Caucasian languages and Asia Minor

Rick Mc Callister rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu
Sun Feb 7 04:22:35 UTC 1999


	[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



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