Kurds and Georgians [and Basques]

[Rick Mc Callister]

[ moderator edited ]

>    Just a brief question/comment here. Of course, I aggree any
>Basque-Caucasian, or specifically Basque-Georgian connection is complete
>nonsense,but shouldn't we add on the list of co-incidental similarities, the
>one concerning "Ivir","Iviria", a name used by foreigners to designate the
>country known to its natives as "Sakartvelo" (=Georgia) and  "Iberian (s)"?
>I believe this coincidence was also used by the followers of this theory.
>                                             Regards,
>                                              Cristian

	Nonsense is a bit strong even if you disagree 100% with the
Basque-Caucasian proposal.
	The similarities could be more than coincidental even if they are
not genetic.
	One should consider the possiblility that the precursors of both
Basque and the Caucasian language families may have received loanwords from
the same sources.  It's even possible (although I imagine the odds are very
long) that the source of such loanwords may have died out in the parent
language. Although Indo-European and Afro-Asiatic automatically come to
mind, I suppose it's possible that some European pre-IE language family may
have contributed vocabulary.
	In any case, I'm sure that tracking down proposed "cognates" has
probably been one of the biggest spurs to investigating the phonology and
linguistic history of these languages.

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
Mississippi University for Women
Columbus MS 39701