reproducing
by mitosis, if it had its way.  (There are mechanisms for change
within the laws of genetics, but they are narrowly limited.  E.g., sexual
reproduction allows hybridization.)

Evolution (which by the way created the laws of genetics) breaks those
laws every time it creates a new species.

The quintiessential phonemenon addressed by the study of IE is not blooming
diversity.  Obviously, this study centers on the extraordinary persistence
of structure over thousands of years.  And even when it studies change,
those changes are observed to follow forms that are decidedly uniform
and persistent.  (E.g., p*>f.)

For someone like myself, growing up in NYC, the vagaries of language
are no surprise.  Heck, there was a different language spoken on every
block.  The basic surprise that started IE and remains its prime focus
is the amazing continuities and conservation of forms in these
languages.

In this sense, the work of the historical linguist is like the
Mendelian geneticist who tracks the genotype through time.
And not at all like the evolutionist who must explain the
implausible existence of the platypus or, better yet, sulphur
metabolizing organisms that live at 500 degree F temperatures
under enormous pressure and who may outnumber
the total population of all organisms on the earth's surface.

One deals with the conservation of forms.  The other with
the lack of that conservation, sometimes in the extreme.

I wrote:
<<That was my point with saying that culture and language are Lamarckian.
There is intentionality that guides them.>>

Proto-language at email.msn.com replied:
<<Sorry, I disagree. There is simple accretion of changes
but no overriding intentionality.>>

I don't know what you mean by "overriding".  But otherwise this
statement is so demonstrably wrong I don't even know how to address it.

<<but at any given moment in time, the object of evolution is
to ensure reproduction and continuance of the organism.>>

If you mean this in some religious sense, I respect it.
In a scientific sense, it makes no sense.  Evolution insures nothing.

<<I think a very strong argument could be made for
the uselessness of all organisms.>>

I feel that way some days, too.  But we do get over it.

Best regards,
Steve Long


From gordonselway at gn.apc.org  Sun Feb  7 20:41:37 1999
From: gordonselway at gn.apc.org (Gordon Selway)
Date: Sun, 7 Feb 1999 20:41:37 +0000
Subject: Celtic influence in English
Message-ID: <SUN.7.FEB.1999.204137.0000.>

Hello,

The historical and archaeological evidence (and some from comparing ancient
DNA with that of current inhabitants) suggests that there may have been no
population displacement in the area I live in (the lower Severn valley),
but only repeated accretions, perhaps since the last retreat of the
glaciers.

It is clear that, once the region had come within 'English' control (577
CE, after the Wessex victory at the battle of Deorham), it did not change
from Welsh to English speaking for as long as 300-400 years (and in
isolated pockets not for 1,250 years or so), and that there was a period of
both languages being spoken.

Rather more interestingly, a generation after the region had nominally
become English, there were still Celtic bishops about, who seem to have
joined with their colleagues in rejecting, at a spot within the area, the
proposal of Augustine or his emissary that they join him in converting the
'English'.  And of course there is the probability that the Wessex royal
house was a blend of the native Briton and the foreigner, and that their
followers were probably a mixture of 'Teuton' and 'Celt'.

A yet more peculiar twist comes from a retired local chiropodist (who was
used to identify the origins of a skeleton from the 5th or 6th century
uncovering during the preparations for a new garage in Winterbourne Gunner,
Wilts).  It seems that the feet of the Celts and the Teutons had different
characteristics, and that the feet of the remains were typical of the
Celts.  And this corresponded with what she had found from examining feet
in her professional life.  Those of us from families long established here
(such as mine) tended to have 'Celtic' feet, while newcomers were more
likely to have 'Teutonic' feet.  [! or some other mark of mild scepticism:
except that as the other half of me comes from around the North Channel, it
would not be surprising if I showed 'native' traits anyhow].

And there are at least one or two specific borrowings from British/Welsh in
Worcestershire/Herefordshire/Gloucestershire English, at least as described
in the 19th century.  'Brock' is one (and in the OED); 'metheglin' is
another (which may not be in the OED).

wbw

Gordon Selway
<gordonselway at gn.apc.org>

At 9:33 pm 4/2/1999, iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu wrote:

[ moderator snip ]

>The processes of grammatical and lexical influences occur by
>different mechanisms and do not necessarily co-occur.  The well-known case
>that Emenou discovered(?) in India is a good example:  very high
>grammatical influence, very low lexical influence.  Borrowing of words is
>volitional, dependent on probable reception and other considerations,
>whereas foreign accents are not, being created by very real limitations in
>language-acquisistion ability after a point.  Thus it is entirely
>conceivable that Britons could have an "accent" in (Old) English,
>and yet choose not to carry over any great number of British words,
>essentially because of the status differential.


From manaster at umich.edu  Sun Feb  7 20:48:13 1999
From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu)
Date: Sun, 7 Feb 1999 15:48:13 -0500
Subject: Greek question & the pre-history of *nekwt
In-Reply-To: <19990204200036.4998.qmail@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <SUN.7.FEB.1999.154813.0500.>

On Thu, 4 Feb 1999, Glen Gordon wrote:

[snip]

> Without getting too entangled in a flimsy Nostratic explanation that
> ignores all IE laws as Patrick has done, *nekwt is similar to words in
> Uralic (Finnish nukkua) that mean "to sleep". Hence, "sleep time" ->
> "night". I recall there might be similar words in Altaic? However, no
> proposals of *gh need apply in its etymology nor imaginative comparisons
> to Egyptian of all things. This still begs the question of why there is
> -kh- in Greek and, that part, I dunno.

But Nostratic evidence could resolve the question of which
velar to posit in IE.  It isnot just IE laws that need to be
followed but also the Nostratic ones.


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Sun Feb  7 21:00:17 1999
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (Patrick C. Ryan)
Date: Sun, 7 Feb 1999 15:00:17 -0600
Subject: Greek question
Message-ID: <SUN.7.FEB.1999.150017.0600.>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

Dear Peter and IEists:

-----Original Message-----
From: Peter &/or Graham <petegray at btinternet.com>
Date: Sunday, February 07, 1999 11:54 AM

>Pat said:
>*negh-.
>. Sturtevant did mention the
>>Greek forms with /kh/, <*gh.

>That leaves three questions unanswered:
>(a) Was Sturtevant prioritising the Greek evidence over the Sanskrit?

In my opinion, no. I do not think, and I think he did not think that the
Sanskrit and Greek evidence conflicted with regard to the final element <gh>
of the earliest, non-compounded root(s): *negh- / *neugh-.

>Or was he suggesting two forms (*nokt- and *negh)?

My reading of Sturtevant is that he was clearly supposing a root of *negh-
for Hittite nekuz but, upon consideration, he may have been supporting
*negw-, viz. *negh-w-.

>Neither is satisfactory.

I agree that *nokt- is not satisfactory.  But, on the basis of *neuk-,
'dark', I believe it likeliest that there were two basically equivalent
roots: *negh- and *neugh-.

However, it also would not greatly trouble me if we reconstructed *negh-
with an optional -w- extension, *negh-w-, which, in the cases of Greek and
the root *neuk-, was metathesized into the root. However, on the basis of
Egyptian nHzj, 'Nubian', which I believe can be analyzed as nH, 'black' +
zj, 'man', I reject a reconstruction of *negw- or *negwh-  since these would
have to correlate with Egyptian nS (hook-s) or nX (bar-h).

[ Moderator's interjection:
  There is a problem of ASCII transcription here:  The <w> which has been
  written in this form by a number of people should be understood as a super-
  script.  The stem in question contains a labiovelar, and there is no question
  of "an optional extension".

  Cowgill's Law:  In Greek, *o > u in the environment of a labiovelar.  Compare
  for example _kuklos_.
  --rma ]

>(b) How do we explain the Greek vocalism if the PIE form is *negh?   At
>least *negwh would give us a mechanism for the /y/ vowel (< /u/)

See above.

What is a "/y/" vowel? Do you mean the Greek /u/?

[ Moderator's comment:
  Yes.  The IPA transcription, including ASCII IPA, for a high front rounded
  vowel is <y>.  Greek /u/ > /y/ in historical times.
  --rma ]

>(c) Can we reconcile the Skt -kt-, which argues against the voiced aspirate,
>with the Gk -kh -, which implies it?

In my opinion, yes. I believe that Sanskrit <k> can represent either IE <*k>
or <*kh>.

[ Moderator's opinion:
  There is very little good evidence for voiceless aspirates in Indo-European.
  --rma ]

>The suggestion that **negh-t- > *nekt- before Barthomolae's law is up and
>running in I-I crashes into the problem that the past participle forms in -tos
>appear widely in attested IE, and so must also be fairly old forms.

The Egyptian evidence (*nH) suggests to me that the Nostratic form did not
include the -t- (or the -w-).

>We would have to argue that the past participles were still perceived as
>root + -tos, at a time when *nekt- was no longer perceived as *negh+t-.

Not sure I follow this.

Pat

[ Moderator's comment:
  In Sanskrit, past participles of roots ending in voiced aspirates are the
  very best evidence for Bartholomae's Law:  budh+ta- -> buddha-.  But if the
  voiced aspirates live that long in the history of Indic, a form **negh^wt-
  should give *nagdh-, not the attested nakt-.  The alternative is to assume
  that past participles are still a live formation, which assumption is not
  borne by the evidence of re-formulated past participles whose relation to
  their roots has been obscured by phonological developments.
  --rma ]


From petegray at btinternet.com  Wed Feb 24 09:22:19 1999
From: petegray at btinternet.com (Peter &/or Graham)
Date: Wed, 24 Feb 1999 01:22:19 -0800
Subject: Greek question
Message-ID: <WED.24.FEB.1999.012219.0800.PETEGRAY@BTINTERNET.COM>

Pat said:
*negh-.
. Sturtevant did mention the
>Greek forms with /kh/, <*gh.

That leaves three questions unanswered:
(a) Was Sturtevant prioritising the Greek evidence over the Sanskrit?   Or
was he suggesting two forms (*nokt- and *negh)?   Neither is satisfactory.

(b) How do we explain the Greek vocalism if the PIE form is *negh?   At
least *negwh would give us a mechanism for the /y/ vowel (< /u/)

(c) Can we reconcile the Skt -kt-, which argues against the voiced aspirate,
with the Gk -kh -, which implies it?   The suggestion that **negh-t- >
*nekt- before Barthomolae's law is up and running in I-I crashes into the
problem that the past participle forms in -tos appear widely in attested IE,
and so must also be fairly old forms.   We would have to argue that the past
participles were still perceived as root + -tos, at a time when *nekt- was
no longer perceived as *negh+t-.

Peter


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Sun Feb  7 21:56:46 1999
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (Patrick C. Ryan)
Date: Sun, 7 Feb 1999 15:56:46 -0600
Subject: Greek question
Message-ID: <SUN.7.FEB.1999.155646.0600.>

Dear Alexis and IEists:

-----Original Message-----
From: manaster at umich.edu <manaster at umich.edu>
Date: Saturday, February 06, 1999 8:10 PM

>I am pleased and impressed.  I did not think that Mr.
>Ryan and I would ever agree on anything, but although
>I dont see as yet how we can invoke *newgh- because
>the *ew does not agree with the vocalism of *nokwt-/*nekwt-
>(the -u- in Greek is a late development explained
>by a law stated by Cowgill if memory serves, so
>we cannot posit a proto-form with *u/w),

Since I believe, as I have exlpained, that the possibility of a relationship
with *neuk- exists, I can entertain the idea that two roots <*negh- and
*neugh-> may have existed side by side.

But, as I have explained in another posting, I am now leaning towards *negh-
with an optional (based on the Egyptian evidence; or periodically
suppressed) -w- extension.

Thank you for your kind remarks. I, too, am pleased that occasionally we may
have a point or two in common.

>I myself just yesterday proposed precisely that we could
>have *neghw-/*noghw- plus -t- and I anticipated our
>moderator's objection by pointing out that there it
>is NOT clear that Bartholomae's Law was in effect
>in early PIE (or Pre-PIE).

Well, we have further agreement.

>But much needs to be done
>before we can glibly assert any of this, both with
>regard to BL and with regard to the IE vocalism
>and the original meaning of *nokwt-/*nekwt- and
>of course to any extra-IE connections.

>From nHzj and **neuk(h)- (remodeled from *negh-w- + -s, which, in my
opinion, is a formant indicating a state), I believe we can suggest
reasonably that the base meaning is 'dark, black'; the -to- would then
produce 'darkened, blackened'.

<snip>

Although I am not going to belabor the point here, I believe the term
originated as an ethnic designation: NA-K[?]XA, 'no-hair', applied to native
Africans, and was transferred to the generalized meaning 'black',
supplanting the original term for 'dark/black' (K[H]E).

Pat


From glengordon01 at hotmail.com  Sun Feb  7 22:32:44 1999
From: glengordon01 at hotmail.com (Glen Gordon)
Date: Sun, 7 Feb 1999 14:32:44 PST
Subject: Ix-nay on the ostratic-nay
Message-ID: <SUN.7.FEB.1999.143244.PST.>

On the subject of IE 1p singular and the "N-word",

>From what I know of Bomhard, he has various reconstructions of the
Nostratic 1rst person plural, Nostratic being the proposed mother of IE
and various other languages in Europe and Asia, for those unaware. I
recall 5 reconstructions for the pronoun: *wa, *?iya, *?a, *na, *ma. Now
looking at that, one has to wonder how many pronouns there are suppose
to be. And this is just Bomhard. Taken in concert with Greenberg's *-Ha
1p and others who reconstruct the 1rst person Nostratic pronoun with
*m-, there is a distinct pattern involved here.

The reconstructions revolve around two pronouns only: *nu/*mu and
*?u/*hu. Both pronouns are attested in IE as 1ps secondary *-m (as well
as enclitic *me) and 1ps perfect *-H3e (*H3 = /hw/). Bomhard has already
put forth the overall idea. They are also attested in Uralic
subject/object conjugation, leaving me to conclude that a Steppe
proto-language had suffixed the two pronouns into a verbal conjugation
but prefered one over the other as an independant form except for a
possible alternation between *mi and *wi for 1pp (?) that would have
derived from this two-form pronoun.

Bomhard mentions an IE *e- 1rst person pronoun that I don't recall
actually attested. We should expect IE **u: instead as we find *tu: for
2ps. Unless it, for some strange reason, only survived as an enclitic
conveniently undistinguishable from a demonstrative, it's
unconsiderable.

I have assimilated Alemko's idea because it is superior to my IE-Semitic
connection of the pronoun. Thus *e- would be nothing more than a
demonstrative as is attested and untheoretical.

I'm not against the "N-word" but it can't be applied to every situation
without exception. One must look for better solutions, whether it
involve Nostratic or not. In this particular case, I question it.

--------------------------------------------
Glen Gordon
glengordon01 at hotmail.com

Adjoe!
--------------------------------------------


From manaster at umich.edu  Mon Feb  8 00:41:19 1999
From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu)
Date: Sun, 7 Feb 1999 19:41:19 -0500
Subject: Avestan & Vedic religion [was (no subject)]
In-Reply-To: <bcd56052.36baa3fc@aol.com>
Message-ID: <SUN.7.FEB.1999.194119.0500.>

Well, yes, on this particular subject, as evidenced by
Sanskrit aghnya: = Avestan ag at niia:.

On Fri, 5 Feb 1999 JoatSimeon at aol.com wrote:

> >AMR

> >Isn't it the case that through language we can also tell for example that
> >their common ancestors did not believe in killing cows (which are called
> >literally 'not-to-be-killed ones' in both lgs)? And so forth?

> -- well, no, on that  particular subject.  It's clear from both linguistics
> and archaeology that the earliest IA-speakers were beef-eaters. (I once heard
> a Hindu fundamentalist explain that those verses were put in by demons...8-).

[ moderator snip ]


From manaster at umich.edu  Mon Feb  8 02:20:35 1999
From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu)
Date: Sun, 7 Feb 1999 21:20:35 -0500
Subject: rate of change
In-Reply-To: <l03130309b2df7ac15014@[207.120.3.57]>
Message-ID: <SUN.7.FEB.1999.212035.0500.>

On Thu, 4 Feb 1999, Rick Mc Callister wrote:

> 	In the case of Romance languages, Latin was the joker, in that they
> were always borrowing and reborrowing from Latin. This happenend to the
> exent that Mediterranean Romance languages superficially resemble one
> another to a great degree than Germanic languages resemble each other
> superficially. And Germanic separated at a later date.

But such borrowing may not be very evident in the 100-word list.

[snip]

> 	Swadesh, I believe, shows Castillian and Portuguese as "splitting"
> c. 1500. In reality, you can tell they are separate languages from the
> earliest texts from around the early 1st millenium [earlier for some
> Spanish & Ibero-Romance dialects/languages]. Spanish & Portuguese are still
> cross-pollenating to the extent that many South Brazilians speak a
> Portuguese that sounds like Spanish with a Brazilian accent and few lexical
> and grammatical differences thrown in.

I dont know where specifically this is discussed, but I think you miss
the point that before a certain date Castillian and Portuguese
while certainly distinct where no more distinct than many pairs of
forms of speech (for lack of a better term) which we usually consider
to be dialects.  The 100-word list for the English of say Larry
Trask (a native of the US) and the English of Colin Renfrew (a native
of the UK) are identical (I dont use myself 'cause I am not
a native speaker), presumably, yet there are several hundred
years separating these forms of English.  The Swadesh method is
not meant to handle this kind of separation obviously.

>[snip]

Back to the drawing board.


From mcv at wxs.nl  Mon Feb  8 02:33:35 1999
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Mon, 8 Feb 1999 02:33:35 GMT
Subject: NSemitic borrowings: in response to Greg Web
In-Reply-To: <14264304508148@m-w.com>
Message-ID: <MON.8.FEB.1999.023335.GMT.>

"Jim Rader" <jrader at m-w.com> wrote:

>The Middle Welsh form is <seith>.  The development of  Mod. Welsh
><saith> from British Celtic <*sext-> is completely regular except for the
>preservation of initial <s>.

Any theories on why it was preserved here?  Are there other
examples of preservation?

>The Gaulish ordinal for "seven" is
><sextametos>, if I remember correctly, and for "six" <suexos>.

Thanks.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Mon Feb  8 02:39:31 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 7 Feb 1999 21:39:31 EST
Subject: Chariots
Message-ID: <SUN.7.FEB.1999.213931.EST.>

>Moderator's reply:

>The Romans of the first centuries of the common era also used chariots in
>festivals, but I doubt that either group understood how they would be used
>in warfare.

-- the Romans had plenty of first-hand experience of how chariots were used in
warfare, from fighting the Celts.

Caesar and the first-century chroniclers of the conquest of Britain note that
chariots could be driven at full gallop up, down and across steep hills and
rocky, broken ground, often crossing fairly deep declivities.

Also that the warrior could run out on the chariot-pole between the horses at
a full gallop, or run beside the chariot at full tilt with a hand on the rail
and then vault back in.

They and their operators were more versatile than you might think.


From iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu  Mon Feb  8 03:08:50 1999
From: iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu)
Date: Sun, 7 Feb 1999 21:08:50 -0600
Subject: Celtic influence in English
In-Reply-To: <v01540b08b2e39234cea2@[194.69.97.95]>
Message-ID: <SUN.7.FEB.1999.210850.0600.>

On Sun, 7 Feb 1999, Gordon Selway wrote:

> The historical and archaeological evidence (and some from comparing ancient
> DNA with that of current inhabitants) suggests that there may have been no
> population displacement in the area I live in (the lower Severn valley),
> but only repeated accretions, perhaps since the last retreat of the
> glaciers.

> It is clear that, once the region had come within 'English' control (577
> CE, after the Wessex victory at the battle of Deorham), it did not change
> from Welsh to English speaking for as long as 300-400 years (and in
> isolated pockets not for 1,250 years or so), and that there was a period of
> both languages being spoken.

	Yes ... and the extensive use of verbal periphrasis which is
characteristic of both Brittonic and English first shows up (in English)
in SWestern Middle English, and seems to be accepted as nothing notably
horrific further east in (a good part of) the Midlands.  What a
coincidence!  Apparently immigration carries these features to London,
more or less as immigration from the Danelaw (notably East Anglia) did the
same for Norse features.
	
					DLW

P.S.  What I have to say here is likely to come out in little driblets
like this, as in between my original e-missive and the predictable howls
of outrage it suddenly occurred to me that I have a dissertation to finish
(what a concept), and that I should no longer live my life on the IE list.


From Odegard at means.net  Mon Feb  8 02:03:39 1999
From: Odegard at means.net (Mark Odegard <Odegard@means.net>)
Date: Mon, 8 Feb 1999 01:57:39 -6
Subject: Salmon.
Message-ID: <MON.8.FEB.1999.015739.6.>

Mallory (In Search of the IEs) has, on p. 160 of my paperback
edition, a map that shows the distribution of salmon as a line. This
line runs from the mouth of the Garonne in France north, to include
Britain and Ireland, and east to the include all of Scandinavia and
the lands touched by the Baltic, and thence into Russia.

Now. I think we all know how fabulously *rich* salmon runs are. If a
people do not overexploit it, or ruin it with pollution, the catch
from spawning salmon will keep you nicely fed for the rest of the
year so long as you have the appropriate drying, smoking or salting
techniques at hand. It makes for a relatively *easy* life (consider the
Pacific NW tribes in the US).

Now. If I remember my recent reading right, the culture that
occupied the fringe of Northern Germany, Jutland and S. Scandinavia
was very very slow to adopt new technology. This is also the area
reputed to be the homeland of proto-Germanic. Could it be they were
so well fed on Atlantic salmon (yumm!) that they didn't really need
to innovate? The point here is that a well-fed society has no need to
be open to outside influences; this is not to say they are not open,
just that the normal human tendency towards laziness can be allowed
full rein.

The salmon runs of Northern Europe suggest an item of trade. Is a
load of preserved salmon in a small boat worth the long round trip up
north from someone living well to the south?

As I write this, another observation about Germanic comes to mind. If
I remember right, Scandinavia has *never* *EVER* been subjected to
conquest by anyone except by other Scandinavians. Does Scandinavia
count as an island, or a mountain fastness a la the Caucusus or
Pyrenees (Basque) as a refuge of linguistic conservativism/innovation?
--
Mark Odegard   mailto:odegard at means.net


From mcv at wxs.nl  Mon Feb  8 08:40:10 1999
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Mon, 8 Feb 1999 08:40:10 GMT
Subject: IE in Balkans and Semitic?
In-Reply-To: <l03130300b2e10d16bbfa@[207.120.3.57]>
Message-ID: <MON.8.FEB.1999.084010.GMT.>

Rick Mc Callister <rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu> wrote:

>Correct me if I'm wrong but my understanding is that cattle were already
>domesticated in the Middle Wast BEFORE IE developed and that the
>domestication of cattle was reason of the Berber occupation of the whole of
>North Africa c. 8K BCE or so.

Champion et al. "Prehistoric Europe", p. 120: "cattle for example
seem to have been domesticated (at least on morphological
criteria) earlier in Greece (Protsch and Berger ["Earliest
radiocarbon dates for domesticated animals", Science 179], 1973;
Evans ["Neolithic Knossos: the growth of a settlement", Proc. of
the Prehistoric Soc. 37], 1971) than in the Near East []"

The Times Historical Atlas also lists cattle as European
domesticates (along with goose, pig, grapes, olive, oats and
rye).  Near Eastern domesticates listed are: ass, dromedary
(Arabian camel), goat, sheep, braley, wheat, onion, peas, lentil,
dates.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam


From mcv at wxs.nl  Mon Feb  8 08:52:37 1999
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Mon, 8 Feb 1999 08:52:37 GMT
Subject: gender
In-Reply-To: <002701be5150$e992d420$65d3fed0@patrickcryan>
Message-ID: <MON.8.FEB.1999.085237.GMT.>

"Patrick C. Ryan" <proto-language at email.msn.com> wrote:

>I think the answer is very simply that classifiers and gender are simple
>vocabulary building processes.

>Without IE -*H(1)a, a completely new word for 'queen' would have had to have
>been invented in Latin.

>Pat

>[Moderator's query:
> Do you mean the a-coloring laryngeal, or the e/non-coloring laryngeal, above?
> --rma ]

I guess -(e)H2 was meant.  The Latin word for "queen", regina not
*rega, is actually good evidence for the fact that gender has
nothing to do with vocabulary buiding.  The "vocabulary building"
part is -in- (reg- > regin-).  The gender marker -a is
superfluous.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam


From sw271 at cus.cam.ac.uk  Mon Feb  8 09:30:20 1999
From: sw271 at cus.cam.ac.uk (Sheila Watts)
Date: Mon, 8 Feb 1999 09:30:20 +0000
Subject: Jerome
Message-ID: <MON.8.FEB.1999.093020.0000.>

Peter/ Graham say, re my posting about Jerome:

>>(c) the need for the stress to be on the message, not the beauty of style:
>>  A translation for the Church, even if it has beauty of style, ought to
>>hide and even shun it,

> None of this has anything to do with the actual language.

Certainly it does, though I'll concede that points (a) and (b) are
peripheral. The accusation was that Jerome wrote 'bad Latin'. And I was
trying to agree that Jerome's Latin fell short of his own classical models
and that he was aware of this, but thought that it was a regrettable but
necessary concomitant of producing a translation for the church where
conveying the message was more important than being stylish.

Sheila Watts
_______________________________________________________
Dr Sheila Watts
Newnham College
Cambridge CB3 9DF
United Kingdom

phone +44 1223 335816


From ERobert52 at aol.com  Mon Feb  8 09:34:06 1999
From: ERobert52 at aol.com (ERobert52 at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 8 Feb 1999 04:34:06 EST
Subject: IE and Etruscan
Message-ID: <MON.8.FEB.1999.043406.EST.>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

JoatSimeon at AOL.COM writes:

> -- it's not the origins of the Etruscans, but the genetic relationships of
> their language.  Last time I looked, there was general agreement among
> linguists that Etruscan is non-Indo-European.  Hell, we can't even read it!

Oh, but we can! There is general agreement on the values of the letters and a
large proportion of the inscriptions can be translated without much difficulty.
The trouble is most of them are run of the mill funerary or votive
inscriptions, so it's not an ideal corpus to work with. We don't have a
complete idea of the grammar and there are a lot of hapax legomena.

No sensible person thinks Etruscan is IE, and most people who say it is are
pretty wacky, like the guy who thinks the Piacenza liver is a Latvian (!)
astronomical calendar. Not that this rules out any more remote relationship, of
course.

The point I was making was that the belief that Etruscan was spoken somewhere
around Greece or western Anatolia prior to 1200BC is not an unreasonable one.
If I remember rightly the original theme of this thread was not about genetic
links but whether Etruscan borrowing from Semitic was possible, and the answer
to that is clearly yes.

Ed. Robertson


From W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de  Mon Feb  8 11:30:18 1999
From: W.Schulze at lrz.uni-muenchen.de (Wolfgang Schulze)
Date: Mon, 8 Feb 1999 12:30:18 +0100
Subject: IE, Genetic Data, Languages of Anatolia
Message-ID: <MON.8.FEB.1999.123018.0100.>

Miguel Carrasquer Vidal schrieb:

> I tend think of North Caucasian (NEC/NWC) as the
> primary candidate for the original language of the steppe lands.
> The Northern Caucasus is a "residual zone", in Johanna Nichols'
> terminology.  It contains the linguistic residue of the peoples
> that were once dominant in the neighbouring "spread zone" (the
> steppe).

Do you have any LINGUISTIC proof or at least some indications that would
justify such an assumption? According to my knowledge neither West nor East
Caucasian languages had ever been spoken in "the steppe". I would be eager to
learn about your findings such as place names and other toponyms (I do not
refer to so-called "North Caucaisan" loans into PIE because non of them has
ever been substantiated). By the way: Wouldn't you assume that
"Proto-North(!)-Cauacsian" speakers living in the steppe had developed an
autochthonous term for the "horse" (which is not the case! The horse-word is
a loan word in all EC (though, sometimes the source language remains opaque)?

> At the outer layer we have Russian, then Mongol
> (Kalmyk) and Turkic (Nogai, Karachai, Balkar etc.), then Iranian
> (Ossetian), and the inner layer is formed by NWC and NEC.  This
> suggests that before IE, the steppe was peopled by North
> Caucasians.  And if there's indeed a genetic link between North
> Caucasian, Yeniseian and Sino-Tibetan (the Sino-Caucasian
> hypothesis), that's indeed what we would expect.

IF (I say IF) the Caucasus once reprensetd something like a residual zone:
Why do you propose a scenario of immigration from the North? Couldn't it as
well be that Proto East Caucasian speakers (I don't talk about "North
Caucasian", see my last email) have penetrated the region from the South (via
what now is Derbent and Eastern Georgia)? Is it just to support (horribile
dictu) Sino-Caucasian? No serious specialist of either Sino-Tibetian or
East/West Caucasian would ever defend such a hypothesis.... Quoting L.
Bloomfield we may say: Sino-Caucasian belongs into the museum of superstition
(and not onyl Sino-Tibetian)...
_____________________________________________________
| Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schulze
| Institut fuer Allgemeine und Indogermanische Sprachwissenschaft
| Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet Muenchen
| Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1
| D-80539 Muenchen
| Tel: +89-21802486 (secr.)
|       +89-21802485 (office)
| Email: W.Schulze at mail.lrz-muenchen.de
| http://www.lrz-muenchen.de/~wschulze/
_____________________________________________________


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Mon Feb  8 15:15:05 1999
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (Patrick C. Ryan)
Date: Mon, 8 Feb 1999 09:15:05 -0600
Subject: gender
Message-ID: <MON.8.FEB.1999.091505.0600.>

Dear Rich and IEists:

 -----Original Message-----
From: Patrick C. Ryan <proto-language at email.msn.com>
Date: Monday, February 08, 1999 12:58 AM

[ moderator snip ]

>Without IE -*H(1)a, a completely new word for 'queen' would have had to have
>been invented in Latin.

>[ Moderator's query:
>  Do you mean the a-coloring laryngeal, or the e/non-coloring laryngeal,
>  above?
>  --rma ]

Sorry for being a little misleading with the subscript. In your terms, it
would be H(2), the a-coloring "laryngeal".

But, I believe that all "laryngeals" were coloring-equal; and that the vowel
that is seen is a result of a retention of an earlier vowel quality through
length.

That is, I believe IE feminine -a: derived from -/ha/ while collective -a:
derived from -/?a/.

The augment, IE e-, derives from /?e/-; same "laryngeal" as the last example
but different vowel-quality/

I believe there were only four laryngeals, /?,h,$,H/, which affected vowel
quality neutrally.

The arguments to support this thesis are the correspondences with laryngals
and pharyngals we see in AA for the identification of the IE "laryngeal" but
one must go beyond Nostratic to determine the actual vowel quality.

I know these matters are beyond the scope of this list, and I will not
elaborate them here. They are explained in my essays on AFRASIAN at the
wbsite.

Pat

[ Moderator's response:
  In other words, you reject the laryngeal theory completely, substituting in
  its place a set of vowels which still exhibit the odd behaviours which led
  Saussure to post a lost set of consonants in the first place--with _ad hoc_
  segments which you call laryngeals but which are otherwise no better than
  Hirt's various reduced vowels, his answer to Saussure.  Sorry, the laryngeal
  theory as it has developed in mainstream Indo-European linguistics explains
  far too much to be thrown out like this.
  --rma ]


From manaster at umich.edu  Mon Feb  8 20:14:50 1999
From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu)
Date: Mon, 8 Feb 1999 15:14:50 -0500
Subject: STATISTICS IN LINGUISTICS
In-Reply-To: <36BB9DF2.C@stratos.net>
Message-ID: <MON.8.FEB.1999.151450.0500.>

Brian is exactly right on both points.  Re the second
one, there is a common fallacy here which I think
has been addressed in some of my joint work with
Baxter and Hitchcock, namely, people think that the
"expected" value is somehow guaranteed to be th
one you find, e.g., that if you toss a coin100 times
it will be precisely 50 heads and 50 tails, whereas
in fact it is quite likely that it will NOT be, and
it possible though not very likely that it could
be 0:100.  Much of the stuff that people publish
on probability in comp. lx. suffers from this fallacy.

On Fri, 5 Feb 1999, Brian M. Scott wrote:

> Patrick C. Ryan wrote:

> > What I find amazing is that you would think a "100% CORREKATION" does not
> > establish a cause and effect relationship.

> It obviously doesn't.  Imagine a large, square room whose sides are
> oriented east-west and north-south.  The floor of the room is blue in
> the northern half and red in the southern half.  The ceiling is blue in
> the eastern half and red in the western half.  A track runs through this
> room between the SW and NE corners.  Mounted on the track is an opaque
> cubical with a window in the ceiling and another in the floor.  You are
> riding in this cubical, which moves slowly but erratically back and
> forth along the track.  From time to time a buzzer sounds, the window in
> the floor opens momentarily, and, as it closes, the window in the
> ceiling opens.  You find that every time you see a blue (resp. red)
> floor, you also see a blue (resp. red) ceiling a moment later.  The
> correlation is perfect, but there is clearly no cause-and-effect
> relationship between the floor color and the ceiling color.

> > I can see why you prefer not to deal with mathematical models. If you have
> > 100 trials, and the same cause has the same effect, the probability of the
> > cause creating the same effect again is 100%. Not 99%. Not 98%. Infinity is
> > not a factor in this equation.

> No.  I flip a fair coin (the 'cause') 100 times and get tails (the
> 'effect') 100 times -- unlikely, but certainly possible.  The
> probability that I get tails on the 101-st toss is still 1/2, not 1.

> Brian M. Scott
> Dept. of Mathematics
> Cleveland State Univ.


From donncha at eskimo.com  Mon Feb  8 22:01:16 1999
From: donncha at eskimo.com (Dennis King)
Date: Mon, 8 Feb 1999 14:01:16 -0800
Subject: Non-IE words in Early Celtic
In-Reply-To: <l03130301b2d52bf86c52@[207.120.0.99]>
Message-ID: <MON.8.FEB.1999.140116.0800.>

I can't match Rick Mc Callister's list of non-Indo-European words in
Germanic, but here are a few items that Kim McCone has drawn attention
to in Celtic, with his reconstructions of their earlier forms.

Words found only in Insular Celtic:

*ma^ni^  >  Irish "mo/in" (peat; bogland)
            Welsh "mawn" (peat)

*me^no-  >  Irish "mi/an" (desire; object of desire)
            Welsh "mwyn" (gentle, dear; delightful)

*banwa^  >  Irish "banb" (young pig)
            Welsh "banw" (young pig)

A word found in Common Celtic:

*makwo-  >  Gaulish "Maponos"
            Irish "mac" (son)
            Welsh "mab" (son)

A word found in Western European only:

*wa^t-  >  Latin "vatis" (seer)
           Irish "fa/ith" (seer)
           Welsh "gwawd" (song, poetry)
           Irish "fa/th" (maxim)
           AnSax "wo^d" (frenzy)
           AnSax "wo^th" (poem)

Dennis King


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Mon Feb  8 22:51:33 1999
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (Patrick C. Ryan)
Date: Mon, 8 Feb 1999 16:51:33 -0600
Subject: Greek question & the pre-history of *nekwt
Message-ID: <MON.8.FEB.1999.165133.0600.>

Dear Glen and IEists:
 -----Original Message-----
From: Glen Gordon <glengordon01 at hotmail.com>
To: indo-european at xkl.com <indo-european at xkl.com>
Date: Monday, February 08, 1999 1:32 PM
Subject: Greek question & the pre-history of *nekwt


>PATRICK:
>>I believe the base of <nu:kto/s> is IE *neugh-,

>You make it sound like a religion. Who else believes in the Church of
>*neugh? :)

I do not know what religion has to do with this question from my standpoint.

In any case, I have subsequently revised my reconstruction to *negh-w-.

>My suspicion rather is that the word is indeed old but of the form
>*nekwt (which is not so contraversial at all) from an earlier verb
>**nekw- "to sleep".

This flies in the face of the Greek forms, which appear to be related,
beginning nukh-, since IE <kw> does not normally produce Greek <kh>.

Also, if Sturtevant is correct in assuming that voiceless stops are
indicated in Hittite by doubled spellings, then Hittite nek(uz) can only
represent IE *neg-, *negh-, or *negw-.

>We have Hittite nekuz, not to mention English
>"night", which show that there was no *-u- in the word.

This is neatly explained by *negh-w-, the *-w- of which apparently in
carried over into the first syllable in some cases in Greek (perhaps
through -*gw-). In any case, you have to be able to explain the -u- of the
Greek.

[ Moderator's comment:
  But the stem in question has a labiovelar, not a palatal+labial cluster.  And
  Cowgill's Law explains the development of *o > u quite nicely.
  --rma ]

>As far as I
>understand, Greek -y-

There is no Greek <y> except in anglicized spelling of Greek words.

[ Moderator's comment:
  I do not believe that Mr. Gordon was referring to orthography but to the
  phonetic value of the letter in question in later Attic.  It is more than
  spelling.
  --rma ]

>was the result of the following labiovelar
>affecting the previous vowel (anticipatory labialisation as in Latin).

This explanation takes that into consideration.

>Without getting too entangled in a flimsy Nostratic explanation that
>ignores all IE laws as Patrick has done,

If you are trying to be offensive, you have succeeded.

>*nekwt is similar to words in
>Uralic (Finnish nukkua) that mean "to sleep". Hence, "sleep time" ->
>"night".

How pathetically naif! Finnish nukkua is generally recognized to be a
loanword into Finnish from Germanic so no Uralic form can be reconstructed.

>I recall there might be similar words in Altaic? However, no
>proposals of *gh need apply in its etymology nor imaginative comparisons
>to Egyptian of all things. This still begs the question of why there is
>-kh- in Greek and, that part, I dunno.

It is now obvious why you did not also notice the -u- of the Greek form.

Pat


From roborr at uottawa.ca  Tue Feb  9 03:39:52 1999
From: roborr at uottawa.ca (Robert Orr)
Date: Mon, 8 Feb 1999 22:39:52 -0500
Subject: No subject
Message-ID: <MON.8.FEB.1999.223952.0500.>

It's by no means clear that Slavic does have the *-om; the final -u (I can't
do diacrtics in this programme, I mean *u + micron, or a back jer) in jazu
can easily have alternative derivations, see Hamp's article in IJSLP 1983,
and my article in Canadian Slavonic Papers 1988.  I'm actually dealing with
that issue in slightly more detail in my forthcoming book Common Slavic
Nominal Morphology - A New Approach.


From mcv at wxs.nl  Tue Feb  9 06:30:57 1999
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Tue, 9 Feb 1999 06:30:57 GMT
Subject: Anatolians
In-Reply-To: <db608179.36bbd493@aol.com>
Message-ID: <TUE.9.FEB.1999.063057.GMT.>

JoatSimeon at aol.com wrote:

>>mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)

>>Likewise comparing the linguistic, archaeological and genetic
>>maps of Europe shows a large amount of overlap between
>>Indo-European, the initial agricultural expansion from Anatolia
>>to Holland, and the main genetic component.

>-- post hoc propter ergo hoc.  The initial agricultural colonization of Europe
>probably carried _some_ language, but there's no evidence whatsoever it was IE
>and plenty that it wasn't.

Such as?

>The time-frame is wrong, for instance.

Renfrew's 7000 BC is too early [for PIE], Mallory's 4000 BC is
too late [for Anatolian].  Putting the date for the split of
Anatolian ~ non-Anatolian at c. 5500 BC (second stage of European
Neolithic: LBK) looks exactly right to me.

>>or all the linguistic facts (why the gap between Anatolian and the rest of IE

>-- "they moved first" seems adequate.

The earliest we can push steppe influences in the Balkans back is
c. 4200 BC.  The latest possible date for the entry of
proto-Greeks in the Balkans is c. 3200 BC.  Adequate for
Armenian, totally inadequate for Anatolian.

>>why Germanic

>-- why not?

As I have tried to explain in another message, the Germanic
verbal system is highly archaic, and has little to do with the
Greek/Indo-Iranian or even the Balto-Slavic one.  Ditto Germanic
phonology.  If we compare Germanic with Balto-Slavic, the
linguistic data strongly suggests the following scenario:

- Germanic became isolated from the main innovating body of IE at
an early date, much earlier than B-S [phonology, verbal system].

- Proto-Germanic speakers assimilated a sizeable non-IE
population, while B-S did not [the famous pre-Germanic
substrate].

- Germanic and Balto-Slavic came into contact again at a stage
where there was still a measure of mutual intelligibility (ca.
2000 years of separation or less) [evidence for G-B-S
Sprachbund].

If I try to correlate this with the archaeological evidence, my
proposal would be:

- Eastern IEans move into the steppe lands [either Dnepr-Donets
c. 5000 BC or Sredny Stog 4500 BC], leaving behind
Pre-Proto-Germanic speakers and others in the LBK area.

- Germanic as we know it starts to evolve after the assimilation
of Ertebo/lle-Ellerbek people by IE-speaking LBK/Roessen farmers
[i.e. TRB culture, from 4000 BC]

- Germanic-Balto-Slavic Sprachbund in the Corded Ware/Fatyanovo
stage, from c. 3000 BC.

I'd be interested in your counter-proposal.

>>Furthermore, history shows that steppe invadors have never penetrated
>>linguistically beyond Hungary and the Balkans.

>-- the situation in the late Neolithic had few historical parallels --
>population densities were much lower, there were no states, etc.

Which is precisely why an "elite dominance" model doesn't work.
It worked in the Balkans (as well as for instance the
Indus-Ganges system) where population densities were high and
cities/tells promised rich booty (or where the internal collapse
of the system had left a power vacuum).  I don't see it working
for the LBK/TRB area, which, like Dravidian Southern India, had
population densities high enough to ensure the survival of the
language of the earliest farmers [in my opinion, Western IEans],
but too scattered and too disorganized economically and
politically to provoke invasion.  The situation in Europe differs
from that in India in that the invadors, like the invaded, spoke
IE languages which were still mutually intelligible to some
degree (except Anatolian), which makes the linguistic situation
far more complex.  The western languages (Germanic, Italic and
Celtic) were probably influenced by the eastern ones.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam


From mcv at wxs.nl  Tue Feb  9 06:54:23 1999
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Tue, 9 Feb 1999 06:54:23 GMT
Subject: IE and Etruscan
In-Reply-To: <9a5e8e1.36bbe827@aol.com>
Message-ID: <TUE.9.FEB.1999.065423.GMT.>

JoatSimeon at aol.com wrote:

>-- it's not the origins of the Etruscans, but the genetic relationships of
>their language.  Last time I looked, there was general agreement among
>linguists that Etruscan is non-Indo-European.  Hell, we can't even read it!

You're right, Etruscan is not IE (despite some attempts at
placing Etruscan/Lemnian in the Anatolian subgroup).  But enough
is known to suggest some connection with IE.  From Beekes & vd
Meer's short overview of Etruscan grammar:

genitive in *-si (cf. Luwian -assi, PIE *-os)
genitive in *-la (cf. Hittite pronominal -l)
dative/locative in *-i (cf. PIE *-(e)i)
1p.sg. p.p. mi "I", acc. mini (cf. PIE *H1me-)
dem.pron. (i)ka (cf. Hittite kas)
dem.pron. (i)ta (cf. PIE *to-)
accusative (pronom.) in -n (cf. PIE *-m)
past tense in -ce (cf. Greek pf. in -ka [?])
ptc.praes.act. in *-nth (cf. PIE *-nt)
ptc.pf.act. in *-thas (cf. PIE *-to [?])
suffixed conj. -c "and" (cf. PIE *-kwe)
suffixed conj. -m "but" (cf. Hittite -ma)

The vocabulary is much more elusive, but some interesting
connections, apart from obvious Italic loanwords, might be tiv(r)
"moon, month", tin "day" [*deiw-, *di(w)-n-], usil "sun"
[*saHwel-], hant(h)e "before" [*Hant-], lautun/lautni "family;
freedman" [*leudh-], -pi "for, by, through" [*-bhi],
$at(h)/$ut(h) (ablaut?) "set, put" [*sed-].

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam


From lmfosse at online.no  Tue Feb  9 09:31:12 1999
From: lmfosse at online.no (Lars Martin Fosse)
Date: Tue, 9 Feb 1999 10:31:12 +0100
Subject: Chariots
Message-ID: <TUE.9.FEB.1999.103112.0100.>

[ Moderator's note:
  The following is quoted from a posting by JoatSimeon at aol.com, dated 6 Feb.
  I have taken the liberty of adding ">" to the lines quoted.
  --rma ]

>-- Chariots were used in Greece for display and sport in Homer's day,
>particularly in aristocratic circles.  I'd think he was pretty familiar with
>them.

>[ Moderator's reply:
>  The Romans of the first centuries of the common era also used chariots in
>  festivals, but I doubt that either group understood how they would be used
>  in warfare.  Certainly, a chariot would not behave as described by Homer.
>  --rma ]

The use of chariots in war is described by Caesar in De Bello Gallico (e.g.
IV.24). The Celts of Britannia used them, but apparently as much for display as
for efficient warfare.

Lars Martin Fosse

Dr. art. Lars Martin Fosse
Haugerudvn. 76, Leil. 114,
0674 Oslo
Norway
Phone/Fax: +47 22 32 12 19
Email: lmfosse at online.no


From tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de  Tue Feb  9 10:39:11 1999
From: tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de (Theo Vennemann)
Date: Tue, 9 Feb 1999 11:39:11 +0100
Subject: axe
Message-ID: <TUE.9.FEB.1999.113911.0100.>

manaster at umich.edu asks RE Gk. pe'lekus, Skt. paras'u'-
(root family p-l-K- 'to split, to divide', which is pretty
close to what you do with a battle-axe):

>But (a) this is not PIE and (b) is it really Semitic?
>Is not a foreign word in Semitic itself?

Semitologists will have to answer that question. My
impression is that if it is a loanword in Semitic, it would
most likely be a Semitic loanword, and thus again a
wanderwort.

The root family is well established in Semitic, and the
(two-consonant) root itself in Afro-Asiatic.

Theo Vennemann,
9 February 1999.


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Tue Feb  9 12:19:48 1999
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (Patrick C. Ryan)
Date: Tue, 9 Feb 1999 06:19:48 -0600
Subject: IE in Balkans and Semitic?
Message-ID: <TUE.9.FEB.1999.061948.0600.>

Dear Miguel and IEists:

-----Original Message-----
From: Miguel Carrasquer Vidal <mcv at wxs.nl>
Date: Thursday, February 04, 1999 12:13 AM

>Rick Mc Callister <rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu> wrote:

>>I was thinking of the root of taurus & steer [I'll let someone else come up
>>with the exact root].

>PSem *t_awr- (or *c^awr-), PIE has *steur-, *st(H)uHr-
>(*st(h)u:r-), *stewHr- (*stew at r-), *tHwr-/*t at ur-, with the usual
>mess when laryngeal meets semivowel (is that *(s)tewH2r-,
>*(s)teH2wr- or *(s)tH2ewr- ?)  Not everybody is convinced that
>the forms with s- (e.g. ON stjo:rr) are related to the forms
>without (e.g. ON thjo:rr).  Not everybody is convinced that the
>IE and Semitic forms are related, and those that think so are I
>guess divided into three camps: (a) the relationship is genetic
>(from memory, please correct if I'm wrong, Alan Bomhard lists
>this as a Nostratic root),

For whatever it may be worth, I agree with Bomhard but I reconstruct the
Nostratic root as: N *t(h)awar-.

My reasons are:

1) I believe the term means 'swollen back', and refers to either the 'bison'
(cf. Old Prussian <tauris>, 'bison', or possibly a bovine like the zebu.

2) Based on N *t(h)awar-, the AA (through Semitic) reflexes are what I
predict: N <t(h)> = IE <t>  = Arabic <th>.

3) In addition, I believe there is a possibility that Egyptian <tw3>, 'man
of low station', may ultimately be based on 'humpback'.

4) According to the correspondences I have developed, N *t(h)awar- would
result in Sumerian <dur>; and we have <dur-3> as 'ass-stallion'.  This might
be a case of transference from '**zebu' if both were used as draft or
pack-animals.

>(b) the word was borrowed from Sem.
>into IE,

I see no credible evidence of this.

>(c) the word was borrowed from IE into Sem.

The divergent Hebrew form, <sh-w-r>, might be a result of Hittite reflexes
of IE *stewer-.

>Again, as
>with the "copper" word, I'm not sure if the Semitic word has an
>internal etymology within Semitic.  In IE, the word may be
>connected to the root *(s)teH2w- "be strong",

Obviously, I would prefer to connect it with IE *tew(H?)-. And do we need to
postulate a "laryngeal" to account for Semitic <th-w-r>?

>and again there is
>some archaeological evidence that cattle was indeed a later
>Anatolian or SE European addition to the original Near Eastern
>Neolithic inventory of livestock (sheep and goats).  So I would
>lean towards the third camp.

If the term originated as a designation for 'bison', would that not put it
firmly in the steppes? But if as 'zebu', or 'gnu', ...?

Pat


From manaster at umich.edu  Tue Feb  9 13:25:59 1999
From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu)
Date: Tue, 9 Feb 1999 08:25:59 -0500
Subject: IE-Semitic connections
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.03.9902061223200.683-100000@rsuno.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <TUE.9.FEB.1999.082559.0500.>

Indeed, the  Basque word cannot come from Romance, but
I don't think there has been any serious work claiming
that it does.

On Sat, 6 Feb 1999, Larry Trask wrote:

> On Fri, 5 Feb 1999, Rick Mc Callister wrote:

> > Basque <z> is /s/, so the idea that it may have come from Romance
> > *septe > *sepce, *sepci; *sepse, *sepsi and then metathesized to
> > /saspi/ sounds sounds interesting. The problem is that [afaik] none
> > of those forms are documented in Ibero-Romance --I don't know about
> > S. Gallo-Romance. There is also the question of whether open /E/
> > would go to /a/ in Basque. Larry Trask would know that.

> Both Romance high-mid /e/ and low-mid /E/ are borrowed into Basque as
> /e/ at all periods.  (Basque has only a e i o u/.)  After Romance /E/
> and /O/ were diphthongized to /ie/ and /ue/, these too were generally
> taken into Basque as /e/, as in <leku> `place', from some Romance reflex
> of Latin LOCU of the approximate form *<lueco>.

> Latin /pt/ was assimilated to */tt/ very early in Iberian Romance, and
> there was no */ps/ stage.  The same thing happened in the ancestors of
> French and of Italian.  I have no data for southern Gallo-Romance, but I
> would be surprised if anything different happened here, since this kind
> of cluster assimilation seems to have been a very widespread feature of
> spoken Latin (Vulgar Latin).


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Tue Feb  9 14:48:01 1999
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 9 Feb 1999 09:48:01 EST
Subject: Celtic influence in English
Message-ID: <TUE.9.FEB.1999.094801.EST.>

In a message dated 2/7/99 12:42:48 PM, DLW wrote:

<< Thus it is entirely conceivable that Britons could have an "accent" in
(Old) English, and yet choose not to carry over any great number of British
words, essentially because of the status differential.>>

There are some questions on this whole issue that just seem to need to be
asked:

1. Do we have any evidence of how Briton spoke to Saxon in the days of Hengist
and Ambrosius?

In the tradition of the Empire, would Latin have been the buffer between the
two?    At this point, were the southeastern British speaking Keltic or Latin
in the marketplace as well as at court and in the monastery?  I believe it is
Bede, many centuries later, who calls Aurelius Ambrosius - the guy who invited
Hengist in - "the last of the Romans."  Were the British of the eastern half
of the island essentially Romans - just as the Gauls of France presumably
were?

2. Were there many Keltic-speaking British left in the southeastern part of
the island after say 700?  Did the majority of the population just move west
or go to Brittany?  Charlesmagne is dealing with a rather powerful Brittany by
the year 800, and a rather large migration is a recorded fact.

3. Why is it that Old English is closer in sound to Frisian than to Saxon?  Is
it possible that the Frisian dialect was somehow an intermediary language
between British and Saxon?  After the fall of the Empire, the Lowlands would
have been the closest point of trade and contact with the Continent.  Is it
possible that southeastern Kelts were already speaking Frisian for purposes of
commerce and trade for two or three centuries before the Saxons came?

4.  It took the Holy Roman Empire close to 500 years to conquer and
Christianize the pagan, Slavic-speaking Wends of eastern Germany.  The records
show pretty clearly that these speakers were actively assimilated into German
speech by various measures, including laws that banned "Wendish" speech.
However the Sorbs of eastern Germany still speak their Slavic tongue today.
The Wends were Christianized after the invasions, somewhat like the Scots and
the Irish.  This meant that the native tongue was never really subordinated to
Latin before Germanic arrived.

The British on the other hand were Christian before the invasions. Is there
any possibility that this made Keltic the language of the old religion and
therefore already disfavored even among the British, even before the
invasions?

5. Bede the Anglo-Saxon churchman, says that the reason the British fell was
God's Will: they had refused to try to convert the German-speaking invaders,
considering them not worthy of "Romanitas" (the religion equally the culture
at this point in time.)  Was it British refusal to "interspeak" with the
English that caused the apparent wall between the two languages?

6.  Finally, what the heck happened in French?  "Elite dominance" there got
you a Romance language.  What happened to both Gaulish and German?  The same
question might be asked about Norman-French.  Where is the Keltic in those
languages?

Regards,
Steve Long


From thorinn at diku.dk  Tue Feb  9 17:00:31 1999
From: thorinn at diku.dk (Lars Henrik Mathiesen)
Date: Tue, 9 Feb 1999 18:00:31 +0100
Subject: STATISTICS IN LINGUISTICS
In-Reply-To: <36BB9DF2.C@stratos.net> (BMScott@stratos.net)
Message-ID: <TUE.9.FEB.1999.180031.0100.>

   Date: Fri, 05 Feb 1999 20:42:10 -0500
   From: "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott at stratos.net>

   Patrick C. Ryan wrote:

   > I can see why you prefer not to deal with mathematical models. If
   > you have 100 trials, and the same cause has the same effect, the
   > probability of the cause creating the same effect again is 100%.
   > Not 99%. Not 98%. Infinity is not a factor in this equation.

Pat, there are two types of probability --- observed probability and
`true' probability. You want to use the former to estimate the latter
and predict what will happen. You cannot predict based solely on
observed probability; this is an extremely basic concept.

A correct statement would be that given the observation, the estimated
probability of the same cause creating the same effect is 100%.

That is, if you use the maximum likelihood estimator, which you will
find described within the first few chapters of any beginning
statistics text. The text will also tell you that this estimator is
totally worthless unless you have a good idea of the possible values
of the true probability.

In historical linguistics, we don't.

If your trial is flipping a coin, and you _know_ that the coin was
picked at random from a bag of 11 coins with probabilities of 0%, 10%,
..., 100% of getting heads, and you get 100 heads in 100 trials ---
then it's a very good bet that you got the 100% coin.

If you know nothing in advance, all you can do is reject theories
about the true probability that are inconsistent with your result.
Getting the same result in each of 100 trials is consistent (to a 99%
level of confidence) with any theory that calculates the true
probability of that outcome as 95.5% or more.

So even if you get 100 out of 100 on Monday, you shouldn't be
surprised if you only get 91 out of 100 on Tuesday.

In historical linguistics, however, you don't have 100 clearcut
trials. You have 5, perhaps 10, subjective comparisons --- which means
that the result is consistent with nearly anything at all. What's
more, you get to pick and choose the comparisons you report. That's
like saying "I flipped the coin a lot of times, and wrote down every
time I got a head. See, 100 tallies, that must prove something." All
it proves is that you sat there long enough looking for matches.

   No.  I flip a fair coin (the 'cause') 100 times and get tails (the
   'effect') 100 times -- unlikely, but certainly possible.  The
   probability that I get tails on the 101-st toss is still 1/2, not 1.

On the other hand, Brian, Pat never said the coin was fair.

Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn at diku.dk> (Humour NOT marked)


From iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu  Tue Feb  9 22:00:23 1999
From: iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu)
Date: Tue, 9 Feb 1999 16:00:23 -0600
Subject: Celtic influence in English
In-Reply-To: <76fc1289.36c04aa1@aol.com>
Message-ID: <TUE.9.FEB.1999.160023.0600.>

On Tue, 9 Feb 1999 X99Lynx at aol.com wrote:

>There are some questions on this whole issue that just seem to need to be
>asked:

>1. Do we have any evidence of how Briton spoke to Saxon in the days of Hengist
>and Ambrosius?

	Not really. Latin was doubtless strongest in the SE, but probably
was not strong (enough) anywhere.  British Latin is noted for being
unusually good, which indicates that people were NOT speaking it.

>Hengist in - "the last of the Romans."  Were the British of the eastern half
>of the island essentially Romans - just as the Gauls of France presumably
>were?

	They may well have been, but the distinction is over-drawn.

>2. Were there many Keltic-speaking British left in the southeastern part of
>the island after say 700?  Did the majority of the population just move west
>or go to Brittany?  Charlesmagne is dealing with a rather powerful Brittany by
>the year 800, and a rather large migration is a recorded fact.

	1) Very few, seemingly.  A few are recorded in the Fens around
1000, I think.

	2) NO!  Many people in the SW went to Brittany, but there are
those that deny that the migration was large.

>3. Why is it that Old English is closer in sound to Frisian than to Saxon?  Is
>it possible that the Frisian dialect was somehow an intermediary language
>between British and Saxon?  After the fall of the Empire, the Lowlands would
>have been the closest point of trade and contact with the Continent.  Is it
>possible that southeastern Kelts were already speaking Frisian for purposes of
>commerce and trade for two or three centuries before the Saxons came?

	1) Differences between Saxon and Frisian are not all that great to
begin with.  Saxon was to some extent subject to German
influence, making the it seem more different than it probably
was.  But apparently the Anglo-Saxons just came more from the Frisian
area.

	2) I suppose anything is possible, but that Frisian was the
language (or even a language, apart from mercenaries) of SE Britain in
Roman times surely does not seem probable.

>4.  It took the Holy Roman Empire close to 500 years to conquer and
>Christianize the pagan, Slavic-speaking Wends of eastern Germany.  The records
>show pretty clearly that these speakers were actively assimilated into German
>speech by various measures, including laws that banned "Wendish" speech.
>However the Sorbs of eastern Germany still speak their Slavic tongue today.
>The Wends were Christianized after the invasions, somewhat like the Scots and
>the Irish.  This meant that the native tongue was never really subordinated to
>Latin before Germanic arrived.

>The British on the other hand were Christian before the invasions. Is there
>any possibility that this made Keltic the language of the old religion and
>therefore already disfavored even among the British, even before the
>invasions?

	The sociology of this is interesting.  It seems there was a brief
Celtic pagan revival in Britain as Roman rule collapsed, but that as these
people got involved in mortal conflict with pagans, they soon found it
good to think of themselves as Christians. Once they had Christianity to
set themselves off as Romans (of a sort) it seems they no longer needed
Latin.  One may compare how the Catholic religion in Ireland has ennabled
the Irish to lose their language without merging with the despised
enemies/conquerors.  Thus the effect was probably the opposite of what was
suggested above.

>5. Bede the Anglo-Saxon churchman, says that the reason the British fell was
>God's Will: they had refused to try to convert the German-speaking invaders,
>considering them not worthy of "Romanitas" (the religion equally the culture
>at this point in time.)  Was it British refusal to "interspeak" with the
>English that caused the apparent wall between the two languages?

	The bishops do indeed seem to have been quite rabidly hostile, but
the common people were another matter.  They probably found it advisable
to "interspeak"  to some extent whether they liked it or not.

>6. Finally, what the heck happened in French?  "Elite dominance" there got
>you a Romance language.  What happened to both Gaulish and German?  The
>same question might be asked about Norman-French.  Where is the Keltic
>in those languages?

	Romance was probably not really viable in Britain.  (Nor Gaulish
in France, perhaps.)  Thus in each case the more "high prestige" of the
two viable languages in competition won:  Latin in France and Germanic in
Britain.

	Norman French was not much learned by the common people of
England, or it would not have died out.  Therefore as far as I can tell no
particular influence is to be expected.

					DLW


From glengordon01 at hotmail.com  Wed Feb 10 03:50:29 1999
From: glengordon01 at hotmail.com (Glen Gordon)
Date: Tue, 9 Feb 1999 19:50:29 PST
Subject: IE to ProtoSteppe
Message-ID: <TUE.9.FEB.1999.195029.PST.>

Hi y'all,

JOATSIMEON at AOL.COM:
>The initial agricultural colonization of Europe probably carried
>_some_ language, but there's no evidence whatsoever it was IE
>...
>It's historically demonstrable that migrations resulting in complete
>language replacement _don't_ have to leave any particular
>archaeological trace.

Which is what I have been saying for a some time. I'm glad someone
agrees. The overall _linguistic_ evidence (not only within IE, but
external as well) shows that an Anatolian homeland is out of the
question. Archaeological evidence is at most only a clue. If we take
Miguel's view that IE and Etruscan are in fact related and came
originally from Anatolia/Balkans, to account for the Uralic similarities
with IE/Etruscan, we have a couple of options.

We could say that IndoEtruscan is not genetically related to Uralic and
try desperately to explain similarities by using a Uralic creolisation
arguement of IndoEtr as it moved into the Balkans (as well as trying to
correlate Uralic data with such a westerly homeland in itself). Not easy
stuff. Etruscan shows a greater similarity to Uralic in terms of the
fact for instance that it barely uses a nominative -s and has no gender.
Why would IE become less Uralic despite its travels into Uralic
territory? Everything that we should expect is backwards and opposite.

If we accept (as we should) that IE is genetically tied to languages
like Uralic and Altaic, steppe-based languages (and we would have to
honestly conclude that Uralic/Altaic is more closely related than
languages like Kartvelian despite Miguel's ploys to have us reason
otherwise) then if IndoEtruscan is from Anatolia, ALL these other
languages like Uralic and Altaic, etc, must have traveled out of
Anatolia via the Balkan route earlier. Anything from IE to IndoEtruscan
to "Proto-Steppe" speakers might have spread agriculture to Europe in
this scenario.

However, we should see IndoEtruscan words being adopted by Semitic and
the like if they were in the same area or into another language group
like Hattic or something. Nope. It seems that the Semitic loanwords in
IE are one-sided. If IE (and IndoEtruscan) had been seperated
sufficiently from the North Semitic core (or "East Semitic" if you
will), it might explain this one-sidedness since the North Semitic would
come to the IE via Black Sea trade. I don't even think that IE's
adoption of Semitic words dates much farther back than 3500 BCE and
therefore hasn't affected Etruscan (this is why I refuse the
relationship between IE *septm and Etruscan semph, which don't look
enough alike, as being from the same inherited source. I personally
would expect something like Etr. **sapthum). If we could find Semitic
borrowings into IE that show up without question in Etruscan as well, we
would have a winner. I doubt that kind of hard linguistic evidence will
ever be found.

By the way, I want to stress that I don't consider Kurgan I (4500-4000
BCE) as necessarily ENTIRELY Indo-Etruscan-speaking. There may have been
Caucasian speaking peoples involved in it as well, no one knows.

Secondly, when I proposed an NEC type language as the language of the
Anatolians that carried agriculture with them, I meant it only as a
quickly dismissable conjecture. (But I think it's a better conjecture
than believing IE as the language).

Lastly, I'm disturbed that when I said that the IE had wiped out
_ALMOST_ all traces of any previous language existant in Europe that two
people had interpreted that I had said ALWAYS and performed redundant
surgery on a comment I never made. Please carefully read your mail,
guys/gals. Thanx.

--------------------------------------------
Glen Gordon
glengordon01 at hotmail.com

Kisses and Hugs
--------------------------------------------


From white at null.net  Wed Feb 10 04:42:25 1999
From: white at null.net (Jim White)
Date: Tue, 9 Feb 1999 22:42:25 -0600
Subject: Evolution and Language List
Message-ID: <TUE.9.FEB.1999.224225.0600.>

The evolution OF language list is reachable so:

To subscribe to the Discussion List, send an email to
Majordomo at list.pitt.edu
with the message in the body:
subscribe evolutionlanguage

[ Moderator's comment:
  Thank you!
  --rma ]


From glengordon01 at hotmail.com  Wed Feb 10 06:31:47 1999
From: glengordon01 at hotmail.com (Glen Gordon)
Date: Tue, 9 Feb 1999 22:31:47 PST
Subject: Caucasian languages and Asia Minor
Message-ID: <TUE.9.FEB.1999.223147.PST.>

W.SCHULZE:

>Naturally every language has its history and it is clear that every
>language has its ancestors. But why should this
>ancestor be represented by one of the language groups we know of
>today?

Probably, for the obvious reason that this is all we have to work with.
It would be really stupid for someone to propose that NEC is related to
some hypothetical language that I shall name "Mumu" for comedic sake
that magically disappeared without a single trace. Obviously, we need an
_actual_ language group to compare NEC with, as remotely related as it
might be. If even you can't, in all probability, accept "isolates", it
only makes sense that we should strive to supply something to compare it
with. Whether the work is properly done or not is another question.

W.SCHULZE:

>There is no scientific need to put all the languages (or language
>fragments or rumors on language fragments stemming from ancient
>sources via ethnonyms) into one or two baskets.

Maybe there's no need scientifically (it won't give us a cure for cancer
I suppose), but without doing something like this, we'll never answer
all the nagging questions about our pre-history. It must be done (but
done better of course).


From Odegard at means.net  Wed Feb 10 10:47:55 1999
From: Odegard at means.net (Mark Odegard <Odegard@means.net>)
Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 10:41:55 -6
Subject: Danube homeland.
Message-ID: <WED.10.FEB.1999.104155.6.>

Miguel Carrasquer Vidal holds for an earlier Danubian homeland. I
have not yet read anything from him indicating why he believes this,
but some thoughts did occur last night as I re-read some parts of
Mallory.

If we are to assume that Sredney Stog (and immediate predecessor[s])
represent the earliest IEs, it then follows that the languages of the
Danubian agriculturalists were replaced at a later date by IE: would
not this have left a substratum, a substrate that would be *absent*
in Indo-Iranian? There is also the issue of correlating a steppe
homeland with Germanic. Yes, Mallory does lead us all down
unsatisfactory cul-de-sacs.

If you move things back further into history, and argue for a much
earlier breakup of IE, certain problems go away. Indo-Iranian could
be seen as an adstratum to the remainder of Non-Anatolian IE.
Germanic is also easier to explain -- but Tocharian, of course,
becomes even harder to explain than it is now.

What are the objections to an earlier date for PIE? Does 5600 to 6000
BCE seem too far back?
--
Mark Odegard   mailto:odegard at means.net


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Mon Feb  8 02:32:26 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Sun, 7 Feb 1999 20:32:26 -0600
Subject: On a First Reading of Mallory.
In-Reply-To: <199902050905.DAA12353@orion.means.net>
Message-ID: <SUN.7.FEB.1999.203226.0600.>

[snip]

>I'm thinking it wasn't Indo-Iranians who filled the Steppes, but
>undifferentiated Indo-Europeans, at least at first. The IIs came
>later, with new and improved technology (something to do with
>bronze, I think), and probably, a better-structured social system.
[snip]

	Or perhaps Indo-Aryan-Greek-[maybe] Armenian moved into the
steppes, and then split with the Greco-Armenians going into the Balkans and
the Indo-Iranians remaining the steppes --while most of the other
IE-speakers, except for the Tocharians & the Anatolians remained in and
around Hungary. At this point, IE may have still been amorphous enough [in
that it was mutually comprehensible] that the "innovative center" shifted
from Hungary to the western steppes.

	Does this sound plausible?

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
MUW
Columbus MS 39701
rmccalli at sunmuw1.muw.edu


From manaster at umich.edu  Sat Feb 13 18:57:53 1999
From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu)
Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 13:57:53 -0500
Subject: IE creole?
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SO4.4.05.9901212256580.4106-100000@rask>
Message-ID: <SAT.13.FEB.1999.135753.0500.>

I agree with Jens, of course.  And would just add this:
it is a really bad habit to use terms like 'creole' loosely.
IE could perhaps be a "creole" in the same sense that
English or Polish are "creoles", i.e., languages with
some elements from source X and some from source Y,
but then every language would be a "creole".

On Thu, 21 Jan 1999, Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen wrote:

[snip]

> I must object to the idea that PIE arose by creolization. PIE is a
> language of a most complex type.

[snip]

> Creoles arise under immense time pressure when speakers of one language
> have to communicate with speakers of another before they have had a chance
> to learn it properly. Therefore, creolization invariably leads to gross
> simplifications, uniformity of stems and formatives, i.e. the exact
> opposite of what we find in Indo-European.


From jorna at web4you.dk  Sat Feb 13 20:17:36 1999
From: jorna at web4you.dk (Carol Jensen)
Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 21:17:36 +0100
Subject: When did language first appear?
Message-ID: <SAT.13.FEB.1999.211736.0100.>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

Reading Cavalli-Sforza's "The Great Human Diaspora(s), page 186:

"That language appeared overnight, as it were, and immediately became as
sophisticated as it is today, would be hard to believe. There is, however, a
small piece of evidence that in the oldest species of humanity, Homo habilis,
the biological basis for some primitive language form already existed.

We know there are areas important for language in the brain, somewhere behind
the eye, because when these are damaged by injury of stroke, the ability to
produce and comprehend language, and to write, is impaired. These areas (known
as Broca and Wernicke) are foound in the temporal region of the brain's left
hemisphere and make the cranium slightly asymmetrical, with the left side being
slightly larger. This asymmetrical form is already found in our most intact
Homo habilis skulls from more than two million years ago, but is absent from
the apes closest to humans."

Interesting, isn't it? Very good and instructive book.

Carol Jensen


From manaster at umich.edu  Mon Feb 15 02:07:26 1999
From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu)
Date: Sun, 14 Feb 1999 21:07:26 -0500
Subject: IE-Semitic connections
In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.4.03.9902040913000.429-100000@rsuno.crn.cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <SUN.14.FEB.1999.210726.0500.>

On Thu, 4 Feb 1999, Larry Trask wrote:

> On Mon, 1 Feb 1999, Glen Gordon wrote:

> [on Basque <sei> `six', <zazpi> `seven']

> > Whoops almost missed that one. Good thing I re-read. Basque? This brings
> > up that ugly topic again of where Basque got those numbers from. I
> > fathomed that they are perhaps some kind of Late Latin/Romance borrowing
> > out of a blind guess. Larry Trask would know but he's probably busy
> > battling Bengtson's Dene-Caucasian theory right now :)

> I've already commented on <zazpi>.  As for <sei>, a Romance source looks
> very implausible.  All the western Romance languages appear to retain
> some kind of final sibilant in the word for `six', and hence a loan into
> Basque should have produced something like *<seits> or *<zeitz> or maybe
> *<seis>, but not the observed <sei>.  Probably a chance resemblance.

> Larry Trask

I completely agree re <sei> and Romance.  Is this a chance resemblance
between Larry and me?

AMR


From manaster at umich.edu  Sat Feb 20 02:17:46 1999
From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu)
Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1999 21:17:46 -0500
Subject: PIE gender
Message-ID: <FRI.19.FEB.1999.211746.0500.>

There has been some discusion here of the (assumed) fact that
the feminine gender is an innovation, and one not shared by
the Anatolian lgs.  However, there is one thing that has long
troubled me in this connection.  There is a fact that seems
to argue that the feminine was quite old, viz.,that some
languages use neuter pl. for a group consisting of a
masculine and a feminine.  I don't now recall which lgs
these are, but as I recall this is recognized as an archaic
feature.  (I do know that it survives in some Slavic lgs,
incl. Polish, but apparently not Russian).  I recall once
trying to get an Anatolianist to make sure that this rule
does NOT leave any traces in Anatolian, for if it did, then
we would have a very good argument FOR feminine in PIE, but
I never got the answer.   AMR


From Odegard at means.net  Sat Feb 20 21:39:55 1999
From: Odegard at means.net (Mark Odegard <Odegard@means.net>)
Date: Sat, 20 Feb 1999 21:33:55 -6
Subject: Nordwestblock
Message-ID: <SAT.20.FEB.1999.213355.6.>

Mallory, on p. 85, speaks of the _Nordwestblock_. There is an
extensive footnote to go with the mention, and locates this as the
region between the Oise (tributary to the Seine) and the Aller
(tributary to the Weser).  This is essentially what we in English
call the Low Countries, and if we exclude the francophone portions
of Belgium, is in what I've seen as classified as historically
Northwest (or Ingvaeonic) Germanic speaking.

The suggestion is there is a *consensus* that a non-IE speaking group
was here in antiquity, one that seems to have persisted. It's
suggested that Celtic got its pig-related words from this language,
and perhaps to some extent, Germanic as well. It's also said that
Nordwestblock-speakers spread further East, to Central Europe.

Are these the 'Old Europeans' I've heard speak of? Could this
represent the putative substrate that gives Germanic words such as
'ship' and 'king'?

What else can be said of these people?
--
Mark Odegard   mailto:odegard at means.net


From philps at univ-tlse2.fr  Mon Feb 22 17:08:20 1999
From: philps at univ-tlse2.fr (Dennis Philps)
Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1999 18:08:20 +0100
Subject: PIE *gn- >  know/ken
Message-ID: <MON.22.FEB.1999.180820.0100.>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

Could anyone tell me at what stage in history the initial voiced consonant in
PIE roots such as *gno- "know/ken/can" or *gen- "knife", etc. became devoiced,
and why this devoicing concerns some roots (e.g. *gen- "knife", etc.) but not
others (e.g. *ghen- > "gnat"). Also, is it correct to state that English forms
such as "know" are derived from zero grade (*gno-), whereas "ken (dial.)/can"
are derived from the full (e) grade (*gen-)?  Could anyone provide me with any
references of papers etc. dealing with this type of evolution?

Many thanks,
Dennis Philps


From petegray at btinternet.com  Mon Feb 22 20:32:24 1999
From: petegray at btinternet.com (Peter &/or Graham)
Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1999 20:32:24 -0000
Subject: Greek question
Message-ID: <MON.22.FEB.1999.203224.0000.>

Some clarification for us idiots please, who know Bartholomae's Law, but
don't have easy access to up-to-date literature -

(a) If "Kurylowicz and others have been interested in extending the "law"
[Bartholomae's Law]  back to PIE times" ... then how do they explain its
absence from other IE langs, where the dissimilation is regressive, not
progressive?

(b) AMR says:  >Sihler in his book argues that [Bartholomae's Law] had to be
>PIE because he can see no other way to explain the
>variation between *-tlo- and *-dhlo- instrument derivational
>suffixes.  But if I am not mistaken the Copenhagen school
>has a better theory for this than BL (Jens, Benedicte, anybody?).

Please can we have details of the variation and of Sihler's argument?   I'm
interested!

Peter


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Mon Feb 22 21:43:15 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1999 16:43:15 EST
Subject: Mallory
Message-ID: <MON.22.FEB.1999.164315.EST.>

In a message dated 2/22/99 5:38:51 AM Mountain Standard Time, X99Lynx at aol.com
writes:

>This particular statement really bothers me. I also saw the "intervening
agriculture" >stage as a requirement for pastoral nomadism repeated again and
again in >Renfrew's Archaeology and Language where it was used to eliminate
all kinds of >possibilities regarding the steppes.

-- well, it doesn't, really.  The archaeological evidence is that the
mesolithic inhabitants of the forest-steppe and river-valley environments of
the central Ukraine and points east picked up the whole Neolithic package in
the fifth millenium BC, then domesticated the horse.

Over the next couple of millenia, the cultures in that area became more and
more pastoral, but in the Neolithic and Bronze Age periods they were still
mixed -- pastoralists who also practiced some agriculture in favorable areas.


From neander97 at yahoo.com  Mon Feb 22 23:37:59 1999
From: neander97 at yahoo.com (Hal Neumann)
Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1999 15:37:59 -0800
Subject: Mallory
Message-ID: <MON.22.FEB.1999.153759.0800.>

On 7 Feb 1999 03:54:55 EST Steve Long X99Lynx at aol.co writes:

This particular statement really bothers me. I also saw the
"intervening agriculture" stage as a requirement for pastoral nomadism
repeated again and again in Renfrew's Archaeology and Language where
it was used to eliminate all kinds of possibilities regarding the
steppes. I don't see why the nomadic pastoral culture has to go
through an agricultural phase, particularly if it has the resources to
feed itself. . . And, if there are any agriculturists within range,
than the nomads themselves wouldn't seem to need to go through that
phase, because they would always have something to trade (like
horses.). . . .
---------------------------------

Yes, the assertion that pastoral nomadism *Has* to follow from
sedentary agriculture bothers me as well.

There are, I believe, models that demonstrate otherwise.  I am
thinking here of the Plain Indian (horse/buffalo) cultures of North
American in the late 18th and early to mid 19th centuries.  While the
Cheyenne, Teton Sioux, and Crow peoples (to name a few) did make the
transition from agricultural economies/cultures to that of nomadic
herdsmen/hunters others such as the Comanche, Kiowa and, perhaps, the
Plains Apache appear to have transited directly from pedestrian
gatherer/hunters to mounted herdsmen/hunters.  Still others (Pawnee,
Mandan, Hadatsa, Arikara) appear to have been in the process of
transiting from agriculture to mounted nomadism at the time of
Euro-American encroachment.

Whatever the prior status of the nomadic herdsmen/hunters, vigorous
and dynamic trade relationships (as well as raiding) existed between
the nomadic herdsmen and the agriculturists.  The horse/buffalo
peoples exchanged horses and the products of the hunt with
agriculturists for maize, beans, etc as well as for manufactured good
(both of Native and Euro-American manufacture).  The extent and
importance of this trade/exchange was set forth by Jablow (1951) (see
below).

--Hal W Neumann
neander97 at yahoo.com

(I realize that many would dispute the use of the label herdsmen /
pastoral nomad to describe the mounted Plains Indian, but the fact
remains that they were excellent practitioners of animal husbandry
who, maintained horse herd that numbered in the tens of thousands 
herds which were not solely built from raiding or from capturing wild
stock, but were bred for "desired qualities.")

--Jablow ; Joseph.  THE CHEYENNE IN PLAINS INDIAN TRADE RELATIONS,
1795-1840 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, Bison Books, c1994);
 Originally published in Monographs of the American Ethnological
Society,1951.  [an excellent and brief discussion of the extent and
complexity of Plains Indian commerce]

--Forbes, Jack D.  APACHE, NAVAHO, AND SPANIARD (Norman: University of
Oklahoma Press, 1960).
--McGinnis, Anthony.  COUNTING COUP AND CUTTING HORSES: INTERTRIBAL
WARFARE ON THE NORTHERN PLAINS, 1738-1889 (Evergreen, CO: Cordillera
Press, 1990).
--Wallace, Ernest, and E. Adamson Hoebel. THE COMANCHES:  LORDS OF THE
SOUTH PLAINS, Civilization of the American Indian, No.34 (Norman:
University of Oklahoma Press, 1952).
Grinnell, George Bird.  THE CHEYENNE INDIANS:  THEIR HISTORY AND WAYS
OF LIFE, 2 vols  (1923; reprint: University of Nebraska Press 1972).


From bao at cphling.dk  Tue Feb 23 08:31:42 1999
From: bao at cphling.dk (Birgit Anette Olsen)
Date: Tue, 23 Feb 1999 09:31:42 +0100
Subject: Greek question
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.4.05.9902062106110.22790-100000@qix.rs.itd.umich.edu>
Message-ID: <TUE.23.FEB.1999.093142.0100.>

On Sat, 6 Feb 1999 manaster at umich.edu wrote:

> On Thu, 4 Feb 1999, Patrick C. Ryan wrote:

> > I am under the impression that though Kurylowicz and others have been
> > interested in extending the "law" back to PIE times, this has not met
> > general acceptance but perhaps I am not privy to the latest information.

> > If  *ne(u)k(h)-to- had already become compounded in PIE, Bartholomae's Law
> > would not have come into play, would it?

> Hey, we do agree about something.  The BL issue is not closed
> by any means.  Sihler in his book argues that it had to be
> PIE because he can see no other way to explain the
> variation between *-tlo- and *-dhlo- instrument derivational
> suffixes.  But if I am not mistaken the Copenhagen school
> has a better theory for this than BL (Jens, Benedicte, anybody?).

> AMR

Actually I have an alternative theory for the instrument suffix. In my
opinion the suffixes are not *-tlo- (*-tro-) and *-dhlo- (*-dhro-), but
rather *-tlo- (*-tro-) and *-thlo- (*-thro-) where *-thlo- (*-thro-) is
the result of "pre-aspiration" by a preceding voiceless consonantal
laryngeal, *h1 or *h2, e.g. *stah2-tlom > *stathlom > stabulum vs.
*poh3(i)tlom > po:culum. In the oldest layer the -l-variants seem to be
unmarked and the r-variants connected with roots containing a liquid (e.g.
the word for "plough"), so we arrive at one basic suffix, *-tlo-.

Birgit Olsen


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Sun Feb 21 20:53:41 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1999 14:53:41 -0600
Subject: Non-IE roots in Germanic/Intro
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.4.05.9902062051560.22790-100000@qix.rs.itd.umich.edu>
Message-ID: <SUN.21.FEB.1999.145341.0600.>

[ Moderator's note:
  The following series of messages has been re-directed from the Nostratic list
  to the Indo-European list, where discussion of the topic originated.
  --rma ]

I'd like to get some feedback for the Online List of Non-IE Germanic Roots
I just put up at
http://www.MUW.Edu/~rmccalli/subsGerIntro.html
I want to make sure that I've correctly summarized the opinions re sources
of non-IE vocabulary in Germanic, including those of Eric Hamp & Theo
Vennemann. I don't have complete bibliographies and I'd appreciate
corrections on these. I'll follow with the roots themselves.

On-line dictionary of postulated non-IE substrate vocabulary in the
Germanic languages

Non-Indo-European substrate vocabulary in Germanic include:

       loanwords and Wanderwörter in Indo-European and
Western-Indo-European such as technical, cultural & agricultural vocabulary
from or via Middle Eastern, Paleo-Anatolian, Mediterranean & Caucasian
languages
       loanwords to early Germanic and Western Indo-European from
indigenous Western &
       Northern European languages such as seafaring, natural,
institutional & local technical lexicon words of unknown origin which
cannot be linked to Indo European

The German linguist Theo Vennemann has postulated Vasconic & Afro-Asiatic
as major sources of substrate vocabulary in Germanic. His linguistic
scenario of Ancient Europe presumes that languages related to modern Basque
ranged over much of Western Europe, including France, Switzerland and
Germany. While it is known that Aquitanian, the language ancestral to
Basque, was spoken in southwestern France in pre Roman times, the extent of
Vasconic in pre-Indo-European times is still unknown. Vennemann's
hypothesis uses the comparative method and is well researched yet much more
remains to be learned about the pre history of Vasconic. His hypothetical
Afro-Asiatic lexicon presupposes that megalithic Atlantic civilization
corresponds to settlement by traders and settlers speaking either an early
Semitic language or an Afro-Asiatic language closely related to Semitic

Robert Claiborne attributes non-Indo-European substrate to a language he
refers to as "Folkish," based on the assertion that the word "folk" is
derived from that language. According to Claiborne's scenario, "Folkish"
was spoken along or near the Baltic Sea and is responsible for much
vocabulary dealing with seafaring and the marine environment

Eric Hamp and others have postulated an "Apple language" in North Central
Europe, which they see as responsible for indigenous substrate vocabulary
common to Germanic, Celtic, Italic and Balto-Slavic

Other possible sources for non-Indo-European substrate may include Uralic &
Tyrrhenian. Uralic languages were once spoken much farther south than
present in Scandinavia and the eastern Baltic. Tyrrhenian languages related
to Etruscan include Rhaetic, which was spoken in the area of present Italy
and Switzerland. At present, very little vocabulary has been ascribed to
Uralic and virtually none to Tyrrhenian. [The Swiss etyma klap-, krap- is
sometimes said to Rhaetic]

Obviously, such a project can only be described as tentative, given that
most evidence suggesting that a given word is non-Indo-European is
essentially negative :

       the word does not exist in other branches of Indo-European
       its phonology does not conform to the norms of Indo-European
       the evolution of the word does not correspond to known phonological
laws of the branch in question

It should be no suprise that there is much disagreement regarding potential
non-Indo-European substrate vocabulary. While some linguists propose a
broad inventory of non-Indo-European substrate vocabulary, others make a
determined attempt to relate all Germanic vocabulary to Indo-European. This
list is as inclusive as possible. Take this list, then, as a collection of
possibilities.

Sources are indicated by initials. A bibliography follows. Additions and
suggesions are welcome.


Sources

Claiborne, Robert. The Roots of English. NY: Random, 1989. [rc]

Comrie, Bernard. The World's Major Languages. NY: Oxford UP, 1987. [bc]

Duncan "English 451 notes" (class webpage) [d]

Hamp, Eric. "The Pre-IE Language of Northern (Central) Europe". When Worlds
Collide. [eh]

Thomas V. Gamkrelidze & Vjecheslav V. Ivanov. Indo-European & the
Indo-Europeans. Berlin:
Mouton de Gruyter, 1995. [g&i]

T. L. Markey. "Gift, Payment and Reward Revisited". When Worlds Collide. 345ff.

Meillet, Antoine. General Characteristics of Indo-European, 1929. [am]

Mondadori's Pocket Italian-English/English-Italian Dictionary. NY: Pocket 1977.

Porse, Sten (e-mail post) [sp]

Pyles & Algeo's History of English [p&a]

Streadbeck, Arval L. "Germanic languages." Grolier Encyclopedia on CD-ROM.
Grolier Electronic Publishing. [als]

Trask, Larry (e-mail) [lt]

Vennemann, Theo (e-mail Jan 99) [tv1/99]---

---"Bemerkung zum frühgermanischen Wortschatz." Fs. Matzel, Heidelberg
1984, 105-19. [tv84]

---"Etymologische Beziehungen im Alten Europa", Der GinkgoBaum 13 [tv95]

---"Some West Indo-European words of uncertain origin." Fs. Fisiak. Berlin
1997, I.879-908. [tv97]

Waterman., John T. A History of the German Language. Seattle: U Wash P,
1966. [jtw]

Watkins, Calvert . Dictionary of Indo-European Roots, rev. Boston:
Houghton, 1985. [cw]

Wordsworth English-German/German-English Dictionary. Ware, Herts UK:
Wordsworth, 1994.

Bibiliography

Bryson, Bill. The Mother Tongue.

Claiborne, Robert. The Roots of English. NY: Random, 1989. [rc]

Comrie, Bernard. The World's Major Languages. NY: Oxford UP, 1987.[bc]

Furnée, Eduard J. Die wichtigsten konsonantischen Erscheinungen des
Vorgriechischen. The
Hague, 1972.

Gamkrelidze, Thomas V. & Vjecheslav V. Ivanov. Indo-European & the
Indo-Europeans. Berlin:
Mouton de Gruyter, 1995.

Hamp, Eric. "The Pre-IE Language of Northern (Central) Europe". When Worlds
Collide. 291-.

Heyne. Deutsches Worterbuch

Lehmann. Theor. Bases of IE Linguistics.

Liebich, Bruno. Wortfamilien der deutschen Sprache (1899, 1905.

Lockwood, W. B., An Informal History of the German Language, with Chapters
on Dutch and
Afrikaans, Frisian and Yiddish.1965.

Markey, T. L. "Gift, Payment and Reward Revisited". When Worlds Collide. 345ff.

Meillet, Antoine. General Characteristics of Indo-European, 1929. ---

General Characteristics of the Germanic Languages, trans. by William
Dismukes (1970)

Mondadori's Pocket Italian-English/English-Italian Dictionary. NY: Pocket 1977.

Polomé, Edgar: "The non-Indo-European components of the Germanic lexicon."
Annemarie Etter
(ed.) O-o-pe-ro-si: Festschrift für Ernst Risch zum 79. Berlin: Geburtstag.
1986. ---

JIES 18 ("The Indo- Europeanization of Northern Europe: the linguistic
evidence").

Pyles & Algeo's History of English [p&a]

Prokosch, Eduard. Comparative Germanic Grammar,

Streadbeck, Arval L. "Germanic languages." Grolier Encyclopedia on CD-ROM.
Grolier Electronic
Publishing.

Vennemann, Theo "Bemerkung zum frühgermanischen Wortschatz." Fs. Matzel,
Heidelberg 1984,
105-19.

--- "Etymologische Beziehungen im Alten Europa", Der GinkgoBaum:
Germanistisches Jahrbuch
für Nordeuropa 13 (1995), 39-115.

--- "Some West Indo-European words of uncertain origin." Fs. Fisiak. Berlin
1997, I.879-908.

--- "Germania Semitica: *ploog-/*pleg-, *furh-/*farh-, *folk-/*flokk-,
*felh-/*folg-", in: Fs. Eroms,
Heidelberg 1998, 245-61.

--- "Andromeda and the Apples of the Hesperides." Karlene Jones-Bleyet al.
(eds.). Proceedings of
the Ninth Annual UCLA Indo-European ---Conference (Journal of Indo-European
Studies
Monograph Series, 28), Washington, D.C. 1998, 1-68.

--- "Germania Semitica: Biene und Imme: Mit einem Anhang zu lat. apis",
Sprachwissenschaft 23
(1998), 471-87.

--- "Zur Etymologie von Éire, dem Namen Irlands" Sprachwissenschaft 23
(1998), 461-469.

---"Remarks on some British place names." Fs. Irmengard Rauch, New York
1999, 25-62.

Waterman, John T. A History of the German Language. Seattle: U Wash P, 1966.

Watkins, Calvert. Dictionary of Indo-European Roots, rev. Boston: Houghton,
1985.

Wordsworth English-German/German-English Dictionary. Ware, Herts UK:
Wordsworth, 1994.


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Sun Feb 21 21:00:25 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1999 15:00:25 -0600
Subject: Non-IE roots in Germanic/@, a, e, i, j, o, u
Message-ID: <SUN.21.FEB.1999.150025.0600.>

Here's the first batch. I know there have to be more out there. I included
Watkin's remarks re words he sees as IE. I didn't go too far into Theo
Vennemann's explanations because his work is accessible. I would appreciate
corrections since I read Theo's German works with a dictionary and may have
missed some things.

@blu "apple" [NC Europe non-IE] > *ap[a]laz [Germanic] > aeppel [OE] > apple,
limited to Germanic [e.g. OHG apful],
Celtic [O Ir uball], Welsh afal;
Italic [Oscan Abella "apple town"];
and Balto-Slavic [O Sl ablûko, OCS jabl'ko, Lith. óbuolas]
of non-IE origin [am, eh]
@bel-n "apple tree" [see Lith. obelìs, OCS jablan', O Ir aball, Welsh
afall] [eh]

adhra "waterway, channel" [*pre-Norse],
oe:dre, oedr "channel, artery, vein, fountain, river, cataract" [OE],
Ader "vein" [tv95]

aduso:/n, adusso:/n > adesa [OE] > adze
[?rel. to Basque haitz "stone, rock", aitzur "adze"]
[< ?Vasconic *aDiz < *anitsa < *kanis; aDiz-to "flint knife"]
[mcv3/97--cit. Michelena]

ae:laz > *ela- Aal m., eel "eel" [bc, ecp, jtw, tv84]

aecse [OE] > ax, axe
[< ?Vasconic"; see Basque aizkora "axe, hatchet"] [tv95, tv97]

airo "oar"
[< Finnish/aboriginal non-IE Baltic lang?] [rc]

aithei "mother" [Gothic] [< ?Vasconic"] [tv97]

aliso/eliso > *alisa: [Celtic], *alisa [Gothic] > Erle f., aller > alder;
?aliso [Spanish];
[< Vasconic?, e.g. Basque altza]
[acc. cw < IE *ei- "red, brown"] [g&i, tv1/99]
[?rel to ellen, ellaern [OE] > elder? cw]

al- > al-na > allaz > all, also [cw, rc]

albaz/albiz > aelf [OE] > elf; alfr [ON] > oaf [cw]
[cw relates this to *albho-, source of Latin albus "white"]

alka [ON] > auk [acc. cw < ?*ei- "red, brown"] [cw, rc]

ang-ra-m "pasture, grassland" > Anger "pasture-ground"
[< ?Vasconic"; see Basque angio, angi, angia "meadow";
rel. rejected by Trask] [lt, tv97]

ankle, Enkel < anka "Hinterhaupt, blied" [OHG]; hanka [Germanic] > ?Romance
hancha "hip", >
haunch
[< ?Vasconic;
see Basque anka, hanka "foot, lower extremity of animal"] [tv95]

arimanno "warrior" [It < Germanic] [tv84]

arnuz, aro:/n > Aar, earn "eagle" [OE]
[< ?Afro-Asiatic "Atlantic";
see Akk. arû;
but see also Basque arrano] [tv97]

astio, aschio "grudge, hate" [It < Germanic] [tv84]

athal- "race, family" > Adel m. "nobility" > atheling;
> *o:thal > edili > edel "noble"
[?rel. Gk. atallein "to foster"] [cw, jtw]

athnam "year [dat. pl.] [Gothic], annus [Latin]
[< ?Vasconic"] [tv97]

ertho: > eortha [OE] > earth; Erde
[< ?Afro-Asiatic "Atlantic";
see Sem. ?-r-C] [tv95, tv97]

east, Osten m. [bc, jtw]

ebura [pre-Germanic] > Eber, eofor [OE] "boar"
[< ?Afro-Asiatic "Atlantic";
see Akk appâru "wild boar"] [tv97]

ebb, Ebbe f. [bc, jtw]

échanson "cupbearer" [Fr < Germanic] [tv84]

écrevisse "crayfish" [Fr < Germanic] [tv84]

Eidam, a*um "son-in-law" [< ?Vasconic"] [tv97]

e:thi: > *a:thi: [N. Germanic] > ae:dhr [ON] > eider
[acc. cw <? *e:ti:?] [cw, rc]

Eisvogel "kingfisher" [OE i:searn "ice eagle"]
[< Vasconic?, rel. to Halcyon?;
< root similar to *iz-arano "water eagle",
*izar-arno "star bird"] [mcv, tv1/99]

émoi "emotion" [Fr < Germanic] [tv84]

Ente f. "duck" [jtw]

e:wa "law" ["Gesetz"] [OHG] [tv84]

Iltis m. "polecat" [jtw]

Imme [tv84]

*i:sarno [Celtic, Germanic] > iron, Eisen n.
[< ?Vasconic *isar "star";
see Basque izar "star"] [mcv2/98, tv2/98]

i:sa > Eis, ice
[< ?Vasconic", e.g. Basque izoz- "frost, ice"] [tv97]

Jolle f., jolly-boat "dinghy" [jtw]

oak, Eiche
[< ?Vasconic; see Basque agin "evergreen oak"]

o:bjan "holy work" > offering, Opfer; opus "work" [Latin]
[< ? Afro-Asiatic "Atlantic";
see Akk. epu:s^u] [tv95]

Urliuge "war" [OHG] [jtw]


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Sun Feb 21 21:05:50 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1999 15:05:50 -0600
Subject: Non-IE roots in Germanic/b
Message-ID: <SUN.21.FEB.1999.150550.0600.>

If I've missed any citations, please advise me. I still need to see the the
OED has to say about the English words. Our library doesn't own any German
or other etymological dictionaries, so if anyone wants to help out, I'd
apopreciate it.

baita "hut, cabin" [It < Germanic] [tv84]

bakam "back" > back [rc]

bakke [M Eng] "bat"
[acc. cw < ? *blak- "to strike" (Germanic) < IE *bhlag- "to strike"] [cw]

balcone "balcony" [It < Germanic] [tv84]

balthaz "bold" > bald, beald [OE] > bold, bald; bald [OHG] > bawd
[acc. cw < ?IE *bhol-to < *bhel- "to blow, swell, etc."] [cw]

Bann m. "a decree, a spell", banns, banish, bannir "to banish" [Fr <
Germanic] [jtw, tv84]

baron [Fr < Germanic] [tv84]

bazya- > Beere f.; berige, berie [OE] > berry
[acc. cw < ?IE *bha:- "to shine"] [cw, jtw]

beam, Baum "tree" m. [tv84]

bear, Bär m. [bc]

bha-un > *bauno [Germanic > be:an [OE] bean; Bohne f.
[acc. cw < IE *bha-bha "broadbean", root of fava (Latin)] [cw, jtw, tv84]

birch, Birke
[< ?Vasconic; see Basque burkhi, urki] [tv95]

bison, Wisent [from Hutterer] [tv84]

bitten [tv84]

blé "wheat" [Fr < Germanic] [tv84]

blestre [OF] > blister [tv]
[acc. cw < ?*bhlei- "to blow, swell" < bhel-] [cw]

blood, Blut n. [lt, tv84]

boat, Boot n. [bc]

Bogen m., bow [bc, jtw]

bone, Bein n. [bc, rc]

botm [OE] > "bottom"; bodem [Dutch] > bottomry, [rel to fundus (Latin)]
[acc. cw < ? IE *bhudh-]
[cw]

braes [OE] > brass [?rel ferrum (Latin)?] [cw]

brák- > "trousers" [Germanic, Celtic] > bróks [Germanic] > bro:c, bre:c
[pl] [OE] > breech,
breeches, breeks;
*bráka [Gaulish] > Latin bráca "trousers" > bracket, brail [cw, rc]

brant [Fr < Germanic] [tv84]

bread, Brot n. [jtw]

bregdan "to move jerkily" > "to shimmer" > bregdan "to move quickly, to
weave, braid" > braid
[acc. cw < ?IE *bherek "to shine, glitter" < bhereg- "to shine, bright,
white"] [cw]

brehwo "eyelash, eyelid" > bra: [ON] > brae
[acc. cw < ?IE *bherek "to shine, glitter" < bhereg- "to shine, bright,
white"] [cw]
[?same as IE *bhru- "brow"?]

bre[w]an > brehsmo "to shine" [W. Germanic] > bresme [O Fr] > bream [acc.
cw < ?IE *bherek
"to shine, glitter" < bhereg- "to shine, bright, white"] [cw]

brigdil [W Germanic] > bri:del [OE] > bridle; bri:del "bride" > bride
[acc. cw < ?IE *bherek "to shine, glitter" < bhereg- "to shine, bright,
white"] [cw]

bring, bringen [als]

broad, breit [als, cw, d. p&a]

brudhiz > bride, Braut f. [rc]

brugyo > brycg/e [OE] > bridge [cognates in Celtic & Slavic]
[acc. cw <? IE *bhru- "brow"] [cw]

Brünne, broigne "suit of armor?" [Fr < Germanic] [tv84]

bukkaz "male goat, deer, etc." > bok [Dutch], boc [OHG] > Bock, buc [OE],
bucca [OE] > buck;
bukkos "male goat" [Celtic; ?source of bukkaz?] > boc "buck" [OFr] > butcher
[acc. cw < ?IE *bhugo-] [cw] [found only in Celtic & Germanic?]

buole "bully" (West Germanic) [rc]

Busk > bush, Busch m. [< IE bheue-?] [cw]

bycgean [OE] > buy; buggian O Sax ; bugyan [Goth.] [tlm]

bygge, byge, bigge [Northumbria c. 1250] > big [tlm]

byggja "to purchase a woman" [O Ice.] [tlm]


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Sun Feb 21 21:12:33 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1999 15:12:33 -0600
Subject: non-IE/Germanic/d
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.4.05.9902062051560.22790-100000@qix.rs.itd.umich.edu>
Message-ID: <SUN.21.FEB.1999.151233.0600.>

dam, Damm "embankment, dike, dam" [tv84]

dagaz > day, Tag [cw]
[acc. cw < IE "*agh- with initial d- of obscure origin"]

dan- "low ground, den" >
*dan-jam > denn [OE] > den; Dene [OE] > Dane [cw, rc]

Dauer "duration", du:ra:re "to last" [Latin]
[< ?Afro-Asiatic "Atlantic";
see Akk du:ru/m "long time, hard"] [tv97]

dengeln [tv84]

Dieb m., thief [jtw]

Diener, Dirne [tv84]

Distel f, thistle [jtw]

docga > dog "dog, mastiff" (Anglo-Saxon) [< Celtic?] [source?]

Dorsch m. "young cod [scrod]" [jtw]

dove, Taube [tv84]

dreug- >"dry" > drought;
*deug-iz > dry, Trocken; >
*draug-n > drain [cw, rc]

drink, Trinken [als, bc, d, p&a]

drive [als, d, p&a]

dub-/dup- "drop, drip, dip" > dip, dope, dump, didapper [cw, rc]

dud "shake, dodder" > dote, dodder, ?Zittergreis "dodderer" [cw, rc]

dumb, dumm "stupid" [als]

dunga "dung" > dung, Dung m. [jtw, rc]

dunum "fortified place" [Celtic] ?> du:naz [Germanic] > du:n "hill" [OE] >
down; >
du:ne [M Dutch] > dune;
*tu:naz [Germanic, <? Celtic *du:n-o- "hill, stronghold"?] "fortified
place" > town, Zaun
[Celtic & Germanic only]
[< ?Afro-Asiatic "Atlantic";
see AKK dunnunu "fortified"] [cw, tv97]


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Sun Feb 21 21:12:41 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1999 15:12:41 -0600
Subject: non-IE/Germanic/f
Message-ID: <SUN.21.FEB.1999.151241.0600.>

fagra- > faeger "beautiful" [OE] > fair [cw]
[acc. cw <? IE *pek "pretty"]

fagin-/fagan- "to enjoy" > faegen [OE] "joyful, glad" > fain, fawn [cw]
[acc. cw <? IE *pek "pretty"]

faîte "First" [covering of a bastion] [Fr < Germanic] [tv84]

Fehde, feud [from Schmidt] [jtw, tv84]

feige, fey "cowardly" [from Schmidt] [tv84]

flask, Flasche [tv84]

Fleisch n., flesh [jtw, tv84]]

finger, Finger m. [lt]

flank, Flanke, flanc [Fr < Germanic] [tv84]

flee, fliehen [from Schmidt] [tv84]

flise, vlise "stone slab, floor-stone" [MLG] > Fliese "floor-stone, paving
tile"
[< ?Vasconic] [Vennemann considers it "weak"] [tv97]

Fock "foresail" [from Schmidt 1969] [tv84]

folk, Volk n. [jtw, rc]

frankon- "javelin, free, Frank", franc [Fr < Germanic] [rc, tv84]

Friede m. "peace" [jtw]

froc "habit [monk, nun], skirt" [Fr < Germanic] [tv84]

fronce "flounce, wrinkle?" [Fr < Germanic],
fruncir [Sp < Germanic] "to flounce, wrinkle" [tv84]
[?same as German Runzel]

fugla- > fowl, Vogel m. [cw, d, p&a, wb]
[acc. cw, "possible but unlikely" < ? IE *pleu- > *fleug-ika > *flug laz?]
[?how rel. to pullus (Latin)]

furxti:n > fryhta [OE] > fright
[< ?Afro-Asiatic "Atlantic" *puluxt-,
see Akkadian puluhtu/m] [tv97]

fyrs [OE] > furse [cw]


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Sun Feb 21 21:12:48 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1999 15:12:48 -0600
Subject: non-IE/Germanic/g
Message-ID: <SUN.21.FEB.1999.151248.0600.>

gaal [Dutch] "restbarrow" [ecp]

gagana/gagina "against, in a direct line with" > gegn "straight, direct,
hepful" [ON] > gainly,
[un]gainly;
gegn- "against" [OE] > gainsay;
*ana-gagina > ongean, onge:an [OE] "again, against, back" > again, against;
gegin, gagan [OHG] > gegenschein [cw, rc]
[?rel to go, gehen?]

gagl- > "gale" [ecp]

gans- > Gans f. goose [jtw]
[but cw and most others see this as IE *ghans-]

gar > *garwian "to make, prepare, equip";
*garwi- "equipment, adornment" > garb, garbo [via It.];
*garwa- "prepared" > yare; *garwín > gear [cw, rc]

garbo:n "sheaf" [pre-Germanic] > Garbe "sheaf";
garwa [W Germanic] > garwo:n [W Germanic] > yarrow
[< ?Vasconic < pre-Basque *gerwa < *gerba;
see Basque garba "bundle, sheaf", gerba "catkin", Spanish garfa "hook,
claw", grapa "staple"]
[tv95, tv97]
[?rel. to *gar- in sense of "to assemble, collect"]

garden, yard, Garten
[< ?Afro-Asiatic "Atlantic",
see Phoen. q-r-t "city"]; see Rus. gorod [tv97]

gay, gai [Fr < Germanic] [tv84]

geben [tv84]

gedu > *ketu > cut [eh]

gersto: [pre-Germanic] > Gerste "barley"
[< ?Vasconic";
see Basque gar-i "grain, wheat", gargarr "barley"] [tv95, tv97]

ghaid- [pre-Germanic/pre-Italic] > *ghaid-i- "buck" [Germanic] goat, gaits
[Gothic]; Latin haedus
"kid"
[< ?Afro-Asiatic "Atlantic";
see Assyrian gadu: "goat", Akk gadû, Hebrew g-d-i: "kid"] [tvgb/94, tv97]

gheldh- "to pay" [Germanic & Slavic] > *geldam "payment" > geld, gield [OE]
"payment, service"
> geld, Danegeld, gelt; > gelt "payment, reward" [OHG] > gelt [cw]
[?rel. to ghl-to-, root of "gold"?]

gn- [acc. cw < ?IE *ghen-] [cw]
gnaga "to bite" [ON] > nag [cw]
gnagan [OE] > gnaw [cw]
gnag-sk- > gnasko:n > nascon "to nibble" [OHG] > nosh [cw]
gnatt "biting insect" > gnaet [OE] > gnat [cw]

grafo-, gravo- > Graf m. "count [nobilty]", grave [M Dutch] > margrave,
palsgrave [jtw]

grat-, krat- "to scratch" [cw, rc]
grat- > grater [O Fr < Germanic] > grate [cw, rc]
krat- > kratto:n > cratsen "to scrape" [M Dutch] > scratch [cw, rc]

gre:waz > graeg [OE] > gray, grey; ? >grighund [OE] > greyhound
[acc. cw <? IE *gher- "to shine, glow, gray"] [cw]
gri:syaz "gray" > gris [Fr] >grisaille, grison, grizzle; griseus "grayish"
[Med Latin] griseous
[acc. cw <? IE *gher- "to shine, glow, gray"] [cw]

guaffile "Haspel" [hook?] [It < Germanic] [tv84]

guatare "to watch", guattero "Küchenjunge"
[It < Germanic root of Wächter] [tv84]

guidrigildo "reward" [It < Germanic] [tv84]

guiffa "Zeichen des rechtlichen Besitzes [property sign?]" [It < Germanic]
[tv84]

gunthyo: "battle" [tv84, my sp.]

gwet- "resin?" [Celtic & Germanic] > *gwet-u > kwithu- [OE] > cwudu, cwidu,
cudu "resin, mastic
gum, cud, i.e. something chewed" [OE] > cud, quid; > *betu- "birch, birch
resin" [Celtic] > bitumen
[Latin < Gaulish] > bitumen, [cw] > betún "bitumen, wax, asphalt, shoe
polish, etc." [Sp]


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Sun Feb 21 21:12:54 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1999 15:12:54 -0600
Subject: non-IE/Germanic/h
Message-ID: <SUN.21.FEB.1999.151254.0600.>

Habicht m. "hawk" [jtw]

Hafen m. "harbor" [jtw]

Haff "bay", haef [O Sax], haf [ON] [jtw]

Hahn m. "cock, rooster" [jtw]

hakan-, ha:kon, ho:ka "hook, peg, crook"
[< ?Vasconic;
see Basque gako "key", kako "hook, peg, crook"]
[acc. cw, < ? IE *keg- "hook, tooth"] [cw, tv97]
hake "hook" [MLG] > harquebus [cw, tv97]
haki "hook" [ON] > hake [cw, tv97]
hakila- > hekel "hatchel, flax comb with hooklike teeth' [M Dutch] > heckle
[cw, tv97]
hakkiyan > haccian [OE] > to hack [cw, tv97]
ho:c [OE] > hook; [cw, tv97]
Haken "hook, peg, crook/ed" [cw, tv97]

halbaz > healf [OE] > half [cw]
[acc. cw <? IE *skelp- < *skei- "to cut"]

haldan "to keep or drive cattle, etc." > healdan [OE] > hold; haltan "to
stop, hold back" [OHG] >
halten, halt;
houden "to hold" [M Dutch] > avast
[cw rel. this to Latin celer "swift"
sees both < ?IE *kel- "to drive, set in swift motion"] [cw, als, d, p&a]

haltha- "slope, slant, incline" > Halde "slope, hillside", heald [OE]
"hillside"
[< ?Vasconic;
see Basque halde, alde, ualde < ?*kalde "face, side, flank"] [tv95, tv97]

hand, Hand f. [p&a, rc]

Harke f. "rake" [jtw]

Harn "bladder"
[< ?Vasconic";
see Basque garnur "bladder" < *kernu] [tv95, tv97]

harbista [pre-Germanic] > harvest, Herbst,
carpere [Latin]
karpós "fruit" [Gr]
[< ?Afro-Asiatic "Atlantic";
see Akk harpu "Fall"] [tv97]

harja > Heer, here [OE] "army" [< ?Afro-Asiatic "Atlantic"; see Akk qarâbu
"war, battle"] [tv95,
tv97]

harpo: [pre-Germanic] > harp, Harfe
[< ?Afro-Asiatic "Atlantic";
maybe rel. to *harbista, see *harpo:n "to pluck"] [tv97]

hastro "Band [tape, ribbon]" [It < Germanic] [tv84]

hatas > Hader "quarrel", hea*u- "war" > [OE] hate; Haß, haine "hate" [Fr <
Germanic]
[< ?Afro-Asiatic "Atlantic";
see pre-Sem. k'-t-]
[see Gr ke:dos "worry, grief" Welsh cawdd "anger"] [tv84, tv95, tv97]

hatchet, hache [Fr < Germanic] [tv84]

Hechel [jtw, tv84] [Agriculture]

Hecke, haie "file [of soldiers]" [Fr < Germanic] [tv84]

Hede [jtw] [Agriculture]

Helm m., helmet [bc, jtw]

Hengst m. "stallion" [jtw]

Henne f., hen [jtw]

herald, hérault [Fr < Germanic] [tv84]

Herd m. "stove" [jtw]

Herr "man, gentleman, lord" [jtw]

herring, Hering m. [rc]

Herzog m. "duke" [jtw]

hissen "to hoist" [jtw]

hlaupan "to leap"
[acc. cw < ?IE *klou- "to bend" but likely unknown] [cw]
hle:apan [OE] > leap, hle:apwi:nce [OE] > lapwing; hlaupa "to leap" [ON] >
loopen "to leap, run"
[M Dutch] > [inter]loper;
lo:p "course, running" [MLG] > lopp "course" [Swedish] > gauntlet; hlouffan
"to leap" [OHG] >
Lauf "race" > langlauf;
galoper [OFr] > gallop;
waloper [O North Fr] > wallop;
aloper "to run away with a lover" [Anglo-Norman] > elope [cw]

hluta- "lot, portion" > hlot [OE] > lot, lot [Dutch] > lottery, lot [OFr] >
lotto, allot
[acc. cw < ?IE *kleu- "hook" but semantically obscure] [cw]

hn- "to pinch, close eyes, etc." [acc. cw <? IE *ken-] [cw]
hnappian "to doze, nap" [OE] > nap [cw]
ne:p[flo:d] "neaptide" [OE] > neap [tide] [cw]
nipen [M Dutch] > nip [cw]
hnöggr "miserly", nigard [M Eng] > nigard "miser" [obs. Eng] [cw]
noppe "pile" [M Dutch] > nap [cw]
nibbeln [LGer] > nibble [cw]
notten "to nod" [MHG], nodden [M Eng] > nod [cw]

hn- "to compress"
[acc. cw <? IE *ken-] [cw] [same root as *hn- above?]
hnekk- "neck, narrow or compressed part" > hnecca [OE] > neck; hnakur
"saddle" [ON], hnakki
"back of neck" > knacker
[?rel. to nuca "back of neck" (Sp)?]
hnutu [OE] > nut
[acc. cw, rel. to nux "nut" (Latin)]
hnukk- > nocke "tip of a bow" [M Dutch], nokke [M Eng] > nock
nok "projection, hook"[Norw dial] > nok [M Eng] > nook

Hof "court, courtyard" [tv84]

honte "shame" [Fr < Germanic] [tv84]

horst/hurst "grove" [OS, OHG, MLG] [eh]

Huld [tv84]

Huhn n. "chicken" [jtw]

hupp- > hoppe [M Dutch] > hop plant [cw]
[acc. cw, <? IE *skeup- "cluster"]

husam > house, Haus n.
[< ?Afro-Asiatic "Atlantic";
see Akk hussu "cane hut" < *khu:sV] [rc, tv97]


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Sun Feb 21 21:14:00 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1999 15:14:00 -0600
Subject: non-IE/Germanic/k/q
Message-ID: <SUN.21.FEB.1999.151400.0600.>

Kahn m. "rowboat" [jtw]

kak- "round object" > koek "cake", koekje [Dutch] > cookie;
kaka [ON] > cake;
köke "cake" [MLG] > cockaigne;
kuocho "cake" [OHG] > kuchen, quiche [cw, lt, rc]

kalbaz > calf, Kalb
[< ?Afro-Asiatic "Atlantic";
see Akk ?alpu/m "cattle"] [bc, jtw, tv97]

kalh- > callow [< ?Vasconic"] [tv97]

kante [Celtic, Germanic, Italic non IE] > Kante "edge"
[< ?Vasconic; see Basque kantu "slice, angle, rocks",
common in Iberian toponymy] [tv97, tv95]

Karpfen m., carp [bc]

Kaupo > caupo: [Latin] < Germanic; chap, cheap, kaufen [cw, tlm]

Karlaz "man." > ceorl "man" [OE] > churl;
karl "man, freeman" [ON] > carl, carling [cw]

kaur-yan > keyra "to drive" [ON] > skijoring
[acc. CW < ?IE *ge:u-] [cw]

keel, Kiel m. [bc, jtw]

ker-, kr-n > "horn"
[acc. tv, < ?Afro-Asiatic "Atlantic"; Sem. q-r-n "horn",
found in W. IE]
[also "head", acc cw] [cw, tv97]
kr-n > hurnaz > horn, Horn; cornu: "horn" [Latin] [cw, tv97]
kr-s-n > hurznuta > hyrnet [OE] > hornet [cw]
kr-ei > hraina > hreinn "reindeer" [ON] > reindeer; hrinda > hrind "ox"
[OHG] > Rinder "cattle",
rinderpest [cw]
kr at s-no- > kranion "skull" > cranium, migraine [cw]
kr- at - > kare:, kara "head" > charivari, cheer, cara "face" [Sp]; karoun "to
stupify, to be
stupified" [Gk] > carotid; katato:n [Gk] > carrot [cw]
kri: > krios "ram" [Gk] > criosphinx [cw]
ker-wo- > cervus "deer" [Latin]; cervix "neck" [Latin] [cw]
keru-do- > herutaz > heorot [OE] > hart [cw]
ker at s- > keras "horn" [Gk]; sar "head" [Pers] [cw]
ker at s-ro > cerebrum [Latin] [cw]
koru- > korumbos "uppermost point, head" [Gk] > corymb, koruphe: "head"
[Gk] > coryphaeus
[cw]
koru-do- > korudos "crested lark" [Gk] > corydalis [cw]
koru-na > korune: "club" > cornyebacterium [cw]

khro:t'o [pre-Germanic] > hro:t'/a > Ruß "soot",
[same as rot or rust?]
[< ?Afro-Asiatic "Atlantic" *qutru] [tv97]

kidh "kid" > child, kid, Kind n. [rc]

king, König m. [bc, jtw]

klip [Dutch], cliff, Klippe "sea rock" [als, tv84]

knapon > "boy" > Knabe m. "boy", knave [rc]

kn- > "to compress into a ball"
[acc. cw <? *gen-?] [cw]
kn-a-pp- > cnaepp "hilltop" > knap,
cnoppen [M Dutch] "to snap",
knappen "to snap" [MLG] > knap, knapsack;
cnop [OE] > knop [cw]
kn-a-k- > knacken "to crack" [MHG] > knackwurst [cw]
kn-a-r- > knart "know in wood" [Norw] > knarre "knob" [M Eng] > knar;
knor "a swelling" [M Eng] > knur [cw]
kn-u-b- > knobbe,
knubbe "knot in wood, knob" [MLG] > knob, nub [cw]
kn-u-k- > cnocian [OE] > knock;
gnocco, nocchio "knot in wood" [It < Germanic] > gnocchi;
knökel [MLG], knakel [M Eng] > knuckle [cw]
kn-u-l- > cnyllan [OE] "to strike" > knell, knoll;
cnoll [OE] > knoll [cw]
kn-u-p- > cnoppe [M Dutch] "knob, bud" > knobkerrie [cw]
kn-u-t- > cnytten [OE] "to tie in a knot, knit" > knit;
cnotta [OE] "knot in cord" > knot;
knu:tr "knot in cord" [ON] > knout [cw]
kn-u-th- > knodo "knob, knot" [OHG] > quenelle [Fr] > quenelle [cw]
kn-i:-b- > cni:f > knife [cw] [see below]
kn-e-th- > cnedan [OE] > knead [cw]
[?how do these relate to Sp. nudo, ñudo?]

knife, knyft "pocketknife" [W Fries],
kni:fr [Scandinavian],
Kneif/Kneip "pocketknife",
canivet [O Fr],
canif "large pocketknife" [Fr],
Basque ganibet, kanibet "pocket knife"
[< ?Vasconic] [tv95]

knight, Knecht m. "farmhand" [bc]

koll- > colla "agony, torture" [It < Germanic] [tv84]

Kosten, costian "try, prove, taste" [OE], [tlm]

kr- "curving, crooked"
[acc. cw <? IE *ger-?; see tv below] [cw]
kra:ppo:n "hook" > kra:pfo "hook, claw" > agraffe;
graper "to harvest grapes [O Fr < Germanic] > grape;
grapon [O Fr < Germanic] > grapnel; [cw]
grappa "vine stem, brandy" [It dial < Germanic] > grappa;
crumb/crump "crooked, bent, stooping" [OE] > crummie, crumpet, crumple [cw]
krimpen "to wrinkle" [LG] > crimp [cw]
crampe "hook" [M Dutch], *kramp "hook" [Frankish] > cramp [cw]
krampfo "a cramp" [OHG], O Fr [< Germanic] crampe > cramp [cw]
crypel [OE] > cripple [cw]
kreupan > cre:opan [OE] > creep [cw]
krink "a ring" [MLG] > cringle [?rel to "ring"? <?hring?] [cw]
krengan > cringan "to yield" [OE] > cringe [cw]
crinkelen "to make kinks in" [M Dutch] > crinkle [cw]
kriki "a bend, nook" [ON] > creek [cw]
kro:kr "a hook" [ON] > crook [cw]
kro:k [Frankish] "hook" > croc "a hook" [O Fr] > crochet, crocket, croquet,
crouch, encroach [cw]
crycc "bent staff, crutch" [OE] > crutch [cw]
crosse "crook" [O Fr < Germanic] > crosier, lacrosse [cw]
crulle "curly" [M Dutch] > cruller, curl [cw]
[?rel. crispus (Latin)?]
cranc-staef "a weaving implement" [OE] > crank [cw]
krake "a sickly beast" [Norw], crok [M Eng] "old ewe" > crock [cw]
karpa "to boast [ON] > to carp [cw]
kroes "curled" [M Dutch], grosele [O Fr < Germanic] "gooseberry" >
grossularite [cw]
[?also gooseberry < groseberry?] [cw]

kr- "rounded mass, collection"
[acc. cw < ?IE *ger-] [cw]
cruma "fragment" [OE] > crumb [cw]
kruppa "rump" [Frankish],
croup "rump" [O Fr < Germanic] > croup, croupier, crupper [cw]
cropp "cluster, bunch, ear of corn" [OE] > crop [cw]
gruppo [It < ?Germanic] > group [cw]
crocc "pot" [OE] > crock [cw]
cruyse "pot" [M Dutch] > cruse [cw]
cribb "manger" [OE] > crib [cw]
cradel [OE] > cradle [cw]
kripya "cradle" [Frankish],
cresche "crib" [O Fr < Germanic] > crèche
craet "wagon" [OE], kartr "wagon" [ON] > cart [cw]
croft "small enclosed field" [OE] > croft [cw]

krab- > krafla "to crawl" [ON] > crawl
[acc. cw < ? IE *gerbh] [cw]

Krabbe, Krebs, crab
[< ?Afro-Asiatic "Atlantic";
see Akk aqrabu]
[see Gr. kárabos "crab", skorpiós]
[acc. cw, Germanic *krabb < IE *gerbh- "to scratch"] [cw, tv95, tv97]

k'rimp'an "tense, cramped" > krapfo "hook, claw" > cramp, Krampf; krapfen
"fritters, donut"
[< ?Vasconic;
see pre-Basque *garba "broke, junk", *krapo "claw, clip, junk"]
[acc. cw < ? IE *ger-] [cw, tv95, tv97]

Krippe f., crib [jtw]

ku- "hollow, round, lump" [cw, rc]
kubo:n "hut, shed, room" > cofa "bedchamber, closet" [OE] > cove;
cubbe "pen, stall" [M Dutch] > cubby;
*kuba-wald "house ruler" [Germanic] > kobolt [MHG] > cobold, kobold [cw]
kutam > cot [OE] > cot, cottage [cw]
kuto:n > cote "shelter" [OE] > cote [cw]
k[e]ud- > codd "bag, husk" [OE] > cod;
cudele "cuttlefish" (refers to ink bag) [OE] > cuttle [cw]
k[e]ut- > cieter "intestines" [OE] > chiterling [M Eng] > chitterlings,
chitlins [cw]
kukk- > cok "haycock, pile of straw" [M Eng] > cock [cw]
kuk- > ci:cen [OE] > chicken [cw]
kugg- > kugge "cog" M Swedish], cog [cw]
kuggila > cygel [OE] > cudgel [cw]
keulaz > kielswin [LG] > kielson;
kiel [M Dutch] > keel [cw]
ku:p > ku:pe "cask, tub, barrel" [M Dutch] > cooper [cw]
kunt > kunte [MHG] > cunte [M Eng] [cw]
ku:ra: > ku:ra: "to crouch, lay in wait" [Ice.],
couren [M Eng] > cower [cw]
ku:ga "to oppress" [O Norse] > to cow [cw]

ku:z/e [HG 15th c.] > Kauz [type of owl]
[?< Vasconic *kuwonts/a > *k^u:nts > *k^u:ts,
see Basque hutz, ontz] [tv97]

quabbeln "to tremble, shake like jelly" [LG],
quaven "to tremble" > quaver
[acc. cw <? IE * gwe:bh-] [cw]

quac "unguent, liquid" [M Dutch" > quacksalver
[acc. cw <? IE * gwe:bh-] [cw]

Quelle "spring, fountain"
[< ?Afro-Asiatic "Atlantic"] [tv97]
[?rel. to "well"?]


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Sun Feb 21 21:14:16 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1999 15:14:16 -0600
Subject: non-IE/Germanic/l
Message-ID: <SUN.21.FEB.1999.151416.0600.>

l at k- > lake,
lacus [Latin],
loch [Gaelic]
[Celtic /o/ does not match Latin /a/,
suggesting it may have originally been /@/] [eh]

lamb, Lamm n. [bc, jtw]

lath
[< ?Afro-Asiatic "Atlantic"] [tv97]

latha:- > Latte, Laden "slat, tailwood"
[see O Ir slat, Welsh llath "rod < *slatna:;
see Basque lata "shingle, board",
Span, Port lata, Cat llata, Fr. latte, It, Rhaet latta < ?pre-Germanic
*laththo: (or cognate);
Latin la:tus has no good etymology] [tv95]

Laube "summerhouse?" [or from laub "leaf"?]
lubbione "laube" [It < Germanic] [tv84]

leak, Loch n. (hole), Leck n. (in ship) [als]

leap [bc, rc]

leather, Leder n. [jtw]

Lee f., lee [jtw]

leg [rc]

Leid "sorrow, woe" [tv84]

le:od "chief of social unit" [OE] [eh]

li:k- "body, form, like, same" [cw, rc]
li:c [OE] > like, lich gate, -ly; Leiche f. "body, corpse" [cw, rc]
gali:kaz > geli:c [OE] > alike;
aiwo [ever] gali:kaz > ae:lc [OE] > each [cw]
is-li:k > ilca [OE] > ilk [cw]
[fro]lijc [M Dutch] > frolic [cw]
li:kyan > li:cian [OE] > to like [cw]
hwa-li:k > which [cw]

live, leben [tv84]

loan, Lohn, lønn "reward" [Norw] [tlm]

lodge, loge [Fr < Germanic] [tv84]

Luft [tv84]

lugyom "oath" [Celtic, Germanic] > liuga "marriage" [Goth], luge [O Ir] [tlm]
[related to "league", "link"?]

lok-, luk- > Loh "Hain", also found in German toponyms
[< ?Vasconic] [tv95]

Luke f. "hatch [of ship]" [jtw]

lu:t- "small"
[acc. cw < ?IE *leud-] [cw]
luttilaz [W Germanic] > ly:tel [OE] > little [cw]
lu:tan [OE] > lout [cw]
lu:ta "to bend down" [ON] > lout [cw]
loteren "to shake, totter" [M Dutch], loitren [M Eng] > loiter [cw]


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Sun Feb 21 21:15:19 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1999 15:15:19 -0600
Subject: non-IE/Germanic/m
Message-ID: <SUN.21.FEB.1999.151519.0600.>

m at k-ú > *mag at th > maegethe, m at két, maegden [OE] "girl" > maiden [cw, eh]
m at k-ú > *me at k-ó > *me:kó > *mêkó- > *mégaz > mág "kinsman" [OE] [eh]
m at k-ú > *me at k-ó > *me:kó > *mêkó- > *me:kón- > *megan- > mága "son" [OE] [eh]
m at k-ú- > *m at kw-o- > *makwo "son" [Celtic] > macc [O IR], maqqa [Oghamic],
mapo > mab >
ap [Welsh] [eh]
m at ghu- > *magu "servant" > mug [O Ir], meu-dwy [Welsh] [eh]
maguz "son" > magu [OE], *magwi: > mawi [Gothic] [eh]
CW notes IE *maghu- "youth" [cw]

magge Dutch [?]"(eel)pout," [ecp]

mail- > ma:l "spot, blemish" [OE] > mole
[acc. cw < ?IE *mai-lo- < ?IE *mai "to soil, defile"] [cw]
[?rel. to macula (Latin) < non-IE] [cw]

maisk- > ma:sc, ma:cs, ma:x "mashed malt" [OE] > mash
[acc. cw < ?IE *meik- "to mix"] [cw]

manigoldo "rogue, scoundrel" [It < Germanic] [tv84]

Marder m., marten [jtw]

markos > Mähre "mare, riding horse?", mare [Ger., Celt.]
[< Altaic?] [jtw, mcv]

mast, Mast m. [bc]

meat, Metzger "butcher" [d, p&a]

men-i- "small fish" > myne, mynwe [OE] > meneu [M Eng] > minnow
[acc. cw <? IE men- "small, isolated"] [cw]

mer- "to tie" > marren "to tie" [M Dutch] > marline;
mo:ren "to tie" [MLG] > moor

mere, Meer,
mare [Latin],
muir [Gaelic]
[non-correlation of vowels] [eh]

merg- "boundary, border" > mark- "boundary, border, to mark" [cw]
mearc [OE] > mark [cw]
mark "border" [M Dutch] > margrave [cw]
marc "border country" [OF] > march, marquis, marche [Fr < Germanic], marca
[Med. Latin] >
marchioness [cw, tv84]
marcare [It < Germanic] > to mark out [cw]
marc [OE], marke [MHG], mark [Swedish] > mark, Mark, merk, markka [money] [cw]
markya- "mark. border" > merki [ON] "mark" > marque [OF] > remark [cw]
mark:on [Frankish] > march[i]er "to trample" [OF] > marc, march [cw]
margo: "border, edge" [Latin] > margin [cw]
[?rel. to ?Etruscan? merk- "trade, commerce, etc."?

me:no:n > moon, Mond;
me:no:th > month, Monat
[< ?Afro-Asiatic "Atlantic";
see Akk imnu: "to count";
see IE *me: "knife"] [tv97]

mete, messen "to measure]
[< ?Afro-Asiatic "Atlantic"] [tv97]

Moos, mousse "foam" [Fr < Germanic] [tv84]
moraine, Moräne "moraine",
Mur[e] "pile of rocks [Bavarian]
[?< Vasconic;
see Basque murru "hill"] [tv97]

Möwe f. "gull" [jtw]

munthaz [Germanic] > munths [Gothic];
mu:th [OE] > mouth
[acc. cw < W IE *mn-to- < IE men- "projecting body part",
root of mo:ns (Latin)] [am, cw]

muspilli mythological hot southern land [sg]


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Sun Feb 21 21:16:00 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1999 15:16:00 -0600
Subject: non-IE/Germanic/n
Message-ID: <SUN.21.FEB.1999.151600.0600.>

Nabja "bird's beak" > neb, nib, nipple [cw]

Nachen [jtw] [seafaring and fishing term]

nehmen "to take, capture, accept" [tv84]

ne:hw-iz "near" > ne:ah [OE] > near; nah [cw, rc]

Netz n., net [jtw, tv84]

novigildo "Geldstraffe--neunfacher Geldbetracht, [monetary fine?]" [It <
Germanic] [tv84]

Norden m., north [bc, jtw]


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Sun Feb 21 21:16:53 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1999 15:16:53 -0600
Subject: non-IE/Germanic/p
Message-ID: <SUN.21.FEB.1999.151653.0600.>

patha- > path, pade [Finnish] Pfad m.
[< ?Akkadian pada:nu(m)?
< ?Vasconic *padan?
(?whence Bsq haran?] [ecp, mcv3/97, tv1/99]

per-at- > praten [Dutch] [ecp]

perap "press together > proppe "plug, wad" [Middle Dutch] [ecp]

perat "perceive, realize." > præt "trick, skill" [Old English] [ecp]

per-egh- "stick out." > preg "pointed stick" [Old English] [ecp]

peret "desire, love, be happy." > pret "fun" [Dutch] [ecp]

peri-gh- > priën "strive for" Middle Dutch [ecp]

Pflug m., plow [jtw]

philt'-a > [pre-W Germanic] > filt'a- [W Germanic] > felt, Filz
[< ?Vasconic";
see Basque bilho "mane, hair", bildots "lamb" > pre-Basque *pildo- "hair"]
[tv95, tv97]

pier (earth)worm [Dutch] [ecp]

pig [tlm]

pisk- > fish, fisks [Goth],
piscus [Lat.],
íasc [Ir]
[W IE only] [am]

plegan "to pledge" [West Germanic] > pledge, play;
*plehti- > plight (p < b, [eh]) [cw, eh, rc]

preus- freeze; *prost > frost
[< ?Vasconic,
see Basque hotz < ? *host < *rost < *prost] [tv97]

prevelen "mumble" [Dutch] < "announce, say" [ecp]

Pugge, Pogge "frog, toad"
[< ?Vasconic;
see Basque puga "toad" ] [tv97]

pursa- "bog-myrtle." [ecp]


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Sun Feb 21 21:17:45 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1999 15:17:45 -0600
Subject: non-IE/Germanic/r
Message-ID: <SUN.21.FEB.1999.151745.0600.>

Rabe m., raven [jtw] [?same root as well]

rank, rang [Fr < Germanic] [tv84]

rappa "schrund, krätze" [It < Germanic] [tv84]

rain, Regen m. [als, d, lt, p&a]

ratire, arraitire "to shriek" [It < Germanic] [tv84]

Reh n. , roe [buck] [jtw]

Reiher m. heron [jtw]

Reede f., [sea] roads [jtw]

Reuse "fish trap/basket" [from Schmidt] [tv84]

rich, riche [Fr < Germanic] [tv84]

ringen "to wrestle" [from Schmidt] [tv84]

risan "to rise" > rise [rc]

rocca "Rocken" [It < Germanic] [tv84]

rodd- [OE] > rod
[acc. cw <? IE *reudh- "to clear"] [cw]

Rogen m. [fish] roe [jtw]

Roß n. "steed", horse [jtw]

Rost/rösten, roast, rôtir [Fr < Germanic] [tv84]

Ruder n. "oar", rudder [bc]

Rüge "rebuke, reprimand" [tv84]

ru:no- "mystery, secret" [Germanic, Celtic] > ru:naz > ru:nian [OE] "to
whisper" [OE] > round;
r:un [ON] > rune, runo "song, poem" [Finnish]


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Sun Feb 21 21:19:20 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1999 15:19:20 -0600
Subject: non-IE/Germanic/s
Message-ID: <SUN.21.FEB.1999.151920.0600.>

Note that /s + consonant/ may be the result of "mobile s"

Sache "legal case" [from Bach 1970] [tv84]

sail, Segel n. [bc]

saiwaz > sea, See f. "sea, lake" [als, bc, jtw, rc]

saljan "give, sell" [N Ger, Ingwaeonic] > sellan, syllan [OE] > sale, sell
[cw, tlm]
[acc. cw <? IE *sel- "grasp, take"?]

salon, salle [Fr < Germanic] [tv84]

sa:n "sofort [immediately]" [OHG] [tv84]

Säule, sy:l [OE] "pillar
[< ?Afro-Asiatic "Atlantic"] [tv97]

scarf, scharf, écharpe [Fr < Germanic] [tv84]

scerfa "trousseau, dowry" [It. dial. < Germanic] [tv84]

Schaf n., sheep [jtw]

Schild m., shield [bc, jtw]

schnarchen, snore, sarnacare, sarnacchiare "" [It < Germanic] [tv84]

Schöffe, échevin "civil register/magistrate [Fr < Germanic] [tv84]

Schinken, Schenkel m. "ham",
sceanca [OE] > shank
[< ?Vasconic;
see Basque zango, etc. "foot, bone" < pre-Basque *skanko [jtw, tv95]

schippire "to escape" [It < Germanic] [tv84]

Schleuder f. "sling, catapult" [jtw]

Schloss/Schlüssel "castle, keep" [tv84]

Schuld "blame" [tv84]

Schultheiß [tv84]

schwören, swear [jtw]

Schrank, scranno "cupboard, wardrobe" [It. < Germanic] [tv84]

scop "poet" [cw]

selhaz > seolh [OE] > seal [cw, jtw, rc]
[acc. cw, prob. loanword from Finnish]

sebun > seven, sieben
[< ?Afro-Asiatic "Atlantic";
see Akk sebu:/m]
[found in all IE and W. European languages] [tv95, tv97]

sgherro "robber" [tv84]

shoulder, Schulter f. [rc]

sick [rc]

sieden "to boil" [tv84]

silver, Silber n.
[?rel. Basque zilhar] < ?Vasconic < ?Afro-Asiatic
[?rel. Heb. barzel, Akk. parzillu] [tv2/98]

sinc "reward, gift" [OE, O Sax] [tlm]

sink, sinken [tv84]

six, sechs
[< ?Afro-Asiatic "Atlantic";
see Akk ses^s^u; all IE] [tv95]

skalkaz "servant" > [mar]shal ["mare servant" < marko-skalkaz],
sini-skalkaz > seneschal,
Schalk [cw, tlm, tv84]

skathla [N Germanic] > ska:ld [ON] > scolde [M Eng] > scold, skald [cw]
[acc. cw, <? IE *sekw-
"to say, utter" > *skw-e-tlo- "narration"]

skatts "cattle" > "treasure" [Gothic], Schatz [tlm]

skipam > ship, skiff, schip [Dutch] Schiff n.,
schifo [it < Germanic],
équiper [Fr < Germanic] [bc, cw, jtw, rc]

sleu- possible base of several Germanic derivatives [cw]
slu:-m > slu:ma [OE] > slumber [cw]
slautyan > sle:te > sleet [cw]
sleura- > schlier "mud. slime" [MHG] > schlieren [cw]
sleug- > slug-, sluk- > slugg [Norw], slagga [Swedish]"slow moving person
or animal"; slugge,
sluggen [M Eng] > slug, sluggard [cw]
log "lazy, slack" [Dutch] > logy [cw]
Schlaf m., sleep [rc]

smalvir "to crush" [It. dial. < Germanic] [tv84]

snu- "nose" > snout,
Schnauze f.; etc. [rc]

sound, Sund [tv84]

south, Süd m. [bc, jtw]

spalto "bay-window, doorway" [It < Germanic] [tv84]

Speck m., "bacon" [jtw]

Speiche f., spoke [jtw]

spell [eh]

Sperber, epervier "hawk" [Fr < Germanic] [tv84]

Spieß m. "spear", spit [cooking],
épieu "spit" [Fr < Germanic] [jtw, tv84]

sprote, sprat [tv84]

spur, Sporn, espuela [Span < Germanic],
éperon [Fr < Germanic] [tv84]

stake, stacca [It < Germanic],
estaca [Sp < Germanic] [tv84]

sta:dho [pre-Germanic] > sto:dha- [early Germanic] > stuot [OHG] > Stute,
Gestüt "mare" [tv95]

stam- "to push" > stammer, stumble [cw, rc]

stamberga "shed" [It < Germanic] [tv84]

stango: > Stange, stanga "pole" [It < Germanic],"[tv84, tv95]

staup "cooking pot" > stoup, stove [cw, rc]

staura > staurr "stake" [O Norse] [tv95]

Stehen "to stay?"[tv84]

steorra [OE] > star; sterno [OHG]
[< ?Afro-Asiatic "Atlantic",
see Akkadian Ishtar] [tv97]

steer, Steur n. "rudder"
[< ?Afro-Asiatic "Atlantic"] [bc, jtw, tv97]

steura, theura > steer, Stier
[< Afro-Asiatic, ubiquitous in IE] [tv95]

stinco "shin, shinbone" [It < Germanic] [tv84]

stunkwan [Lehman] stink, stigqan "to push" [Gothic], stoßen "to push"
[< ?Vasconic;
see Basque zunka "blow to the head"] [tv97]

Stint [jtw] [seafaring and fishing term]

Storch, stork [bc, jtw]

strale "dart, arrow" [It < Germanic] [tv84]

Strand m., strand "beach, fringe" [bc]

stropicciare "to rub, scrub" [It < Germanic] [tv84]

sturgeon [rc]

Sturm m., storm [jtw]

sühnen "to atone" [jtw]

Sünde "sin" [tv84]

swart-, surt- "black" > swart, swarthy, Surtr [mythical fire giant]
[< ?Vasconic;
see Basque surtan "on fire"] [tv95, tv97]

swem- > *swimyan > schwimmen, to swim;
*swum-to > *sundam > sund "swimming, sea" [OE] > sound; sonde "sounding
line" [OF] > sound
[cw, jtw]

sweng[w] > swingan [OE] > swing;
*swangyan > swengan "to swing, shake" [OE] > swinge;
*swank- > swanken [MHG] > swank; swagga [Norw], swag [cw]

sword, Schwert n., [bc]


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Sun Feb 21 21:20:19 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1999 15:20:19 -0600
Subject: non-IE/Germanic/t
Message-ID: <SUN.21.FEB.1999.152019.0600.>

tak "to take" > taka [ON] > take [cw, rc]

Takel n., tackle [jtw]

talgaz > Talg m., talow [OE] > tallow
[acc. cw < ? *IE *del- "to drip"] [cw, jtw, tv84]

tap- "plug" > tap, Zapfen m. [cw,rc]

tasca [It < Germanic], Tasche "pocket" [tv84]

thousand, tausend [from Bach 1970] [tv84]

taw- "to make" > heriot, taw, tow, tool [cw, rc]

thing (assembly), Ding n. "a case before a court of law" [bc, jtw]

thur-p'a > thorp, dorf
[< ?Afro-Asiatic "Atlantic";
see Sem d-u-r "circle";
see Latin tur-b-a "mob",
Gk túrbe: "loud, confusion",
thwerila > "twirl"] [tv84, tv95]

tiber [OE] "offering, sacrifice",
[Unge]ziefer "vermin"
[< ?Afro-Asiatic "Atlantic";
see Akk zi:bu "offering'] [tv95, tv97]

tide, Zeit "time" [tv84]

titta > "teat" [rc]

tovaglia "tablecloth" [It < Germanic] [tv84]

Tran [jtw] [seafaring and fishing term]

truce, tregua [Sp < Germanic], trève [Fr < Germanic] [tv84]

troop, troupeau "Herde" [Fr < Germanic] [tv84]

twik- "pinch off" > ?twig, Zweig m.?, tweak, twitch [cw, rc]


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Sun Feb 21 21:21:13 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1999 15:21:13 -0600
Subject: non-IE/Germanic/v, w
Message-ID: <SUN.21.FEB.1999.152113.0600.>

vodal "homeland" [OHG] [from Bach 1970] [tv84]

Wachs n., wax [jtw]

Waffe f., weapon [jtw]

waip- "sweetbriar" > Middle Dutch wepe, weype < dialectic German [epc]

wak-e:- "to wake" > wacian [OE] > wake;
[< ?Afro-Asiatic "Atlantic",
see Semitic w-q-i: "to keep, preserve"] [tv97]

watch, guaite [Fr < Germanic] [tv84] [same as wak-?]

walhaz "foreigner" > Welsh, walnut, Walloon, Vlakh, Wälsche
[rel to folk?, to Volcae?] [cw]

wange, guancia "cheek" [It < Germanic] [tv84]

ward-e:- "to look out, to guard" > weardian [OE] > ward
[< ?Afro-Asiatic "Atlantic",
see Semitic w-r-d, j-r-d [to descend, also "serve"] [tv97]

warrant, garant "guarantor" [Fr < Germanic] [tv84]

weasel, Wiesel [jtw]

weihen [tv84]

Weizen n., wheat [jtw] [Agriculture]

Welpe, hwelp [OE, O Sax] > whelp
[< ?Afro-Asiatic "Atlantic";
see Sem. k-l-b "dog"] [tv97]

wepnam "weapon" [rc]

west, West m. [bc, jtw]

winter, Winter [tv84]

Wirt m. "landlord" [jtw]

wolcae tribal name > ?folk (Latin) [rc]

Wolke [tv84]

womb [rc]

Wrack n., wreck [jtw]

wyf "female" > wife (West Germanic) [bc, cw, d, p&a, rc]


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Sun Feb 21 21:21:58 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Sun, 21 Feb 1999 15:21:58 -0600
Subject: non-IE/Germanic/z
Message-ID: <SUN.21.FEB.1999.152158.0600.>

zazzera "mane" [It < Germanic] [tv84]

zwingen "to force" [tv84] [same as *twik-? rmcc]


From mclasutt at brigham.net  Tue Feb 23 15:20:11 1999
From: mclasutt at brigham.net (Dr. John E. McLaughlin and Michelle R. Sutton)
Date: Tue, 23 Feb 1999 08:20:11 -0700
Subject: St Jerome
Message-ID: <TUE.23.FEB.1999.082011.0700.>

Peter &/or Graham wrote:

> Sheila mentions Jerome's Latin style, and names:
> (a) the choice of Greeek text to translate:
> >It is a pious work but dangerously presumptive to pick the one right text
> >from all the possible texts,

> (b) the problems of introducing new translations which are different from
> those already in existence:
> >cry out that I am a sacrilegious forger because I have dared to add,
> >change or correct anything in the old books?

> (c) the need for the stress to be on the message, not the beauty of style:
> >  A translation for the Church, even if it has beauty of style, ought to
> >hide and even shun it,

> None of this has anything to do with the actual language.

It sounds more like Sheila got one to many raps on the knuckles from the nun
in her parochial school and has another agenda.  I agree.  No matter one's
religious affiliation or attitudes, this has got nothing to do with language.
Were it not for Bible translation and the efforts of the Summer Institute of
Linguistics and Wycliffe Bible Translators we would know virtually nothing
about hundreds of languages of New Guinea, South and Central America, Asia and
Africa.  Christian evangelization has probably been one of the greatest boons
to linguistic knowledge in history (note our only record of Gothic, etc.).

John McLaughlin
Utah State University


From iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu  Tue Feb 23 23:09:33 1999
From: iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu)
Date: Tue, 23 Feb 1999 17:09:33 -0600
Subject: Greek question
In-Reply-To: <008001be52c3$28e43f60$a75dac3e@niywlxpn>
Message-ID: <TUE.23.FEB.1999.170933.0600.>

	Perhaps I am merely displaying my ignorance, but all examples of
Bartholomae's Law that I am aware involve a morpheme boundary, where, if
assimilation had gone in the other way, information from the root would
have been lost.  So perhaps it is not simply a sound-change, and would not
necessarily apply internally.
	Just a suggestion ...

					DLW


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Wed Feb 24 02:10:20 1999
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (Patrick C. Ryan)
Date: Tue, 23 Feb 1999 20:10:20 -0600
Subject: Greek question
Message-ID: <TUE.23.FEB.1999.201020.0600.>

Dear Rich and IEists:

-----Original Message-----
From: Patrick C. Ryan <proto-language at email.msn.com>
Date: Tuesday, February 23, 1999 3:41 PM

<snip>

>In my opinion, yes. I believe that Sanskrit <k> can represent either IE <*k>
>or <*kh>.

>[ Moderator's opinion:
>  There is very little good evidence for voiceless aspirates in Indo-European.
>  --rma ]

Precisely. That is one of the important reasons that the IE sound-system
should be placed in the wider matrix of Nostratic.

I have found that Egyptian k corresponds to IE g(g^) and k(k^); ditto T
(bar-t) for g and k only; but Egyptian H (dot-h) corresponds to IE gh(g^h)
and k(h)(k^(h)); ditto x (hook-h) for gh and k(h) only.

<snip>

Pat

[ Moderator's response:
  If the Nostratic evidence independently requires 4 series of stops which
  oppose voicing and aspiration, and it can be shown that in Indo-European the
  Nostratic voiceless aspirates collapse together with the voiceless plains,
  well and good:  Cite the etymologies which support this claim.  Otherwise,
  the Nostratic evidence has nothing to offer for the reconstruction of a
  series of voiceless aspirates in Indo-European; the few which are claimed are
  the result of clusters of voiceless plain+laryngeal (specifically, *H_2),
  although there are those who see the Skt. voiceless aspirates as evidence of
  Prakrit interference (as the development of *sC to CCh in the Prakrits would
  provide a source for a hypercorrection of Skt. **sC to the attested sCh,
  where <C> represents any voiceless plain stop) and do not even accept this
  laryngeal development while otherwise fully accepting laryngeals.
  --rma ]


From glengordon01 at hotmail.com  Wed Feb 24 07:23:54 1999
From: glengordon01 at hotmail.com (Glen Gordon)
Date: Tue, 23 Feb 1999 23:23:54 PST
Subject: Greek question & the pre-history of *nekwt
Message-ID: <TUE.23.FEB.1999.232354.PST.>

I hope that one day I will be unhyphenated from the debate of
Patrick-Alexis. I really do not wish to pursue the catfight and won't
tolerate my name being abused any further by the moderator who
carelessly let's these messages to pass. Thank you, Mr. Moderator.

ME (GLEN):
>> Without getting too entangled in a flimsy Nostratic explanation
>> that ignores all IE laws as Patrick has done, *nekwt is similar to
>> words in Uralic...I recall there might be similar words in
>> Altaic?

ALEXIS:
>But Nostratic evidence could resolve the question of which
>velar to posit in IE.  It is not just IE laws that need to be
>followed but also the Nostratic ones.

...but IE laws must be obeyed first and foremost. Odd reconstructions
with a voiced aspirate must first be fully supportable internally within
the IE data before pulling Nostratic into this.

If we maintain the traditional IE reconstruction of the sort *nekwt,
this may not necessarily disobey any Nostratic sound correspondances. It
all depends on what external cognates you bring into the ante. I've seen
Bomhard's *nitl- for instance which I personally would re-reconstruct as
Nostratic *nukw (with trailing labiovelar). I have a hard time accepting
something that evolves so strangely as *tl seems to, in context with the
fact that more straightforward sound correspondances seem to still offer
difficulty in this budding Nostratic field. What's more, the scantily
attested *tl can evolve into a plethora of different ways and makes it
too easy for anyone to say anything about the etymology especially since
this phoneme doesn't seem to survive in any reconstructed Nostratic
daughter language, let alone a written one.

As Nostraticists seem to accept for the most part, a form like *nukw
would uneventfully become IE *nekw- as indeed we have in *nekwt with
additional neuter ending. Perhaps, the form exists in Uralic of the form
*nuk- although all I have seen is Finnish nukkua.

[ Moderator query:
  Neuter ending?  This is not a neuter in Latin, Greek, Sanskrit or Germanic.
  What neuter ending do you have in mind?
  --rma ]

I think IS or Dogolpolsky had a similar reconstructed item, one with an
Altaic language with */negu"/? I'll have to verify my info.

Note: Under Bomhard's *nitl, there is a Dravidian cognate *nik- that
would, if valid, seem to show a vowel shift of *u > *i like the one I
mentioned for the pronouns (cf. Nostratic *?u > *i-n > ya:n/yan-).
Sorry, Dr. Krisnamurti, Dravidian may have laryngeals (ie yaHn) but I am
still not sure that they can explain every instance of long vowel.

At any rate, back to IE, IE *nekwt could come from earlier *nukw with no
insult to Nostraticists and yet no odd comparisons with Egyptian and
other unlike languages. A labial MUST be posited for both IE AND
Nostratic (if we are to include IE *nekwt in a Nostratic cognate
series). Even when positing a form with *gh, we still can't hide from
the labial and in Nostratic terms, this means a labial must be posited
in some way (in my case, a velar labialized by preceding *u which
evolved to *e in IE but left behind the labial quality).

--------------------------------------------
Glen Gordon
glengordon01 at hotmail.com

Kisses and Hugs
--------------------------------------------


From glengordon01 at hotmail.com  Wed Feb 24 11:58:53 1999
From: glengordon01 at hotmail.com (Glen Gordon)
Date: Wed, 24 Feb 1999 03:58:53 PST
Subject: Update on *nekw and the N-word
Message-ID: <WED.24.FEB.1999.035853.PST.>

Hello, It's Glenny again,

Now that I have the source before me... Under Allan Bomhard's
"208. nitl[h]-/netl[h]- 'to rise, to arise; to lift, to raise; to
move'", there is:

IE *nek-/*nok- "to bear, to carry, to convey"
     (I've never seen this root. Does anyone know? I can only think
      of Latin nex and nocere - different things altogether. "To
      convey"? Isn't that conveyed with *g^no-s(k)-?)

AA *natl-/*n at tl- "to rise, to arise; to lift, to raise; to move"

Dravidian *nik- "to lift up, to raise, to get up from sleep"

Altaic *negu":- "to move from one place to another,
                 to wander about, to migrate"

Taking out AA (the only one with *tl), we're left with a clearer view.
However, I would go out on a limb and say that rather than the IE
cognate attested above, I would throw in IE *nekwt instead and possibly
Finnish nukkua "to sleep" (There's got to be a relation somehow with
nukkua) and that it all points to *nukw "to sleep" ("to sleep" -> "to
awaken"; "to sleep" -> "to sleep over" -> "to migrate"). Any Uralicists
in the house?

In all, I haven't personally verified the reconstructions yet, so anyone
is open to suspicions but so far this is my idea on the origin of IE
*nekwt.

--------------------------------------------
Glen Gordon
glengordon01 at hotmail.com

Kisses and Hugs
--------------------------------------------


From manaster at umich.edu  Wed Feb 24 16:38:16 1999
From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu)
Date: Wed, 24 Feb 1999 11:38:16 -0500
Subject: Help
Message-ID: <WED.24.FEB.1999.113816.0500.>

I would like to ask if there is anybody
out there who would like to help do some
actual work on language classification
and/or methods of language classification
and/or mathematical methods of language
classification.  Although I have several
collaborators, I could use several more.
Ditto re work on reconstruction, etymology,
and sound laws in IE (esp. Armenian, Balto-Slavic,
and history of IE studies), Altaic,
Uto-Aztecan, Kartvelian, Dravidian.

Alexis MR


From mcv at wxs.nl  Wed Feb 24 20:24:37 1999
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Wed, 24 Feb 1999 20:24:37 GMT
Subject: Greek question
In-Reply-To: <002c01be52dc$f1d98600$769ffad0@patrickcryan>
Message-ID: <WED.24.FEB.1999.202437.GMT.>

"Patrick C. Ryan" <proto-language at email.msn.com> wrote:

>I agree that *nokt- is not satisfactory.  But, on the basis of *neuk-,
>'dark', I believe it likeliest that there were two basically equivalent
>roots: *negh- and *neugh-.

I fail to understand.  If you can get *neugh- "on the basis of"
*neuk-, just like that, then what has this whole discussion,
starting with the problem of Greek nukh-, been about?  What's the
problem, if *gh and *k, *kw and *gwh are all interchangeable
anyway?

*neuk- "dark", apart from having the wrong vowel and the wrong
second consonant in the context of whether "night" comes from
*nekw-t- or *negwh-t-, is hardly credible as a PIE root, at least
based on the flimsy evidence given for it in Pokorny (Baltic and
one doubtful Latin word).  Probably just irregular reflexes of
*leuk- (or maybe *ne-leuk-?)

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam


From petegray at btinternet.com  Wed Feb 24 18:40:22 1999
From: petegray at btinternet.com (Peter &/or Graham)
Date: Wed, 24 Feb 1999 18:40:22 -0000
Subject: Greek nukh-
Message-ID: <WED.24.FEB.1999.184022.0000.>

There are other words that show variety k ~ kh in Greek.   I've just been
hunting through a list of them.  Interestingly the book separated out the
nukh- forms and said that they were "unexplained".

Chadwick offers an example of kh from ..k-s...  in aikhme:   The etymology
is evinced by the Mycenaean form ai-ka-sa-ma.

Peter


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Wed Feb 24 22:07:29 1999
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (Patrick C. Ryan)
Date: Wed, 24 Feb 1999 16:07:29 -0600
Subject: Ix-nay on the ostratic-nay
Message-ID: <WED.24.FEB.1999.160729.0600.>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

Dear Glen and IEists:

-----Original Message-----
From: Glen Gordon <glengordon01 at hotmail.com>
Date: Wednesday, February 24, 1999 3:05 PM

>On the subject of IE 1p singular and the "N-word",

>>From what I know of Bomhard, he has various reconstructions of the
>Nostratic 1rst person plural, Nostratic being the proposed mother of IE
>and various other languages in Europe and Asia, for those unaware. I
>recall 5 reconstructions for the pronoun: *wa, *?iya, *?a, *na, *ma. Now
>looking at that, one has to wonder how many pronouns there are suppose
>to be.

Personally, I have no problem with those circumstances at all. IMHO, the truest
appraisal of the situation in Nostratic is that it had *NO* pronouns only a
variety of nouns which were used in various contexts. A paper on the subject is
available at my website if anyone is interested: wa, 'hearer'; -ya, 'speaker';
?a, 'this (one)', na, 'one', and ma, 'converser'.

>Bomhard mentions an IE *e- 1rst person pronoun that I don't recall
>actually attested.

This is the demonstrative H4V, 'here', but because H4 did not inhibit
apophony, it appears in the IE dictionary as e-; H1V, 'there', would also
have yielded e-, and so the distinction between proximal and distal was
lost.

[ Moderator's comment:
  *H_4 is the "a-coloring" laryngeal that does *not* appear as <HH> in Hittite,
  so would not lead to *e- in any dictionary.
  --rma ]

>We should expect IE **u: instead as we find *tu: for 2ps.

First, long vowels are not phonemic in IE. Any long vowel must be the result
of a V + laryngal, or, more rarely, compensatory lengthening.

It is clear from the accusative (really absolute) *te (and other oblique
forms) that the base form is *tV. *tu/u: is a result of the syncope of *te +
we, which is an inflection.

<snip>

Pat


From iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu  Wed Feb 24 23:10:08 1999
From: iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu)
Date: Wed, 24 Feb 1999 17:10:08 -0600
Subject: Ix-nay on the ostratic-nay
In-Reply-To: <19990207223245.21776.qmail@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <WED.24.FEB.1999.171008.0600.>

	With regard to reconstructing 1sg pronouns, there is (or so I seem
to recall) a cross-linguistic tendency for these to be formed with /m-/,
probably from a weaker variant of what might be called the "mama
syndrome": sounds that babies tend to make early tend to be pressed into
service as words that mamas and babies might use to relate to each other,
like "mama" and "me".
	So seeing a 1sg in /m-/ does not necessarily mean much.

					DLW


From iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu  Wed Feb 24 23:19:27 1999
From: iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu)
Date: Wed, 24 Feb 1999 17:19:27 -0600
Subject: Salmon.
In-Reply-To: <199902080757.BAA06516@orion.means.net>
Message-ID: <WED.24.FEB.1999.171927.0600.>

	This stuff about the supposed distribution of salmon has been
bothering me for a while (15 yrs?).  I do not happen to have Grzimek's
Encyclopedia of Animal Life (or whatever it is called) on me right now,
but I could have sworn it states that there are salmon (non-spawning,
perhaps?) in the Danube.  So perhaps there is something to this /lak/
stuff after all.

					DLW


From iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu  Thu Feb 25 00:45:42 1999
From: iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu)
Date: Wed, 24 Feb 1999 18:45:42 -0600
Subject: Trojan and Etruscan
In-Reply-To: <5d5d95c4.36beaf8e@aol.com>
Message-ID: <WED.24.FEB.1999.184542.0600.>

	With regard to the idea that the resemblance between "Trojan" and
"Etruscan" is vague, no it isn't, not any more than in the case of other
words like "Tuscan" and "Tursenoi" that everybody admits are variants of
the same word as "Etruscan". The variations seen can be motivated by
various phonological considerations.  In order..

	/etruscan/ and /tuscan/ are two ways of getting out of */truscan/,
which must have had an unnacceptable onset as far as some folks were
concerned.  Such an onset would have been unnacceptable to at least some
Semites, for example, just to name one possibility for how such a
deformation might occur.  Metathesis of /r/, as seen in /tursha/ and
/tursenoi/ is another way out of the same problem.

	As for the occurence of /s/, /sk/, /sh/ (English value), and /y/
(again English value) to represent the third consonant, these are for the
most part various efforts to represent /sh/ in languages that did not have
that sound.  (Egyptian did.)  We see various apsects of /sh/ conveyed in
any one of the other renderings:  sibilance in /s/, palatality in /y/,
retraction from /s/ in /sk/.

	For the vowel, it is difficult to decide between /o/ or /u/, but
as /a/ occurs in some words that might be additional variants
(tarhuntassa, tauros, tarsus, tarquin), with lowering before /r/ being the
culprit in these, I favor /o/.  Thus the original form would be /trosha/.

	"Trojan" fits in with this as well as any of the others. Fairly
well, actually, once the linguistics of it is understood.  There is
nothing particularly vague about it.

					DLW


From jpmaher at neiu.edu  Thu Feb 25 02:21:30 1999
From: jpmaher at neiu.edu (john peter maher)
Date: Wed, 24 Feb 1999 20:21:30 -0600
Subject: rate of change
Message-ID: <WED.24.FEB.1999.202130.0600.>

Glottochronology has its defenders, but they don't seem to be historical
linguistics. It's a fad and sheer pseudo-science.

The problem was shown by Lyle Campbell, who computed that a pair of brothers in
Central America must have diverged 500 years ago.

j p maher

[ moderator snip of Manaster-Ramer post ]

Message-ID: <36D4B5E1.5D1EC0E8 at neiu.edu>
Date: Wed, 24 Feb 1999 20:30:57 -0600
From: john peter maher <jpmaher at neiu.edu>
References: <Pine.SOL.4.05.9902072115070.24790-100000 at choplifter.rs.itd.umich.edu> <36D4B3A9.458074F0 at neiu.edu>

corrigendum

PRO linguistics

READ
linguists


From jpmaher at neiu.edu  Thu Feb 25 02:24:52 1999
From: jpmaher at neiu.edu (john peter maher)
Date: Wed, 24 Feb 1999 20:24:52 -0600
Subject: Salmon.
Message-ID: <WED.24.FEB.1999.202452.0600.>

As for Norway, I heard a Norwegian archeologist in 1984 pronounce:
"Norway is not a land, but a coast."  Much like Greece.

j p maher

"Mark Odegard " wrote:

[ an entire post which the moderator has snipped.  Please do not do this.
  --rma ]


From jpmaher at neiu.edu  Thu Feb 25 02:29:19 1999
From: jpmaher at neiu.edu (john peter maher)
Date: Wed, 24 Feb 1999 20:29:19 -0600
Subject: IE and Etruscan
Message-ID: <WED.24.FEB.1999.202919.0600.>

Vladimir Georgiev [Sofia] held that Etruscan was early IE and related to
Hittite.

He presented his data to a meeting of linguists at the University of Chicago
around 1968:

nobody contested his data nor his thesis.
 j p maher

ERobert52 at aol.com wrote:

[ moderator snip ]

> No sensible person thinks Etruscan is IE, and most people who say it is are
> pretty wacky,

[ moderator snip ]


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Thu Feb 25 03:59:14 1999
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (Patrick C. Ryan)
Date: Wed, 24 Feb 1999 21:59:14 -0600
Subject: gender
Message-ID: <WED.24.FEB.1999.215914.0600.>

Dear Miguel and IEists:

-----Original Message-----
From: Miguel Carrasquer Vidal <mcv at wxs.nl>
Date: Wednesday, February 24, 1999 5:23 PM

>"Patrick C. Ryan" <proto-language at email.msn.com> wrote:

Sorry about the subscript. Since I do not subscribe to the laryngeal theory
as currently formulated, I was not as careful as I should have been. H2, the
a-coloring laryngeal, which I would equate with Ha:, is what I meant.

>I guess -(e)H2 was meant.

Nope. What I meant was -H2e.

>The Latin word for "queen", regina not
>*rega, is actually good evidence for the fact that gender has
>nothing to do with vocabulary buiding.  The "vocabulary building"
>part is -in- (reg- > regin-).

As in German Koenigin?

>The gender marker -a is superfluous.

Yes, it might be redundant based on developments in certain languages, and
we often see markers for the same functions heaped together as their
original significances fade.

But the primary function of *-ino is to form secondary adjectives (in spite
of the MHG form), meaning "consisting of, related to," etc. --- not to form
feminines. Thus a Lithuanian avynas would probably be surprised to know
that, from the form, you might suspect him to be female.

Of course, you might prefer *-eno, which is more of a verbal formant, so we
would have something like "ruling" but the function of the -a: would still
be to feminize the concept, and build a new word.

Pat


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Thu Feb 25 05:44:51 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1999 00:44:51 EST
Subject: rate of change
Message-ID: <THU.25.FEB.1999.004451.EST.>

 From:	manaster at umich.edu

>I dont know where specifically this is discussed, but I think you miss
>the point that before a certain date Castillian and Portuguese while
>certainly distinct where no more distinct than many pairs of forms of speech
>(for lack of a better term) which we usually consider to be dialects.

-- good point.  Portugese and Castillian are -still- mutually comprehensible,
in the sense that speakers of each can, if they speak slowly and on simple
subjects, understand each other. (Personal experience.)

And if you use Gallego-Spanish rather than Castillian, the resemblance is even
closer.

It's comparable to the distance between Netherlandic and German.


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Thu Feb 25 05:52:36 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1999 00:52:36 EST
Subject: IE and Etruscan
Message-ID: <THU.25.FEB.1999.005236.EST.>

>ERobert52 at aol.com writes:

>The point I was making was that the belief that Etruscan was spoken somewhere
>around Greece or western Anatolia prior to 1200BC is not an unreasonable one.
>If I remember rightly the original theme of this thread was not about genetic
>links but whether Etruscan borrowing from Semitic was possible, and the
>answer to that is clearly yes. >>

-- well, the Aegean and western Anatolia in 1200 BCE weren't Semitic speaking
either.  Closer to the Levant than Italy, but that's all you can say.

If Etruscan had been spoken in those areas, the language(s) it would be likely
to be in contact with and acquire vocabulary from would be Anatolian (Hittite
and Luwian) and Mycenaean Greek.


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Thu Feb 25 12:48:44 1999
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (Patrick C. Ryan)
Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1999 06:48:44 -0600
Subject: gender
Message-ID: <THU.25.FEB.1999.064844.0600.>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

Dear Rich and IEists:

-----Original Message-----
From: Patrick C. Ryan <proto-language at email.msn.com>
Date: Thursday, February 25, 1999 6:16 AM

<snip>

>But, I believe that all "laryngeals" were coloring-equal; and that the vowel
>that is seen is a result of a retention of an earlier vowel quality through
>length.

<snip>

>[ Moderator's response:
>  In other words, you reject the laryngeal theory completely, substituting in
>  its place a set of vowels which still exhibit the odd behaviours which led
>  Saussure to post a lost set of consonants in the first place--with _ad hoc_
>  segments which you call laryngeals but which are otherwise no better than
>  Hirt's various reduced vowels, his answer to Saussure.

That is not, in my opinion, a correct characterization of what I have
written above. I believe that <H> was a real consonant, and had a
phonological reality, and like some consonants do, eventually disappeared.

>  Sorry, the laryngeal theory as it has developed in mainstream Indo-European
>  linguistics explains far too much to be thrown out like this.

I have not thrown it out. I have modified it. The theory is called
"laryngeal" not "vowel-coloring"! The structurally most important part of it
is that it identifies four consonants (or three if your prefer), which have
subequently disappeared except for their affects on neighboring vowels and
consonants.

I believe four consonants became two "laryngeals": /?, h, $, H/ became H1
(no h in Hittite) and H2 (h in Hittite). When we can correctly identify the
nature of the "laryngeal" by its *position* in a root, we frequently a
corresponding /?, h, $, H/ in Semitic (Arabic).

I do not believe that there is anything which the current "laryngeal" theory
explains that tis re-formulation of it will not equally well explain.

Pat

[ Moderator's response:
  What does your version of the laryngeal theory have to say about the Greek
  anatyptic vowels?  How does it deal with the Indo-Iranian data (Skt. -i-,
  Iranian -0-)?  For that matter, how does it explain the other ablaut data
  that led Saussure to his formulation in the first place?
  --rma ]


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Thu Feb 25 16:10:58 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1999 10:10:58 -0600
Subject: Non-IE words in Early Celtic
In-Reply-To: <l03130301b2e507991efb@[207.54.13.247]>
Message-ID: <THU.25.FEB.1999.101058.0600.>

Here are some possible additions to Donncha's list:
I'd appreciate discussion of these. All I've done is compile these.

	@blu "apple" [NC Europe non-IE] > *ap[a]laz [Germanic] > *aeppel
[OE] > apple, limited to Germanic [OHG apful], Celtic [O Ir uball], Welsh
afal; Italic [Oscan Abella "apple town"]; & Balto-Slavic [O Sl ablûko, OCS
jabl'ko, Lith. óbuolas] non-IE [am, eh]
@bel-n "apple tree" [see Lith. obelìs, OCS jablan', O Ir aball, Welsh
afall] [eh]
	aliso/eliso > *alisa: [Celtic], *alisa [Gothic] > Erle f., aller >
alder; ?aliso [Spanish]; [< Vasconic?, e.g. Basque altza] [acc. cw < IE
*ei- "red, brown"] [g&i, tv1/99] [?rel to ellen, ellaern [OE] > elder? cw]
	brák, "trousers." A northern European word found only in Celtic and
Germanic. Germanic bróks < breech, breeks. Gaulish *bráka < Latin bráca,
"trousers," < bracket, brail. [cw]
	brugyo > brycg/e [OE] > bridge [cognates in Celtic & Slavic] [acc.
cw <? IE *bhru- "brow"] [cw]
	bukkaz "male goat, deer, etc." > bok [Dutch], boc [OHG] > Bock, buc
[OE], bucca [OE] > buck; bukkos "male goat" [Celtic; ?source of bukkaz?] >
boc "buck" [OFr] > butcher [acc. cw < ?IE *bhugo-] [cw] [found only in
Celtic & Germanic?] [cw]
	dunum "fortified place" [Celtic] ?> du:naz [Germanic] > du:n "hill"
[OE] > down; > du:ne [M Dutch] > dune; *tu:naz [Germanic, <? Celtic
*du:n-o- "hill, stronghold"?] "fortified place" > town, Zaun [Celtic &
Germanic only]  [< ?Afro-Asiatic "Atlantic"; see AKK dunnunu "fortified"]
[cw, tv97]
	gwet- "resin?" [Celtic & Germanic] > *gwet-u > kwithu- [OE] >
cwudu, cwidu, cudu "resin, mastic gum, cud, i.e. something chewed" [OE] >
cud, quid; > *betu- "birch, birch resin" [Celtic] > bitumen [Latin <
Gaulish] > bitumen, [cw] > betún "bitumen, wax, asphalt, shoe polish, etc."
[cw]
	i:sarno- "iron" > iron Eisen n. [found in Celtic & Germanic] [<
?Vasconic *isar "star" see Basque izar "star"] [mcv2/98, tv2/98]
	kante [Celtic, Germanic, Italic non IE] > Kante "edge" [<
?Vasconic; see Basque kantu "slice, angle, rocks", common in Iberian
toponymy] [tv97, tv95]
	l at k- > lake, lacus [Latin], loch [Gaelic] [Celtic /o/ does not
match Latin /a/, suggesting it may have originally been /@/] [eh]
	lugyom "oath" [Celtic, Germanic] > liuga "marriage" [Goth], luge [O
Ir] [tlm] [related to "league", "link"?] [cw & another source tv?]
	ru:no- "mystery, secret" [Germanic, Celtic] > ru:naz > ru:nian [OE]
"to whisper" [OE] > round; r:un [ON] > rune, runo "song, poem" [Finnish]
[cw & another source tv?]

	Sources:
	Hamp, Eric. "The Pre-IE Language of Northern (Central) Europe".
When Worlds Collide. [eh]
	Carrasquer Vidal, Miguel  [e-mail] [mcv]
	Meillet, Antoine. General Characteristics of Indo-European, 1929.
	Vennemann, Theo  "Bemerkung zum frühgermanischen Wortschatz." Fs.
Matzel, Heidelberg 1984, 105-19. [tv/84]
	--- "Etymologische Beziehungen im Alten Europa", Der GinkgoBaum:
Germanistisches Jahrbuch für Nordeuropa 13 (1995), 39-115. [tv/95]
	--- "Some West Indo-European words of uncertain origin." Fs.
Fisiak. Berlin 1997, I.879-908. [tv/97]
	Waterman, John T. A History of the German Language. Seattle: U Wash
P, 1966.
	Watkins, Calvert. Dictionary of Indo-European Roots, rev. Boston:
Houghton, 1985.

	I've also seens claims that the following Gaelic words are non-IE
	da/l "house, linage"
	rath "ring fort" [although this seems to me like it could be
related to an IE for wheeel < *ret- "to roll" (as per cw)]
	and also the ethnonym Attacotti "ancient people" and the toponym
Laoghis [sp?]/Lewis  "heights, cliff" if I remember correctly


[snip]
>Words found only in Insular Celtic:
>
>*ma^ni^  >  Irish "mo/in" (peat; bogland)
>            Welsh "mawn" (peat)
>
>*me^no-  >  Irish "mi/an" (desire; object of desire)
>            Welsh "mwyn" (gentle, dear; delightful)
>
>*banwa^  >  Irish "banb" (young pig)
>            Welsh "banw" (young pig)
>
>A word found in Common Celtic:
>
>*makwo-  >  Gaulish "Maponos"
>            Irish "mac" (son)
>            Welsh "mab" (son)

	Here's what Hamp & Watkins have to say about this:
m at k-ú > *mag at th > maegethe, m at két, maegden [OE] "girl" > maiden [cw, eh]
m at k-ú > *me at k-ó > *me:kó > *mêkó- > *mégaz > mág "kinsman" [OE] [eh]
m at k-ú > *me at k-ó > *me:kó > *mêkó- > *me:kón- > *megan- > mága "son" [OE] [eh]
m at k-ú- > *m at kw-o- > *makwo "son" [Celtic] > macc [O IR], maqqa [Oghamic],
mapo > mab > ap [Welsh] [eh]
m at ghu- > *magu "servant" > mug [O Ir], meu-dwy [Welsh] [eh]
maguz "son" > magu [OE], *magwi: > mawi [Gothic] [eh]
CW notes IE *maghu- "youth" [cw]

>
>A word found in Western European only:
>
>*wa^t-  >  Latin "vatis" (seer)
>           Irish "fa/ith" (seer)
>           Welsh "gwawd" (song, poetry)
>           Irish "fa/th" (maxim)
>           AnSax "wo^d" (frenzy)
>           AnSax "wo^th" (poem)
>
>Dennis King


From manaster at umich.edu  Thu Feb 25 18:30:08 1999
From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu)
Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1999 13:30:08 -0500
Subject: IE, Genetic Data, Languages of Anatolia
In-Reply-To: <36BECAC9.342D918F@mail.lrz-muenchen.de>
Message-ID: <THU.25.FEB.1999.133008.0500.>

On Mon, 8 Feb 1999, Wolfgang Schulze wrote:

> Miguel Carrasquer Vidal schrieb:

> > I tend think of North Caucasian (NEC/NWC) as the
> > primary candidate for the original language of the steppe lands.
> > The Northern Caucasus is a "residual zone", in Johanna Nichols'
> > terminology.  It contains the linguistic residue of the peoples
> > that were once dominant in the neighbouring "spread zone" (the
> > steppe).

> Do you have any LINGUISTIC proof or at least some indications that would
> justify such an assumption? According to my knowledge neither West nor East
> Caucasian languages had ever been spoken in "the steppe". I would be eager to
> learn about your findings such as place names and other toponyms (I do not
> refer to so-called "North Caucaisan" loans into PIE because non of them has
> ever been substantiated).

[snip]

I agree that Miguel is making statements for which there is little
support.

> > At the outer layer we have Russian, then Mongol
> > (Kalmyk) and Turkic (Nogai, Karachai, Balkar etc.), then Iranian
> > (Ossetian), and the inner layer is formed by NWC and NEC.  This
> > suggests that before IE, the steppe was peopled by North
> > Caucasians.  And if there's indeed a genetic link between North
> > Caucasian, Yeniseian and Sino-Tibetan (the Sino-Caucasian
> > hypothesis), that's indeed what we would expect.

[snip]

> Is it just to support (horribile
> dictu) Sino-Caucasian?

I don't know what Miguel views of Sino-Caucasian are, but I
do know that these kinds of speculations are precisely grist
to the mill of those, like Wolfgang, who are perhaps all
too eager to dismiss the SC theory w/o a proper evaluation.

I would like for the nth time to ask that people try to
distinguish between speculation and specific (published or
at least publishable) proposals.  Of course, this request
goes out to both sides...

> No serious specialist of either Sino-Tibetian or
> East/West Caucasian would ever defend such a hypothesis.... Quoting L.
> Bloomfield we may say: Sino-Caucasian belongs into the museum of superstition
> (and not onyl Sino-Tibetian)...

This is debatable, or at least it should be.  I have yet to
see any real debate of the SC hypothesis.  If there is any
competent comment on this hypothesis, pro or con, I would
appreciate references.

AMR


From manaster at umich.edu  Thu Feb 25 18:45:29 1999
From: manaster at umich.edu (manaster at umich.edu)
Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1999 13:45:29 -0500
Subject: laryngeals and alternatives
Message-ID: <THU.25.FEB.1999.134529.0500.>

I don't think our moderator's comment re Pat Ryan's
rejection of the laryngeal theory is quite right,
but that is presumably because I have had the
benefit of Pat explaining to me some of his thinking.

I don't understand it all yet, but Pat can explain
a number of things in his terms which normally are
taken as an argument for the laryngeal theory.  It
is also interesting that his views are quite similar
(though actually superior) to those published by
Shevoroshkin and Kaiser regarding the fate of Nostratic
vowels in PIE.  Superior because he explains
whereas they merely stipulate why (now we
are in their unvierse of discourse, so don't
nobody yell at me for this) it looks as though
Nostratic vowel retained their qualities next to
laryngeals but lost them (merging into *e) elsewhere.
So, without for a minute endorsing these hypotheses,
I must say that I personally don't want to dismiss
them w/o a hearing.

Of course, I also think the difficulty is that we have not had
either Shevoroshkin and Kaiser or Pat present
a detailed point-by-point analysis of the entire
IE system, showing how they handle each of the
so many things that the laryngeal theory handles
so well.  I think until such is offered, we
are free to suppose that their proposals are
not in the ballgame, but if such an analysis
is produced, then we would have to do more
than merely say that the laryngeal theory is
obviously right.

I have no particular view here, except that
I do accept as obviously true the fact that
PIE had "laryngeal" consonants numbering three
but one of my own pet ideas had long been that
there are many languages in which such consonants
can themselves originate from the weakneing of
vowels in certain positions.  Southern Paiute
is a classic example of this, and so I have
an uncompleted draft somewhere entitled
'Where did the laryngeals come from?", which
(in adition to endorsing the old idea that
one or two cases of *H1 come from *d) points out
that many laryngeals could be assumed to come from
the weakening of long vowels and argues that
the old assumption, going back to Mo/ller, that
if PIE is related to something (e.g.,
Afro-Asiatic), then this something will have
consonants corresponding to *H1, *H2, and *H3
is fallacious.  We could just as well find that
the lgs related to IE (if any) would have
long vowels instead.

AMR


From glengordon01 at hotmail.com  Thu Feb 25 19:43:20 1999
From: glengordon01 at hotmail.com (Glen Gordon)
Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1999 11:43:20 PST
Subject: gender
Message-ID: <THU.25.FEB.1999.114320.PST.>

Hello all, It's me Glen!

PATRICK:
>I believe there were only four laryngeals, /?,h,$,H/, which affected
>vowel quality neutrally [...] The arguments to support this thesis are
>the correspondences with laryngals and pharyngals we see in AA for the
>identification of the IE "laryngeal" but one must go beyond Nostratic
>to determine the actual vowel quality.

For anyone that still confuse Patrick and I (it has been done on the
Nostratic list), this is the point of seperation. Aside from Proto-World
which I've never succumb to because I find the theory practically
intractable at this point in time (and perhaps millenia to come), there
is also the fact that I now fully accept laryngeals including their
vowel-coloring. When involving IE, I prefer to concentrate on data
WITHIN IE over data external to it anyday. In the end, I'm really not an
extremist at all as Alexis and others would have me out to be.

>[ Moderator's response:
>    Sorry, the laryngeal theory as it has developed in mainstream
>    Indo-European linguistics explains far too much to be thrown out
>    like this.
>    --rma ]

Yep, he's right. I've tried harder than anyone. :)

--------------------------------------------
Glen Gordon
glengordon01 at hotmail.com

Kisses and Hugs
--------------------------------------------


From Bomhard at aol.com  Thu Feb 25 23:00:12 1999
From: Bomhard at aol.com (Bomhard at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1999 18:00:12 EST
Subject: IE, Genetic Data, Languages of Anatolia
Message-ID: <THU.25.FEB.1999.180012.EST.>

John Colarusso has published a paper entitled "Phyletic Links between proto-
Indo-European and proto-Northwest Caucasian" in which he maintains, among
other things, that Northwest Caucasian once extended over a wider geographic
range than what one now finds.  To my knowledge, Colarusso's paper has been
published three times:  first in 1992 in Howard Aronson, "The Non-Slavic
Languages of the USSR", second in "Mother Tongue" (reprint of 1992), and
finally in JIES, vol. 25, no. 1/2 (1997).  Whether one accepts or rejects
Colarusso's views, he would most likely be considered a "serious specialist"
and has published extensively on Northwest Caucasian.

In my book "Indo-European and the Nostratic Hypothesis" (1996), I discuss a
small number of striking lexical similarities between Northwest Caucasian and
Proto-Indo-European.  I consider these to be loans and not due to genetic
affiliation.  What they appear to show is that PIE and PNWC (or pre-PNWC) were
in geographical contact at one point in time.


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Thu Feb 25 00:51:22 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Wed, 24 Feb 1999 18:51:22 -0600
Subject: rate of change
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.4.05.9902072115070.24790-100000@choplifter.rs.itd.umich.edu>
Message-ID: <WED.24.FEB.1999.185122.0600.>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

[snip]

>I dont know where specifically this is discussed, but I think you miss the
>point that before a certain date Castillian and Portuguese while certainly
>distinct where no more distinct than many pairs of forms of speech (for lack
>of a better term) which we usually consider to be dialects.

[snip]

But before 1500, Spanish & Portuguese were farther apart than they are now.

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
MUW
Columbus MS 39701
rmccalli at sunmuw1.muw.edu


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Thu Feb 25 00:58:16 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Wed, 24 Feb 1999 18:58:16 -0600
Subject: IE and Etruscan
In-Reply-To: <5d5d95c4.36beaf8e@aol.com>
Message-ID: <WED.24.FEB.1999.185816.0600.>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

>>Etruscan is non-Indo-European.  Hell, we can't even read it!

>Oh, but we can! There is general agreement on the values of the letters and a
>large proportion of the inscriptions can be translated without much
>difficulty.
>The trouble is most of them are run of the mill funerary or votive
>inscriptions, so it's not an ideal corpus to work with. We don't have a
>complete idea of the grammar and there are a lot of hapax legomena.

[ moderator snip ]

There are also words in Latin said to be of Etruscan origin [e.g. satelles,
persona, etc.] as well non-IE substrate common to Latin & Greek that may
from Etruscan and/or a congener [I think form-/morph- are among them]

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
MUW
Columbus MS 39701
rmccalli at sunmuw1.muw.edu


From glengordon01 at hotmail.com  Fri Feb 26 09:47:00 1999
From: glengordon01 at hotmail.com (Glen Gordon)
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 1999 01:47:00 PST
Subject: IE, Genetic Data, Languages of Anatolia
Message-ID: <FRI.26.FEB.1999.014700.PST.>

Miguel Carrasquer Vidal:
>> I tend think of North Caucasian (NEC/NWC) as the
>> primary candidate for the original language of the steppe lands.
>> The Northern Caucasus is a "residual zone", in Johanna Nichols'
>> terminology.  It contains the linguistic residue of the peoples
>> that were once dominant in the neighbouring "spread zone" (the
>> steppe).

Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schulze:
>Do you have any LINGUISTIC proof or at least some indications that
>would justify such an assumption? According to my knowledge neither
>West nor East Caucasian languages had ever been spoken in "the
>steppe".

What I would like to know is whether such an assertion about the
location of Pre-NWC or Pre-NEC can be made as forcefully because that is
what we would be dealing with, not the later NWC and NEC, non?

>By the way: Wouldn't you assume that "Proto-North(!)-Cauacsian"
>speakers living in the steppe had developed an autochthonous term for
>the "horse" (which is not the case! The horse-word is a loan word in
>all EC (though, sometimes the source language remains opaque)?

I personally wouldn't be concerned with NEC in the Steppe. It's NWC (or
Pre-NWC) that I wonder about, myself, in which case, of course there
isn't an autochthonous term in NEC. Is there one in NWC though?

This is where I would like to offer another explanation. And first off,
let's put "North Caucasian" aside. Let's say that NEC and NWC are
seperated by 10,000 years at least (which is not hard for alot of
people, specialists or non-, to swallow). Now let's paint a picture.

Allan Bomhard offered a theory on the entrance of Indo-European into the
Pontic-Caspian from the East (from the Steppes) based on Gimbutas
archaeoligical evidence at around 7500 BCE (?). I'm inclined to accept
this because of the strong links IE has with Uralic. However, in light
of Etruscan, we should then say that _Indo-Etruscan_ entered the
Pontic-Caspian region at that time.

Now, in support of this idea, he proposed some connections between IE
and NWC. Unfortunately, as he has explained in "Indo-European and the
Nostratic Hypothesis", he had not been able to get anything other than
Circassian roots (a sub-branch of NWC). What's more, some of the IE
roots compared with Circassian are also compared with other Nostratic
languages which undermines my confidance in his comparison.

However, the hypothesis itself, that we should find such NWC roots in
Indo-European (and even Indo-Etruscan), is sound if we are to accept
that IE was in the Pontic-Caspian and not in the Balkans or Anatolia as
Miguel says.

However, we could extrapolate further because, if Indo-Etruscan stumbled
from the East into NWC territory, we might pose another question: How
extensive was the NWC (or Pre-NWC) territory before the introduction of
Indo-Etruscan to the area? Well, again, if the language came from the
East, it might stand to reason that it wiped out much of the traces of
Pre-NWC that may have existed on the Steppe.

Further, what we should expect, beyond just NWC loans in Indo-Etruscan,
are loans in even earlier stages involving Pre-Indo-Etruscan (or what I
call Proto-Steppe, the precursor to IndoEtruscan, Uralic, Altaic, usw)
and Pre-NWC. If Pre-NWC had reached so far east (and north) at one time,
one might reason some more, that the original home of the Pre-NWC had
been in the steppes, and the northern regions above it, circa 9000 BCE
and that it was the intrusion of "Proto-Steppe" from the south-west
(from below the Aral Sea) into the steppe that caused the gradual
westward movement of Pre-NWC back into the Pontic-Caspian region from
which it sprang in the first place before even Pre-NWC existed. Hence,
we have two related languages, NWC and NEC, that although now share the
same location, are very much different but yet still show some vague
traces of their relationship.

This picture of linguistic movement, as far as I am aware, doesn't bump
too many elbows either. I think it also presents a clear pattern of
substrate influence in different stages of IE and other languages.
Thirdly, this idea is weaved with conservative views of the positions of
each language group (as far as I know) and yet, hopefully, would also
satisfy long-range comparativists involved in Nostratic/Dene-Caucasian
as well since the development of IE is firmly mapped far, far back and
there is little room for tweaking the locations of languages at
different periods in time.

This vision of linguistic movement is one of the many things holding me
back from accepting IE in any other location other than the
Pontic-Caspian circa 3000-3500 BCE. Linguistic connections and
similarities couldn't be explained as well with Miguel's IE. I'd like to
hear how this theory might go over with yous.

--------------------------------------------
Glen Gordon
glengordon01 at hotmail.com

Hugs and Kisses
--------------------------------------------


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Fri Feb 26 21:01:22 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 1999 15:01:22 -0600
Subject: Greek question & the pre-history of *nekwt
In-Reply-To: <000801be53b5$a9f14560$6f142399@patrickcryan>
Message-ID: <FRI.26.FEB.1999.150122.0600.>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

[snip]

>Also, if Sturtevant is correct in assuming that voiceless stops are
>indicated in Hittite by doubled spellings, then Hittite nek(uz) can only
>represent IE *neg-, *negh-, or *negw-.

[snip]

	I may have missed someoneelse's response but I've seen several
cases where Hittite <z> is from from /t/. So wouldn't there be a fair
chance that nek(uz) is from *nek(ut)? And that *nek(ut) < *nekwt

	BTW: is Hittite <z> /dz, z^/, /ts,c/ or /z/?
[By /z^/ I mean a sound similar to <ds> of English <beds>
or the "soft" voiced <z> in Italian.

	If Sturtevant is correct --and, A THOUSAND PARDONS, my Hittite is
rusty-- that could just mean something like
	/nekwt/ >  /nekuc/ > /neguz^
	with an introduced vowel to eliminate a "difficult" consonant cluster


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Fri Feb 26 20:54:18 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 1999 15:54:18 EST
Subject: Anatolians
Message-ID: <FRI.26.FEB.1999.155418.EST.>

>mcv at wxs.nl writes:

>Renfrew's 7000 BC is too early [for PIE], Mallory's 4000 BC is
>too late [for Anatolian].

-- nope to the latter.  We know Renfrew's 7000 BCE is too early for PIE
because of the absence of the late-Neolithic innovations recorded in PIE in
7000 BCE.  However, that vocabulary _is_ there in Anatolian.

Therefore we can simply assume that Anatolian broke off from PIE around 4000
BCE.

Occam's Razor.

>The earliest we can push steppe influences in the Balkans back is
>c. 4200 BC.

-- that's perfectly sustainable for Anatolian.  After all, the pace of
linguistic change is scarcely uniform.  Look at Lithuanian and Sanskrit.

>As I have tried to explain in another message, the Germanic verbal system is
>highly archaic

-- or highly innovative.

>Proto-Germanic speakers assimilated a sizeable non-IE
>population, while B-S did not [the famous pre-Germanic
>substrate].

-- dubious in the extreme.  Eg., the First Vowel Shift in Germanic can be
securely dated to after 700 BCE, because Celtic ironworking loan-words in
Proto-Germanic underwent the shift.  They must therefore have been borrowed
before the shift took place, and couldn't possibly have been borrowed much
befoe the 7th century BCE because ironworking technology didn't penetrate
Central Europe until then.  QED.

The evidence would seem to indicate that Germanic only became really
distinctive after the late second millenium, and prior to that was still part
of a largely undifferentiated Late West Indo-European.

>It worked in the Balkans (as well as for instance the Indus-Ganges system)
>where population densities were high

-- and in the Iranian plateau, Afghanistan, etc.

>but too scattered and too disorganized economically and politically to
>provoke invasion.

-- or to resist drifting folk-migration motivated by internal division and
desire for territory.  IE-speaking tribe moves in, there are a few local
scuffles, then differential assimilation because the IE-speakers have social
mechanisms for assimilating outsiders as individuals. Migration =\= invasion,
if we think of the latter as rapid and organized.

>The situation in Europe differs from that in India in that the invadors, like
>the invaded, spoke IE languages

-- violently unlikely.  Since PIE is securely datable to the 4th millenium,
you've got it spread far too widely far too early.

Again, the steppe-origin theory accounts for all the observed facts and does
so with greater explanitory parsimony.


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Fri Feb 26 22:00:30 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 1999 16:00:30 -0600
Subject: Anatolians
In-Reply-To: <36d3c850.178778788@mail.wxs.nl>
Message-ID: <FRI.26.FEB.1999.160030.0600.>

Would your outline would be something like this?
Outliers are marked with *

I.IE to c. 5500 BCE
A. *Anatolian c. 5500 BCE
B. Non-Anatolian IE 5500 BCE
	1. *Tocharian c. 5000 BCE
	2. Eastern [Steppe] IE c. 5000/4500 BCE
		a. Indo-Iranian 3200 BC
		b. Greco-Armenian [Thracian?] 3200 BC
			i. Hellenic
			ii. *Armenian
			iii. Thracian-Phrygian
	3. Central/Western [LBK] IE c. 5000/4500 BCE
		a. Germano-Balto-Slavic 4500-4000? BCE
			i. Balto-Slavic 4000 BCE [GBS Sprachbund 3K-1K BCE]
			ii. *Germanic 4000 BCE [GBS Sprachbund 3K-1K BCE]

		b. Celto-Italic-Venetic-etc. [Illyrian?] 4500-2000 BCE?
			i. Celtic 2000 BCE
			ii. Italic 2000 BCE
			iii. Venetic 2000 BCE
			iv. ?Illyrian? 2000 BCE?
			v. Lusitanian? 2000 BCE?

	Of course, this doesn't take into account all the Sprachbunds that
would arise when languages bumped into one another
	Greek-Armenian would have had to have picked up influence from
Balkan IE --whatever that was at the time-- and vice versa, and then from
Anatolian
	Germanic first bumps into Italic and then Celtic

	And there the question of what Albanian is/was.
	Is it the remains of whatever Balkan IE language was there before
Greco-Armenian?
	Is it a descendant of Daco-Thracian? And presumibly Eastern IE?
	Is it a descendant of Illyrian? And presumibly Western IE? [If
Illyrian is indeed Western IE and not a relic Balkan IE language--provided
there is a difference]
	Is it a mischsprache with all of these layers and then Latin,
Greek, Slavic, Arabic & Turkish vocabulary piled on for good measure?

	You can definitely appreciate that Swadesh's list needs to account
for outlier and non-outlier languages.
	If all IE languages were outliers, would they all be as different
as English, Anatolian, Tocharian & Armenian?


From iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu  Fri Feb 26 21:40:58 1999
From: iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu)
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 1999 15:40:58 -0600
Subject: /Anatolian /-nt-/ and Greek /-nth-/
Message-ID: <FRI.26.FEB.1999.154058.0600.>

	Perhaps I am missing something here, but why should Anatolian
place-names with /-nt-/ (or for that matter /-nd-/) be borowed into Greek
with /-nth-/?  I suppose we could say that the form was originally
/-ndh-/, but the Anatolian forms in /-nt/ are generally considered older.
(A change of /nt/ to /nd/ is more probably anyway, as in /seventy/ ->
/sevendy/.)

					DLW


From iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu  Sat Feb 27 00:09:57 1999
From: iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu)
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 1999 18:09:57 -0600
Subject: Chariots
In-Reply-To: <01BE5419.31D7E2A0.lmfosse@online.no>
Message-ID: <FRI.26.FEB.1999.180957.0600.>

	In discussing the efficiency of "chariot cavalry" and all that,
there is really no getting around the fact that chariot cavalry was
eventually replaced (in some out of the way places rather later than
elsewhere)  by "true cavalry".  Thus its efficiency must have been less,
as most of us could probably have figured out anyway.

	But if this is true, it has implications (however circumstiantial)
for the development of true cavalry, for as of about 2000 BC chariot
cavalry was evidently regarded as the latest most terrifying thing by all
concerned (as various nomads burst out of various steppes employing it)
and so this would suggest that the development of true cavalry must have
been later.

					DLW


From iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu  Sat Feb 27 01:38:45 1999
From: iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu)
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 1999 19:38:45 -0600
Subject: Germanic and Balto-Slavic Cases in /m/
Message-ID: <FRI.26.FEB.1999.193845.0600.>

	Perhap these are not some entirely different formation, but simply
the result of /bhi/ being added to the accusative (in /-m/) rather than to
the stem.  If this is so, then the innovation in question is less weird,
and so less diagnostic of any common period.

					DLW


From iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu  Sat Feb 27 01:30:21 1999
From: iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu)
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 1999 19:30:21 -0600
Subject: Celtic and English Again
Message-ID: <FRI.26.FEB.1999.193021.0600.>

	I lost the emissive that this is a response to ...

	With regard to the notion that external influences only affect
phonology, never syntax, this is simply wrong.  It would be better not
to demand examples.

	It is not controversial either 1) that AS society was
"class-stratified", or 2) that OE was a standard language.  Putting these
two together, it is certainly reasonable to suppose that OE as we have it
represents the language of the (or an) upper class.  Nor is it
controversial that standard written languages often mask features of
"vulgar" speech.  The idea that "in those days, people wrote as they
spoke", or for that matter that AS society was egalitarian, is little more
than a naive and romantic fantasy, which basically no informed person has
believed in for about a hundred years.

	To try to draw some great deep conclusion from the fact that the
non-Celtic proportion of the vocabulary in OE is 99%, whereas in French it
is only 98%, would be silly.  Plug in any reasonable numbers you like, it
remains silly.  In any such situation, there are too many other variables
involved for any simplistic prediction about "expected percentage of
substrate vocabulary" to be valid.  "Low" or perhaps "very low" is about
the best that can be done.  Even the idea that words for basic household
items are those that will be borrowed does not hold up.  "Tors"  and
"crags" are not basic household items, yet they are Celtic borrowings in
English.  The reason is simple:  the North sea coast that the Anglo-Saxons
came from does not have these terrain features.  As for Celtic borrowings
in French, perhaps the word for 'plow' could have been borrowed because
the types of plows (Roman and Celtic) were not the same, reflecting the
different agricultural conditions.  And maybe they just got tired of
refering to sheep as "eggs", even if sheep are kind of white and round
...

	Regardless of whether these particular examples are perfectly true, the
point is that there are certainly "other variables" that affect the situation.
As the dialect geographers pointed out long ago, evey word has its own history,
and when it comes to borrowing, this includes various pragmatic considerations
of the sort adduced above, which cannot be ignored in order to make some sort
of ironclad prediction that the percentage of borrowed items must fall within
some very narrow range, that these will belong only to a limited set of
semantic categories, etc.  It depends on what individual speakers _decide_ to
do.  And they are not automatons.

						DLW


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Sat Feb 27 04:57:58 1999
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (Patrick C. Ryan)
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 1999 22:57:58 -0600
Subject: Greek question & the pre-history of *nekwt
Message-ID: <FRI.26.FEB.1999.225758.0600.>

Dear Rich and IEists:

-----Original Message-----
From: Patrick C. Ryan <proto-language at email.msn.com>
Date: Friday, February 26, 1999 5:18 PM

>This is neatly explained by *negh-w-, the *-w- of which apparently in
>carried over into the first syllable in some cases in Greek (perhaps
>through -*gw-). In any case, you have to be able to explain the -u- of the
>Greek.

>[ Moderator's comment:
>  But the stem in question has a labiovelar, not a palatal+labial cluster.
>  And Cowgill's Law explains the development of *o > u quite nicely.
>  --rma ]

I know of no reflex that suggests a palatal (^) + labial combination. Are you
suggesting that I am considering g[^]h-w-? I am not. I think -gh-w- is still
the likeliest termination.

[ Moderator's comment:
  Perhaps I am confused about what you mean when you write <gh-w->:  To me,
  this suggests a segment *gh followed by a segment *w, especially when you
  write about the latter being "carried over into the first syllable".  My
  point is that the symbol used in all Indo-Europeanist literature which is
  not limited to ASCII has a superscript <w>, which in my TeX-influenced way
  I would write as *g{^w}h (or less preferably *gh{^w}).  I'm afraid that the
  sloppy manner in which labiovelars get written has misled you into thinking
  that the -u- of the Greek word _nuks, nuktos_ is metathesized from after a
  palatal (or simple velar, if you allow three series of dorsals).
  --rma ]

But, let me ask a question: are you saying that Hittite does *not* suggest
that the final element before the [w], glide or extension, was voiced? That
is a perfectly legtimate position but I was not aware it was very
well-represented these days.

[ Moderator's response:
  I've not addressed this issue before.  Sturtvant himself noted a *tendency*
  for single vs. double writing of (mostly voiceless) stops to correspond to
  a voiced vs. voiceless distinction in the rest of Indo-European (or, as he
  would have it, in Indo-European proper).  However, as I remember what he
  said about Hittite _nekuz_, he considered the spelling <ku> to represent a
  labiovelar which could not otherwise be written in cuneiform--and since it
  thus appears before another consonant, the single/double writing tendency
  would not be germane.
  --rma ]

<snip>

Pat
PATRICK C. RYAN <PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com>
(501) 227-9947; FAX/DATA (501)312-9947
9115 W. 34th St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA
WEBPAGES: <http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803>
and PROTO-RELIGION:
<http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html>
"Veit ek, at ek hekk, vindga meipi, nftr allar nmu,
geiri undapr . . . a ~eim meipi er mangi veit
hvers hann af rstum renn." (Havamal 138)


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Sat Feb 27 06:12:13 1999
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (Patrick C. Ryan)
Date: Sat, 27 Feb 1999 00:12:13 -0600
Subject: STATISTICS IN LINGUISTICS
Message-ID: <SAT.27.FEB.1999.001213.0600.>

Dear Lars and IEists:

-----Original Message-----
From: Lars Henrik Mathiesen <thorinn at diku.dk>
Date: Friday, February 26, 1999 6:35 PM

[ moderator snip ]

>Pat, there are two types of probability --- observed probability and
>`true' probability. You want to use the former to estimate the latter
>and predict what will happen. You cannot predict based solely on
>observed probability; this is an extremely basic concept.
>
>A correct statement would be that given the observation, the estimated
>probability of the same cause creating the same effect is 100%.
>
>That is, if you use the maximum likelihood estimator, which you will
>find described within the first few chapters of any beginning
>statistics text. The text will also tell you that this estimator is
>totally worthless unless you have a good idea of the possible values
>of the true probability.

Thank you for a lucid explanation of probabilities for all of us.

I agree with everything you have written with the exception that the
situation in historical linguistics is so problematic.

But, why do you not explain in detail why you think it is --- not based on a
priori asssumptions but on analysis of data?

Pat


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Sat Feb 27 06:48:38 1999
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 27 Feb 1999 01:48:38 EST
Subject: When did language first appear?
Message-ID: <SAT.27.FEB.1999.014838.EST.>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

In a message dated 2/26/99 9:33:38 PM,  Carol Jensen quoted Cavalli-Sforza:
"That language appeared overnight, as it were, and immediately became as
sophisticated as it is today, would be hard to believe. There is, however, a
small piece of evidence that in the oldest species of humanity, Homo habilis,
the biological basis for some primitive language form already existed."

Ms Jensen continues:
<<We know there are areas important for language in the brain,... These areas
(known as Broca and Wernicke) are found in the temporal region of the brain's
left hemisphere and make the cranium slightly asymmetrical, with the left side
being slightly larger. This asymmetrical form is already found in our most
intact Homo habilis skulls from more than two million years ago, but is absent
from the apes closest to humans."

The problem with this whole approach is that it really does not reflect the
evidence.

That evidence points pretty clearly to the beginnings of human speech as being
dependent on motor control of the tongue and mouth, rather than some sudden
"boost" over the brain of our hominid ancestors.  The fact is, apes may not
show the mentioned cranial asymmetry, BUT they ARE capable of learning fairly
complex non-oral language.  They cannot however acheive the subtleties of
human speech.  And that is because of a lack of motor control to produce "the
variety of sounds we would recognize in a non-written language" - i.e., with
all the complexities of case, tense, etc, that historical linguist would
expect to find there.

Furthermore, lesions in the so-called "Broca and Wernicke" regions have been
shown to result in cognitive and motor dysfunctions unrelated to speech,
indicating that what occurs with damage to these areas is a more fundamental
and underlying disruption in brain activity than just language.

Both of these facts point to finding the transition from non-speech to speech
elsewhere.

The CURRENT issues related to the title of this thread (When did language
first appear?) revolve around not brain development, but the question of what
evidence best indicates the ability to produce human speech in our ancestors.
Below I've included a part of a very recent news piece on the argument going
on about the size of the hypoglossal canal which carries nerves controlling
the tongue.

>NEW STUDY REFUTES SUGGESTION NEANDERTHALS COULD TALK 02/15/99 02:23PM

>WASHINGTON (AP) _ California researchers are challenging a study that raised
>the possibility that Neanderthals could talk. Duke University scientists
>reported in April that a bony canal in the skulls of Neanderthals indicates
>they may have had the nerve complex needed to control the subtle and varied
>movement of the tongue required for speech. A paper appearing in Tuesday's
>Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences questions that finding. "The
>size of the hypoglossal canal is not a reliable indicator of speech. Therefore
>the timing of the origin of human language and the speech capabilities of
>Neanderthals remain open questions," said the team headed by David DeGusta of
>the University of California at Berkeley...."

>The two studies have some similar findings but differ sharply in their
>conclusions. The Duke study speculated that Neanderthals might have been able
>to talk, based on findings that the average size of their hypoglossal canal
>was similar to that of modern humans. The canal, carrying the nerve that
>directs the tongue, is smaller in apes, which are incapable of complex speech,
>the Duke study found.... If Neanderthals could talk, it would indicate speech
>evolved significantly earlier than has been thought.

>Researchers have long believed that the ability to make modern human speech
>sounds did not develop until about 40,000 years ago. While modern humans came
>along after the Neanderthal, some may have lived at the same time and place as
>the final generations of those early people. DeGusta said his Berkeley group
>tested 30 nonhuman primates, compared to just two in the Duke study, and found
>15 of them had hypoglossal canal sizes larger than humans. "Because nonhuman
>primates are known not to speak, their hypoglossal canals should be smaller
>than those in modern humans," the researchers said.  But "many nonhuman
>primate specimens have hypoglossal canal areas that fall within the range of
>our modern human sample."  "The average gibbon's canal is twice as large as a
>modern human's ..." DeGusta said in a telephone interview, "so we suggest you
>cannot use canal size" to indicate the ability to speak. Indeed the Berkeley
>paper notes that some very ancient hominids had average canal sizes close to
>humans.

>According to the Duke study, "modern human speech capabilities originated at
>least 3.2 million years ago in Australopithecus afarensis, a species not
>previously noted for (brain development), symbolic capacity or even stone tool
>making," they said.  Australopithecus afarensis is the family of the famous
>African fossil Lucy.  [DeGusta] said the Berkeley researchers concentrated on
>the range of canal measurements rather than their average, concluding that "an
>individual's ability to speak can depend only on its own canal size, not the
>mean size for its species." Kay defended his group's use of average size by
>comparing studies of brain size in ancient and modern species. Modern humans
>have a brain capacity of about 1,250 cubic centimeters, he said, though in
>some individuals it is as small as 800 cc....  [Snipped.]

Regards,
Steve Long


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Sat Feb 27 12:41:01 1999
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Sat, 27 Feb 1999 12:41:01 +0000
Subject: Cowgill's Law
In-Reply-To: <000801be53b5$a9f14560$6f142399@patrickcryan>
Message-ID: <SAT.27.FEB.1999.124101.0000.>

The moderator writes:

> [ Moderator's comment:

>   But the stem in question has a labiovelar, not a palatal+labial
>   cluster.  And
>   Cowgill's Law explains the development of *o > u quite nicely.
>   --rma ]

Sorry; I don't know Cowgill's Law.  Could you explain it briefly?


Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk

[ Moderator's reply:
  In brief, Cowgill's Law states that in the environment next to a labiovelar,
  PIE *o > Greek u (> y).  I see that it does not appear in Collinge, though I
  have seen reference to it relatively recently, most probably in Sihler; it
  appears as an hypothesis mentioned in my class notes from 1975-77.
  --rma ]


From wrschmidt at adelphia.net  Sat Feb 27 16:43:40 1999
From: wrschmidt at adelphia.net (WR Schmidt)
Date: Sat, 27 Feb 1999 08:43:40 -0800
Subject: PIE gender
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.4.10.9902192113490.23829-100000@pacman.rs.itd.umi
 ch.edu>
Message-ID: <SAT.27.FEB.1999.084340.0800.>

At 09:17 PM 2/19/99 -0500, you wrote:
>There has been some discusion here of the (assumed) fact that
>the feminine gender is an innovation, and one not shared by
>the Anatolian lgs.  However, there is one thing that has long
>troubled me in this connection.  There is a fact that seems
>to argue that the feminine was quite old, viz.,that some
>languages use neuter pl. for a group consisting of a
>masculine and a feminine.  I don't now recall which lgs
>these are, but as I recall this is recognized as an archaic
>feature.  (I do know that it survives in some Slavic lgs,
>incl. Polish, but apparently not Russian).  I recall once
>trying to get an Anatolianist to make sure that this rule
>does NOT leave any traces in Anatolian, for if it did, then
>we would have a very good argument FOR feminine in PIE, but
>I never got the answer.   AMR

The origins and significance of linguistic gender has remained problematic
for some time, despite numerous attempts to explain it. However, I'd like
to suggest that linguistic gender may have once been more related to
biological gender than - AFAIK - has heretofore been thought, because the
former evolved at a time when the world-view of our IE ancestors was
similar - if not identical - to:

1) The world view that led the ancient Chinese to postulate that objects,
concepts and aspects of reality were comprised of feminine (yin) and
masculine (yang) essences or spirits; and/or

2) The type of animism that led, e.g., the Egyptians to anthropomorphize
these essences as male, female, hermaphroditic and neutered deities.

But in either case, words labeling concepts, objects and aspects of reality
would have been masculinized, feminized or neutered, depending on the
gender of the essence(s) or deity each concept, object or aspect of reality
embodied.

As the IE world-view shifted from animism to naturalism, the philosophical
basis of gender was evidently lost. But by that time, the use of gender had
been so thoroughly built into the structure of language itself that it has
remained so to this day.

Any comments supporting or refuting this theory, which I provide as "food
for thought,"  would be appreciated.

WRSchmidt


From iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu  Sat Feb 27 14:07:52 1999
From: iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu)
Date: Sat, 27 Feb 1999 08:07:52 -0600
Subject: IE creole?
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.4.05.9901221800430.29881-100000@pacman.rs.itd.umich.edu>
Message-ID: <SAT.27.FEB.1999.080752.0600.>

On Sat, 13 Feb 1999 manaster at umich.edu wrote:

> I agree with Jens, of course.  And would just add this:
> it is a really bad habit to use terms like 'creole' loosely.
> IE could perhaps be a "creole" in the same sense that
> English or Polish are "creoles", i.e., languages with
> some elements from source X and some from source Y,
> but then every language would be a "creole".

	Well, since English has been seriously called a Francophone creole
(a very nutty notion), it would seem that permitting such liberal use
of the word tends to lead to bad results.  Not that I am objecting to what
AMR says, but when people start calling English a creole, watch out ...

					DLW


From evenstar at mail.utexas.edu  Sat Feb 27 14:54:46 1999
From: evenstar at mail.utexas.edu (Shilpi M. Bhadra)
Date: Sat, 27 Feb 1999 08:54:46 -0600
Subject: Celtic influence
In-Reply-To: <76fc1289.36c04aa1@aol.com>
Message-ID: <SAT.27.FEB.1999.085446.0600.>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

<snip>
>6.  Finally, what the heck happened in French?  "Elite dominance" there got
>you a Romance language.  What happened to both Gaulish and German?  The same
>question might be asked about Norman-French.  Where is the Keltic in those
>languages?

>Regards,
>Steve Long

****************************************************************

There are some sources to consult regarding Celtic loanwords into Romance -
some in Latin, but quite a few more in French, Spanish, and other Latin
descendents. Many didn't actually occur in Latin, but in the latter languages.
This past summer, I was interested in this area, so I read a lot, also, I did
a paper for a class, regarding this:  Place-names in continental Europe are
known for retaining old names, especially those of Celtic origin. For example
in France (former Gaul), Rheims, Amiens, Anger, Beauvais, Cahors, Nantes,
Paris, and Lyon are some cities and town which reflect the Celtic names. The
latinized -dunum (Irish dun -`fortress') comes into Lyon (Lugdunum) and Verdun
(Virodunum) as a suffix designating town.  North of Bordeaux, south of Loire,
in the Charente region, there is a large number of formations ending in -ac
(Julhac, Aurillac etc.) , because palatalization of the velar consonant
resulted in endings y, -ay, and is a characteristic feature of langue d'oc,
this presence justifies reasons for presupposing a southern dialect of
Gallo-Roman. Brittany, a Celtic refuge for Britons after the Anglo-Saxon
invasion, also has a large number of -ac endings. In a wide area of south-east
and south France -acum is rare, if non-existent, but replaced by latinized
-anum.  Since the Roman empire included many parts of Celtic Europe, Celtic
words were borrowed and assimilated into Latin.

Much of the terminology were household items such as clothing, others were
geographical terms. Examples include Lat. camisiam > Fr. chemise, Sp. camisa
`shirt', Lat. caballam > Fr. cheval `horse,' Lat carrum > Fr. char, Sp carro
`cart'. and the Lat verb cambiare > Fr. changer, Sp. cambiar `to change'.
Celtic survivals of northern and central Iberia may also include Sp., Port.
alamo `poplar', Sp., Port. gancho `hook', Sp. engorar, Port. gorar `to addle",
Sp. serna, Port. seara `sown field', while berro `watercress' and legamo
`slime' exclusive to Spanish. Nigel and Vincent comment that it is agreed a
lexicon close to 200 words passed from Gaulish to French, especially names of
plants, birds, or rural objects. Such examples include chene `oak tree, `yew
tree', alou-ette `lark', soc `ploughshare', and raie `furrow.' One interesting
semantic change is the word greve, in the meaning of `sandy river bank' from
Celtic' unemployed workmen gathered on a bank of the Seine, so that it came to
mean `out of work,' and later `on strike.' Elcock mentions Fr. suie as a
preservation of Gallo-Roman *sudia,; most of the other Romance languages (i.e.
Sp., Port., etc.) used a derivative from Lat. fuliginem for `soot.' Among
other things related to fire, are the broche, the spit on which meat is
roasted, and landier a larger type of fire-dog (used to hold wood) - Fr.
chenet, coming from Celtic anderos `young bull.' The cradle in Vul. Lat. was
cuna (Ital. cuna), but Old French has berz, suggesting Cetic influence. The
word carpentier was also Celtic and French, and diffused into the other
Romance languages during the Middle Ages.

Other household terms related to milk, honey, and beer show Celtic influence
in the Romance languages. Lat. cerevisia `beer' was assimilated from Celtic to
become Old Fr. cervoise which passed into other Romance languages (note the
usual Lat. vinum). Brasser, the Fr. verb `to brew', is found only in France.
The wooden barrel to hold the liquid (Fr. tonneau) is Celtic, as is the word
for `dregs,' (Fr. lie, Prov. lia). Old Fr. breshche, Prov. bresca `honey-comb'
survive in bresca in Sp. and Cat.  Fr. ruche `beehive' exists in Gallo-Roman
dialects (which presuppose GR * brisca and *rusca) , though they differ
semantically. Milk came to be used everywhere by Lat. lacte, but whey -
petit-lait in standard French is known as le megue in country districts from a
Celtic word latinized *mesigum.

Another area is numerals, where in Modern French there are a few vestiges,
where instead of the expected counting by tens (as in Latin), there is
counting by sets of twenty as in quatre-vingt (four sets of twenty). This
pattern is still found in Celtic languages (Welsh ugain for twenty, deugain
for forty, and trigain for sixty). Old Irish had a form tri fichit cet (three
sets of twenty) for sixty in Scela Mucce Meic Datho.

It has been suggested that the sound change from Latin u to French y is due to
the Celtic substratum. The reason is that "i" and "u," alternate in modern
Welsh dialect and Celtic frequently shows this. Tonic u went through a change
where it did not depend on dipthongisation.

In the late Gallo-Roman period (by Fox and Wood, approximately the sixth and
seventh centuries A.D.), tonic u was palatalized, with the tongue pushed
forward in the same position as for palatal i. However the lips were rounded,
in the position of velar u. The change brought about palatal y (Mod. Fr.  tu,
nul, j'ai eu, a sound previously unknown to Classical Latin. This process was
especially strong in Gaul and the Iberia.

Consonantal groups -ks-, -kt-, -kr-, and -gr- also developed new pronunciations
in the common speech, perhaps also by Celtic influence. The first two groups,
the k softened to a voiceless fricative ,( a sound existing still in Scotland
in such words as loch) so that factum > facto and laxare > lasar. The -kr- and
-gr- plosives softened likewise, but as followed by a voiced r, they gave the
voiced sound corresponding to , the fricative so that facere > far and flagrare
> flaar. These new fricative consonants palatalized from influence of the
following consonant so that yod was given to the palatal fricative in Vulgar
Latin. In this way far > Gallo-Roman fair, flaar > flairier. The half-tonic
vowels and , after which yod followed, from or anticipated the higher tongue
position so that > i, > u. So lectum > liit, noctem > nuit, and legere > liir.
The tripthongs which resulted were reduced in the Gallo-Roman period, the
middle part was absorbed so that liit > le lit, nuit > la nuit, liir > lire.
Another area which of sound change also sometimes attributed to Celtic
influence is the influence of nasal consonants on preceding vowels sounds.
Nasal consonants tended to change the tonic sounds preceding them, giving a
nasal coloring to the diphthong, even in vowels that didn't dipthongise (e.g.
i and u) They also influenced tonic blocked vowels as in Fr. canto and
countertonic vowels as in Fr. cantare.  These occurred mainly in Portuguese and
French, but not so much in the other Romance languages, hence the theory for
Celtic influence.

Celtic influence in Romance and Latin is to be expected in an area where
Celtic speakers spoke, though some of hypotheses have greater evidence then
others. Germanic and Greek were other languages that influenced the lexicon
and perhaps a little of the phonology (like Celtic) of Romance. The dearth
(and many times lack) of information and inscriptions in Celtic languages make
it difficult to assess the contribution of Celtic to Romance, but in spite of
the scanty evidence it is safe to say Celtic did make contributions into
Romance, especially in France, although the extent of it will remain unknown
without more archaelogical, linguistic, and historical evidence.

Bibliography

Barnett, F., A. Crow, C. Robson, W. Rothwell, and S. Ullmann.  History and
   Structure of  French. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.  1972.

Bennett, Charles. New Latin Grammar. Wauconda: Bolchazy-Carducci.1994.

Canfield, Lincoln and Cary Davis.  An Introduction to Romance Linguistics.

Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.  1975.

Elcock, W. D.  The Romance Languages.  London: Faber and Faber Limited.  1960.

Fox, John and Robin Wood.  A Concise History of the French Language.  Great
   Britain: Basil Blackwell.  1968.

Harris, Martin and Nigel Vincent, eds.  The Romance Languages. Kent: Croom
   Helm Ltd. 1988.

Holmes, Urban.  A History of the French Language.  Columbus: Hedrick.  1948.

Lehmann, Ruth and Winfred. An Introduction to Old Irish. New York: Modern
   Language Association. 1975.

Lehmann, Winfred.  Historical Linguistics: An Introduction.  New York:
   Routledge, Chapman & Hall, Inc.  1988.

Pope, M.  From Latin to Modern French with Especial Consideration of Anglo-

Norman. Manchester: Manchester University Press.  1973.

Rickard, Peter.  A History of the French Language. London: Hutchinson and Co.
   1974.

Rohlfs, Gerhard.  From Vulgar Latin to Old French.  Trans. Vincent Almazan
   and Lillian McCarthy. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.  1970.

Simpson D.P. . Cassell's Latin Dictionary. New York: Macmillan Publishing
   Company. 1968.

The American Heritage College Dictionary. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.
   1997.

Wright, Roger.  Latin and the Romance Languages in the Early Middle Ages.
   University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press.  1996.


Shilpi Misty Bhadra
Classics/Humanities major
evenstar at mail.utexas.edu
512-495-5586


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Sat Feb 27 19:21:01 1999
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Sat, 27 Feb 1999 13:21:01 -0600
Subject: Mallory
In-Reply-To: <19990222233759.13882.rocketmail@send202.yahoomail.com>
Message-ID: <SAT.27.FEB.1999.132101.0600.>

[ moderator re-formatted ]

[snip]
>Yes, the assertion that pastoral nomadism *Has* to follow from
>sedentary agriculture bothers me as well.
>
>There are, I believe, models that demonstrate otherwise.
[snip]

	Unless you count raising the horses they rode, the Plains Indians
were not true pastoralists. They were essentially nomads with horses --that
were introduced from outside.
	The bison they relied on for meat, clothing and tools were not
domesticated or semi-domesticated pastoral animals.
	And more importantly, those Plains Indians who were not
agriculturalists used those horses to trade with and raid agriculturalists:
e.g. the relationship between the Comanches and the Pueblo Indians.
	So, in this sense, horse-supported nomadism did rely on
pre-exisiting sedentary agriculture.
	In a sense "nomadic pastoralism" seems to me an oxymoron in that
pastoralism is a semi-sedentary existence based on a fixed circuit between
Summer/dry season and Winter/rainy season pastures while nomadism refers to
a complete lack of fixed abode or pasture grounds.
	I would look more at the Saami and other Arctic area reindeer
herders as a possible example of "nomadic pastoralism" unconnected to
sedentary agriculture. Due to the climate, I imagine that neolithic
agriculture was impossible or impractical and herding developed from
hunting. But, on the other hand, I believe they do have fixed pastoral
circuits --which would eliminate any sense of nomadism.


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Sat Feb 27 19:38:24 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 27 Feb 1999 14:38:24 EST
Subject: IE to ProtoSteppe
Message-ID: <SAT.27.FEB.1999.143824.EST.>

In a message dated 2/26/99 5:30:34 PM Mountain Standard Time,
glengordon01 at hotmail.com writes:

>If we accept (as we should) that IE is genetically tied to languages
>like Uralic and Altaic >>

-- frankly, I think relationships at that time-depth are unrecoverable with
any degree of confidence.

[ Moderator's note:
  I am posting this message as a reminder to those who accept some version of
  Nostratic that this *is* the Indo-European list, and not everyone is sanguine
  about the demonstrability of external relationships to PIE.  Since the debate
  regarding methodology continues on the Historical Linguistics mailing list, I
  will not entertain further posts on this topic here.

  Those who are interested can subscribe to HISTLING by sending a message to
  LISTSERV at VM.SC.EDU .
  --rma ]


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Sat Feb 27 19:40:50 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 27 Feb 1999 14:40:50 EST
Subject: Danube homeland.
Message-ID: <SAT.27.FEB.1999.144050.EST.>

In a message dated 2/26/99 6:21:54 PM Mountain Standard Time,
Odegard at means.net writes:

>What are the objections to an earlier date for PIE? Does 5600 to 6000
>BCE seem too far back? >>

-- the vocabulary of PIE rules it out.  The common terms for wheeled vehicles
and other late-neolithic innovations date it securely to the 4th millenium.


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Sat Feb 27 19:51:32 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 27 Feb 1999 14:51:32 EST
Subject: On a First Reading of Mallory.
Message-ID: <SAT.27.FEB.1999.145132.EST.>

>In a message dated 2/26/99 6:39:03 PM Mountain Standard Time,
>rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu writes:

>Or perhaps Indo-Aryan-Greek-[maybe] Armenian moved into the steppes, and then
>split with the Greco-Armenians going into the Balkans and the Indo-Iranians
>remaining the steppes --while most of the other IE-speakers, except for the
>Tocharians & the Anatolians remained in and around Hungary. At this point, IE
>may have still been amorphous enough [in that it was mutually comprehensible]
>that the "innovative center" shifted from Hungary to the western steppes.

-- this is an unnecessary multiplicaton of hypotheses again.

The simplest explanation is that Indo-Aryan evolved "in situ" from early
central-eastern Indo-European in the Ukraine and points east. Proto-Tocharian
was isolated at the extreme eastern end of the IE spectrum, moving southeast
into the Tarim and east of that into the Shansu prairies, where it remained
until historic times and where it had relatively little contact with the
'innovating core' of IE.

The Anatolians (or rather a group of PIE-speakers linguistically ancestral to
them) moved off into the NE Balkans relatively early -- early in the 4th
millenium BCE.  Somewhat later, when the proto-Graeco-Armenian congolmerate
moved south, they pushed east into Anatolia.

The Greek-Armenian whatever had started moving southwest into the northern
Balkans by the time Indo-Aryan was developing its peculiarities, but broke
contact before satemization.  Later the proto-Greeks moved south into Greece
proper around the end of the 3rd millenium BCE, followed to the north by the
Macedonians, the proto-Phyrgians and Armenians, and the Illyrians.

Meanwhile, the western fringe of the IE-speakers had moved west and north-west
(possibly leapfrogging inhospitable areas and 'backfilling' later), and is
represented by the Corded Ware archaeological complex.

The western IE speakers remained relatively undifferentiated until the 2nd
millenium BCE; the easternmost of them (proto-Balto-Slavic speakers) retained
some contact with the Indo-Aryan speach-area.  In the late 2nd millenium BCE,
a secondary set of migrations moved the western IE stocks into the positions
in which they emerge in historic times.

That, I think, ties up the whole problem with a ribbon.

Of course, there are probably some IE language-families that vanished without
a trace.


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Sat Feb 27 20:08:19 1999
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 27 Feb 1999 15:08:19 EST
Subject: Nordwestblock
Message-ID: <SAT.27.FEB.1999.150819.EST.>

In a message dated 2/26/99 8:31:37 PM Mountain Standard Time,
Odegard at means.net writes:

>The suggestion is there is a *consensus* that a non-IE speaking group  was
>here in antiquity, >>

 -- Actually, Mallory is referring to a vanished bloc of _Indo-European_
languages, I think.


From CeiSerith at aol.com  Sat Feb 27 21:29:30 1999
From: CeiSerith at aol.com (CeiSerith at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 27 Feb 1999 16:29:30 EST
Subject: Pronunciation and fonts
Message-ID: <SAT.27.FEB.1999.162930.EST.>

   As an amateur linguist, I have been much enjoying the messages and battles
going on on this list.  There are some questions I have regarding PIE that I
hope someone would be able to answer.

1.  How do you pronounce some of these PIE words, especially the ones with
laryngeals?  Note that I'm not necessarily asking how the PIEs did it, just
how you do it.  For instance, say you're at a conference and you want to
discuss *H1en(i).  How would you say that in a lecture or in the halls between
discussions?

[ Moderator's reply:
  Cowgill treated them as palatal, velar and labiovelar fricatives (x', x, x^w)
  when called upon to pronounce them; others have other preferences.  Since
  they acted with known results on adjacent vowels, I think most linguists do
  not pronounce the segments themselves, but rather the vowels in question--but
  I could be 20 years out of date on the habits of other Indo-Europeanists.
  --rma ]

2.  Are two vowels next to each other in PIE considered to be separate sounds,
or are they meant to be dipthongs?  (e.g. *weik-)

[ Moderator's reply:
  Diphthongs--in older texts the <i> in *weik- would have been written with the
  subposed diacritic to indicate non-syllabicity.  Many Indo-Europeanists would
  now write it as <y>.
  --rma ]

3.  Is there anywhere I can find a font to write in the symbols used in typing
PIE words?  Some of them I can work around (although I really don't want to
have to), but others have me at a loss.

[ Moderator's suggestion:
  There are phonetics fonts available from the Summer Institute of Linguistics'
  FTP site at ftp.sil.org in both TrueType and Adobe Type 1 ("Postscript" or
  "ATM") formats.  Please note that while such fonts will work for printed
  matter, they will not be useful for the world of e-mail.
  --rma ]

Thank you.

Ceisiwr Serith


From mcv at wxs.nl  Sat Feb 27 23:58:22 1999
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Sat, 27 Feb 1999 23:58:22 GMT
Subject: PIE *gn- >  know/ken
In-Reply-To: <v01510100b2f74817141f@[193.51.133.71]>
Message-ID: <SAT.27.FEB.1999.235822.GMT.>

philps at univ-tlse2.fr (Dennis Philps) wrote:

>Could anyone tell me at what stage in history the initial voiced consonant in
>PIE roots such as *gno- "know/ken/can" or *gen- "knife", etc. became devoiced,
>and why this devoicing concerns some roots (e.g. *gen- "knife", etc.) but not
>others (e.g. *ghen- > "gnat").

That's because *g and *gh are completely different PIE phonemes.
An Ancient Greek would have asked why one set, *g, remained
voiced (gi-gno:-sko: < *g(e)n-), while the other became devoiced
(*gheimn > kheima).

In fact, if we look at all the IE languages, we can distinguish
between those that keep *d and *dh voiced and distinct (Indic *d
~ *dh), voiced and the same (Iranian, Baltic, Slavic, Celtic,
Albanian *d), one voiced the other voiceless (Greek, Italic *d ~
*th), one voiceless the other voiced (Armenian, Germanic *t ~ *d)
and both voiceless and the same (Hittite, Tocharian *t).

This, coupled to the fact that voiced aspirates like /bh/, /dh/
and /gh/ are very rare in the world's languages and always
presuppose the existence of voiceless aspirates /ph/, /th/, /kh/,
which are absent from reconstructed PIE, has led to some
alternative hypotheses about the actual pronunciation of what we
write as PIE *d and *dh, etc.  The best known is Gamqrelidze's
"glottalic theory": *d was glottalized /t'/, while *dh was simple
voiced /d/.  And *t had allophonic variants [t] ~ [th]. As stated
by Gamqrelidze, the theory makes no sense.  There is no evidence
for aspiration of *t outside of Germanic and Armenian (and
possibly Celtic, if we count *p[h] > h > 0) and strong evidence
from Greek and Italic that it wasn't.  There is no reason,
outside of Germanic and Armenian, to think that *d was unvoiced
while *dh was not.  And I won't even go into Gamqrelidze's
attempts to generalize Grassmann's Law (the dissimilation of two
consecutive aspirates in Sanskrit (*dhidh- > didh-) and Greek
(*thith- > tith-)).

The most acceptable solution from my point of view is that PIE
did not have any voiced stops at all.  Instead it made a
distinction between fortis and lenis stops (as in Finnish, Danish
or Hittite), where the fortis (tense) stops (*t etc.) were always
voiceless and pronounced longer/with more energy ([t:] or [tt]).
The lenis (lax) stops (*d and *dh, etc.) were less energetic/
shorter, and had voiced allophones.  They came in two kinds, one
aspirated (*dh = [th]), the other not (*d = [t]).  Or,
equivalently, one glottalized (*d = [t']), the other not (*dh =
[t]).

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam


From glengordon01 at hotmail.com  Sun Feb 28 00:00:34 1999
From: glengordon01 at hotmail.com (Glen Gordon)
Date: Sat, 27 Feb 1999 16:00:34 PST
Subject: Greek question & the pre-history of *nekwt
Message-ID: <SAT.27.FEB.1999.160034.PST.>

PATRICK:
>In any case, I have subsequently revised my reconstruction to
>*negh-w-.

First, we will assume that you mean *negh<w>-, where <w> is superscript,
as the moderator validly keeps pointing out but that you blatantly
ignore. This means that the labial element is _fused_ to the velar.
There is no suffixing whatsoever. The phoneme *ghw is ONE element in
this case, otherwise we should expect -v- in Sanskrit <nakti>. We don't,
so that's it.

Second, thank you for the tip on Uralic despite the much-loved comments
on my naivete, stupidity, blah, blah, blah, yada, yada, that you're so
famous for.

Third, re Hittite's doubled consonants, are you sure that when a medial
consonant is doubled that it means "un-voiced"? I could have sworn it
was meant to be the other way around which would mean that Hitt. <nekuz>
comes from *nekwt as expected and all you have to work with is Greek to
keep the (and I'll say it again) "flimsy" Nostratic theory afloat.

The theory is flimsy because you use localized phenomena in a single IE
language (in this case, Greek) as a means to create an unsupported IE
reconstruction so that you can then casually link IE directly to
Egyptian of all things. You seem to forget that not only does Egyptian
come from Afro-Asiatic first off from which many, many millenia seperate
these two stages but that on top of it, IE and Afro-Asiatic would be
seperated by a good 10,000 years or more by even the most right-wing
Nostraticist.

--------------------------------------------
Glen Gordon
glengordon01 at hotmail.com

Kisses and Hugs
--------------------------------------------


From glengordon01 at hotmail.com  Sun Feb 28 00:15:01 1999
From: glengordon01 at hotmail.com (Glen Gordon)
Date: Sat, 27 Feb 1999 16:15:01 PST
Subject: PIE gender
Message-ID: <SAT.27.FEB.1999.161501.PST.>

ALEXIS:
>There has been some discusion here of the (assumed) fact that
>the feminine gender is an innovation, and one not shared by
>the Anatolian lgs.

Assumption? I'd like to know how the feminine gender can be supported as
an archaic feature of IE (Indo-Anatolian). It certainly existed in
Centum-Satem (Tonal IE).

>There is a fact that seems to argue that the feminine was quite old,
>viz.,that some languages use neuter pl. for a group consisting of a
>masculine and a feminine.

I had the impression that this neuter pl was probably the source of the
new feminine gender. First, let's understand the "feminine" as simply a
second class of the "animate", unassociated with human gender. The
neuter plural could form derivatives, nyet? The "feminine" then was
simply a new animate class involving derivative nouns, only later
associated with the actual, physical feminine gender.

>I recall once trying to get an Anatolianist to make sure that this
>rule does NOT leave any traces in Anatolian, for if it did, then
>we would have a very good argument FOR feminine in PIE, but
>I never got the answer.

One may be able to easily find this neuter pl in Anatolian but was there
any inkling of a feminine sense to this ending? What about Latin
<agricola>, etc?

--------------------------------------------
Glen Gordon
glengordon01 at hotmail.com

Kisses and Hugs
--------------------------------------------


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Sun Feb 28 14:08:34 1999
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (Patrick C. Ryan)
Date: Sun, 28 Feb 1999 08:08:34 -0600
Subject: Greek question
Message-ID: <SUN.28.FEB.1999.080834.0600.>

Dear Birgit and IEists:

-----Original Message-----
From: Birgit Anette Olsen <bao at cphling.dk>
Date: Saturday, February 27, 1999 11:37 AM

[ moderator snip ]

>Actually I have an alternative theory for the instrument suffix. In my
>opinion the suffixes are not *-tlo- (*-tro-) and *-dhlo- (*-dhro-), but
>rather *-tlo- (*-tro-) and *-thlo- (*-thro-) where *-thlo- (*-thro-) is
>the result of "pre-aspiration" by a preceding voiceless consonantal
>laryngeal, *h1 or *h2, e.g. *stah2-tlom > *stathlom > stabulum vs.
>*poh3(i)tlom > po:culum. In the oldest layer the -l-variants seem to be
>unmarked and the r-variants connected with roots containing a liquid (e.g.
>the word for "plough"), so we arrive at one basic suffix, *-tlo-.

That seems like a very interesting idea, And perhaps it can be applied to
what I think the sequence might have been.

I would like to point to *dhe:l- (dheH1el), 'work', which seems to me to be
the ultimate source of *-dh(H)lo, which, on that basis, I believe is the
original form.

Of course, *-dh(H)lo might become **-tlo if a combination of a preceding
laryngeal from the root of the word to which the formative is being added
terminated in one, so that the sequence Root-H-dh-H-lo was brought into
being.

On the other hand, -tlo may just be the result of a sporadic devoicing
produced by the H of the formant: -dheHelo -> -dhHlo -> -t(h)lo.

Pat