From anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK  Thu Mar  1 14:29:55 2001
From: anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK (anthony.appleyard@umist.ac.uk)
Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2001 09:29:55 -0500
Subject: Minoan is an IE language?
Message-ID: <THU.1.MAR.2001.092955.0500.>

On Tue, 20 Feb 2001 18:08:55 -0800, Stanley Friesen <sarima at friesen.net>
wrote:

> From at least two places I have recently heard it suggested that the
> Minoan language (as written in Linear A) is an IE language, perhaps even
> related to the Anatolian branch (especially Luwian). ...

Could some of the Linear A inscriptions be different languages? Homer said
that in Crete there were many languages. It could be that for a time
some or all of pre-IE speakers, non-IE descendants of the Sea Peoples
migrants, Anatolian speakers. Semitic Phoenicians who had sailed in, and
Greeks, lived there together. Communication in much of Crete was difficult
(ignoring the modern motor roads), and the biggest possible freight load was
what can be carried by the biggest possible mule; Crete for superhighways
merely had "kalderimia", which are paved mule tracks, very liable on steep
ground to turn into flights of steps, impassible to wheels. Linear B records
go into chariots at great length, but what were they used for? Not likely
for routine war and travel within Crete. And even if I did manage to
mule-pack the chariots and lead their horses to a flat battleground such as
the Lassithi Plain, I would find it full of strongly built stone field walls
and no use for chariots. And the people in the next valley could speak
another language and hold onto it due to lack of long-range communication.


From anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK  Thu Mar  1 13:57:25 2001
From: anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK (anthony.appleyard@umist.ac.uk)
Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2001 08:57:25 -0500
Subject: Non-Indic sustrate vocabulary
Message-ID: <THU.1.MAR.2001.085725.0500.>

On Thu, 22 Feb 2001 19:35:06 -0500, Ed Sugrue <indoeuropeanling at lycos.com>
wrote:
> A quick query... does anyone know whether anyone has ever compiled a
> database, or even just a plain old list, of possible NON Indo-European
> lexical items in Sanskrit? My thought was that they could be examined with
> an eye to their possible value to efforts to decode the Indus Valley
> script. Does anyone know of anything like what I'm describing?

I found a book called "The Sanskrit Language", and it contains a long list
of Dravidian words that got into Sanskrit over time. It said that the flow
stopped at the Andhra period, as if it was not until then that Indo-Aryan
suppressed Dravidian in North India. Likely the upper castes spoke
Indo-Aryan and the lower castes spoke Dravidian for a long time.

I read once that someone found two Indus Valley Civilization gambling dices,
and on their 6 faces were pictures of objects whose names resembled the
numbers 1 2 3 4 5 6 in Dravidian.

Some Indian languags have a word "mlech" = "outcaste", from Sanskrit
"mleccha'" = "lower-class". I read that the word might originally have meant
the pre-IE people of north India. It would have been pushed down the social
scale along with the natives that it referred to, after the Sanskrit
speakers came. Compare the Mesopotamian name Meluhha, which was a realm
somewhere away to the east that may have been the Indus Valley Civilization.


From anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK  Thu Mar  1 14:14:28 2001
From: anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK (anthony.appleyard@umist.ac.uk)
Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2001 09:14:28 -0500
Subject: Non-Indic sustrate vocabulary
Message-ID: <THU.1.MAR.2001.091428.0500.>

PS: What is current belief about the Dravidian outliers Brahui and Kurukh
and Malto?
(1) Some say they are genuine surivivals.
(2) Some say that the Brahui are descended from soldiers recruited in south
India and dumped in Baluchistan, and that the Kurukh and Malto immigrated
from south India.
But is (2) derived from a proper chronicled account? Or is it derived from
tales invented by a wandering storyteller who noticed the resemblance in
language and made long stories out of it?


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Fri Mar  2 04:12:39 2001
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2001 23:12:39 EST
Subject: Goths, Naming and Ablaut
Message-ID: <THU.1.MAR.2001.231239.EST.>

In a message dated 2/24/2001 4:35:59 AM, hwhatting at hotmail.com writes:
<< I think we simply should not separate the name of the _Geats_, Götland,
etc., which occur in the area the Goths claimed as their ancestral homelands,
from the other attested forms.>>

To address this in a little more detail:
It should be remembered that the evidence that the Goths looked to
Scandinavia as their homeland appears after Ulfila and is connected with
Roman historians writing for neo-Gothic rulers who were well aware of classic
histories and conscious of a need to find their place in them.  Theodoric
honors the Roman Cassiodorus, upon whose lost work Jordanes' was based, for
establishing the genealogy of his family and write letters to and chides the
'Aesti' (Baltic Prus?) for not knowing Tacitus.  There is even a Scandinavia
king in exile at Theodoric's court who might have encouraged the idea of a
common heritage for his own reasons - this has occurred to commentators.  And
if we were to buy Jordanes whole cloth, we would also buy the fact that the
Goths were the Getae of classic traditions and the Huns were the result of
inter-species cross-breeding.

The original evidence of a Scandinavian in archaeology came with Kossina who
identified six elements that he called Goth-Gepidic and traced to
Scandinavia.  Since that time, it appears pretty clearly that five of the six
are clearly continental in origin.  (Peter Heather in "The Goths" describes
this in detail, though he does not mention that a number of the practices are
associated with LaTene and are strongly Danubian. Heather relies on the
Wielbark - Chernyakhov connection which appears to show a cultural spread
from Poland into the Ukraine.  The relationship between these events are
however complex and not necessarily supportive of the origin theory.  Polish
archaeologist have found a portion of Wielbark burials that appears to be
Scandinavian in the one element that remains from Kossina - stone rings.  But
there might be a catch here too, because stone rings have also been
identified with the Bastarnae, possibly Germanic speaking tribes who appear
just north of the Danube by 200BC.  Even if Wielbark - Chernyakhov represent
a Gothic migration rather than a spread of belief and technology, the
archaeological evidence of a Scandinavian origin is not really there.)

<<the _Geats_, Götland, etc., which occur in the area the Goths claimed as
their ancestral homelands, from the other attested forms.  Here we have
*Gauta- (don't remember if this form is attested), while in other sources we
have _Guto:n-_.>>

And the question is whether the connection is folk etymology or more
specifically noble etymology.   (With regard for example to the city,
Gothenburg, it was named in the 17th Century, Go:teborg, in Swedish, for the
"Go:ta alv", the river.  Not the Goths.)  With regard to the <Gothi> who
appear on the Danube at the beginning of the 3d century AD, one question is
whether there is any evidence that might suggest that the connection was made
as a political afterthought.

<<To add to the confusion, the Polish place names _Gdan'sk_, _Gdynia_ (on the
shore of the Baltic sea) are normally etymologised as containing an element
*gud- referring to the Goths. (The /d/ might be due to an assimilation of /t/
to the initial /g/ after the dropping of the back yer < /u/ - but the Slavic
languages normally prefer regressive asimilation.)>>

It appears this has been recently discussed on the cybalist, the archives are
on the web.  There one finds an incredible list of <gud-> place names, along
with some fair indications that the form may be indigenous to either Slavic
or Lithuanian (with meanings like marsh, meadow, thicket - all meaning that
the basic <cheo:> form in Greek for example can easily be extrapolated to
take depending on context.  (e.g., a marsh is flooded, a meadow can be
periodically.)

The problem with Gdansk and Gdynia were also addressed in those archives.  As
you also point out, <regressive assimilation of obstruents is the norm. We
would expect *g(=U)t- to yield *kt-.>  The problem presented by these place
names has not been fully appreciated as yet I think.  Here are potentially a
large number of place names of apparently non-Germanic origin that are
located in the best "homeland" that archaeology can find for the prehistoric
<Gothi>.  Complicated even more by the existence of a people in the first
historical works in the east called the Chuds, who do not even appear to be
IE speakers.

<<Normally, in Gmc. concretising n-stem Substantives to o-stem adjectives are
formed without change of ablaut degree. So we may have an irregular formation
here, or maybe both the adjective *gauta- and the ethnonym *Guto:n- go back
to an ablauting root noun. All of this is speculative, and doesn't tell us
anything on the meaning of the name _Goth_. >>

But the other possibility is that the relationship between these forms is not
from a common ablauting root noun, but a reflection instead of borrowing
between IE languages where the variation is due to the sound shifts reflected
in those different languages.  And although we may not pinpoint the meaning
of the name, we may be able to entertain new possibilities that give us a
very different pictures of historically what may have happened.  And perhaps
a deeper understanding of the words themselves in context.

Regards,
Steve Long


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sat Mar  3 02:41:54 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2001 20:41:54 -0600
Subject: Goths, Naming and Ablaut
Message-ID: <FRI.2.MAR.2001.204154.0600.>

> Yes, my copy of Wright's (O. L. Sayce, ed., OUP 1954) says that Gothic
> <giutan> is a "class 5" strong verb

        ?!?  It is a class II strong verb.  See section 302, p. 142.

> With regard to OE, you write, "_gutans_ , which would correspond to the OE
> form."  I have for OE, <ge:otan (inf), ge:at (p sing), guton (p plu), goten
> (pp)>.  (And for OHG, <gioz:an>.)  If we have the ablaut set PIE *eu-ou-u

> Gothic iu-au-u, then it is at least possible that the name Goth never took
> the form <Gutan>.

        I do not follow.

> Perhaps it was a name given by other Germanic speakers and therefore had the
> -o- from the start -- e.g., OE, <Gotan> 'Goth', <goten> pp 'poured'.

        Nothing in Germanic has /o/ "from the start".  The distinction
between /o/ and /a/ was lost in the development of early Germanic and was
only recreated with the development of /aa/ from /anx/, if I am remembering
correctly.  /o/ in later past participles is the result of
vowel-harmony--like lowering before a following low vowel.  The OE word is
almost certainly from Latin.

> Once again we have no good reason to be sure Goth was first a
> self-name (cf., "Germans", "Apaches", "Basques").

        I agree.  There are, as I see it, three theoretically possible
sources of the difference between Latin /o/ and Greek /u/.

1)  The Vulgar Latin change of short /u/ to /o/.
2)  A possible Gothic change of /au/ to /o/.
3)  Latin borrowing from other Germanic with /o/, Greek borrowing
from Gothic, with /u/ for other Germanic /o/.

The evidence of attestation may well exclude one or more of these from
serious consideration.

Dr. David L. White


From hwhatting at hotmail.com  Mon Mar  5 09:36:41 2001
From: hwhatting at hotmail.com (Hans-Werner Hatting)
Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2001 10:36:41 +0100
Subject: Goths, Naming and Ablaut
Message-ID: <MON.5.MAR.2001.103641.0100.>

On Sun, 25 Feb 2001 02:26:26 EST Steve Long wrote:

>Actually, I believe these late inscriptions are from the Visigoths in Spain
>and are cited by Peter Heather as examples of Goths referring to themselves
>because the inscriptions also contain other Germanic names and words and were
>apparently authored or "voiced" by Visigothic leaders.  I will find out and
>let you know.

Thank you, this will be very interesting. What I wanted to say is that, if
these are Latin inscriptions, the (Visi)goths might have used the name used
for them in Latin, regardless of whether they themselves use this name for
themselves.
BTW, what about the attestation of the names Visigoths and Ostrogoths? They
certainly contain the same element -goth-, and maybe their attestation might
shed some light on the question discussed?

>Yes, my copy of Wright's (O. L. Sayce, ed., OUP 1954) says that Gothic
><giutan> is a "class 5" strong verb but plainly it is an -iu- form, whatever
>class 5 might mean.  It seems as you say pp <gutans> would be expected from
><giutan>.

Yes, exactly.

>With regard to OE, you write, "_gutans_ , which would correspond to the OE
>form."  I have for OE, <ge:otan (inf), ge:at (p sing), guton (p plu), goten
>(pp)>.  (And for OHG, <gioz:an>.)  If we have the ablaut set PIE *eu-ou-u >
>Gothic iu-au-u, then it is at least possible that the name Goth never took the
>form <Gutan>.  Perhaps it was a name given by other Germanic speakers and
>therefore had the -o- from the start -- e.g., OE, <Gotan> 'Goth', <goten> pp
>'poured'.

But see my recent posting and David White's comments to it for another
source of the /o/ in _Gothi_. And we have /u/ attested, as shown by the
quotes in your "timeline" post (to which I'll answer separately).

>Once again we have no good reason to be sure Goth was first a
>self-name (cf., "Germans", "Apaches", "Basques").  And I believe we have no
>record of the Goths ever using the form "Gut-".   (With the possible
>exception of <gudekunds> which apparently meant high-born and could have
>originally referred to Gothic aristocracy.)

Where is that form attested? The stem vowel /e/ in _gude-_ looks very
strange to me, I would expect /a/, /i/, or /u/.

>That points I think to another question.  If "Goth" had an original meaning in
>an IE language, why would that word be used exclusively to refer to the Goths?
>Weren't there other places where water, river or people "poured" forth, where
>toponym or fecundity could lend its name to other people or places?  And even
>if 'Goth' did not derive from something like the name of a river or such, why
>would we expect that its occurrence would only refer to a particular people
>and nothing else?  And even if "Goth" represents some form of non-IE Germanic,
>wouldn't we expect that its use would not be limited to one particular sense
>and that being a particular tribe of people?

Normally, names are given to *distinguish* people (or, for that matter,
ethnic groups). So one would not expect various ethnic groups to be given
the same name, except if
(1) they are indistiguishable to the name-giver (as, e.g., the Romans used
to mix up the Germanic people with the Celts for quite a long time);
(2) they inherit the area where the other group earlier lived (as in German
the term "Welsch", which comes from the Celtic ethnonym "Volcae", became
later to denote the Romance people which replaced the Celts as the western
and southern neighbours of the Germans);
(3) They are adopted by another group for various reasons (as the Byzantine
Greeks used to refer to themselves as "Rhomaioi = Romans";
(4) Coincidence, as with the various people called "Iberi" in antiquity (no,
no discussion please on that one! :-) ).

As the Geats were living in the area where the Goths are supposed to come
from, they might be descendants of those Goths who did not cross the Baltic,
or they might be (case 2) Northern Germanic tribes having inherited the name
together with the area, or (if this is an other-name) they might be another
Gmc. tribe having lived alongside the Goths who received the same name (1).
In any case, the names must be connected - I don't see coincidence as an
option here.

>Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote earlier I think that the Goths should be
>distinguished from the Scandinavian Gauts and the Getae of the Classic
>Greeks.  But can the name itself be separated from any and all words that
>have a similar form?  Isn't there something or someone else that derived a
>name from the same original source word?

>The examples I gave in past posts from Greek of very similar words (all of
>them seemingly coming from the same "pour" or "poured" concept) might suggest
>that various forms of "Goth" might have been a common thing for various
>peoples back then to call themselves or be called by others.  At least some
>(e.g., <chuton>) might suggest that "Goth" could even have started as a Greek
>word.

I think the only connection is that some of the Greek words cited by you go
back to the same PIE root. But as long as we don't have a good etymology for
"Goth", all bets are on.

Best regards,
Hans-Werner Hatting


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Fri Mar  2 23:51:17 2001
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2001 18:51:17 EST
Subject: "Gothi" (timeline)
Message-ID: <FRI.2.MAR.2001.185117.EST.>

In a message dated 3/2/01 4:39:42 PM Mountain Standard Time, X99Lynx at aol.com
writes:

> Throughout this time, <Gothi> and <Getae> are often taken by contemporaries
> to be alternative versions of the same name for the same people, although
> Getae is a much older form used by Herodotus, Strabo and others to refer to
> peoples north of the eastern Danube taken to be Thracian or Dacian or even
> Scythian at different times.  The Goths themselves are also often referred
> to as Scythians, according to Heather.

-- you have to take into account the difference between writers with actual
knowledge of the transfrontier peoples, and those working 'from the book', to
whom the older source invariably takes precedence over the newer, common
sense be damned.

And the incredible unwillingness of intellectuals in Late Antiquity to admit
that anything had changed since the Classical period, plus their equally
incredible taste for florid anachronism in rhetoric.  Digging out and using,
however inappropriately, ancient terminology was a main way of 'scoring
points' off rivals.

The general assumption of writers writing for other scholars in those times
was that obscurity was a mark of high style, and that stylistic flourishes
were almost infinitely more important than factual accuracy.  The whole
emphasis of their educational system encouraged this outlook.

There's a revealing story about Marcus Aurelius and his staff, in the middle
of a campaign against the Allemanni, taking time off to argue over the form
of an obscure verb in Homer... and the writer thought this was an entirely
praiseworthy episode, worthy of recording for posterity.

And that was before the attitude got completely out of control, in the 4th
and 5th centuries.


From hwhatting at hotmail.com  Mon Mar  5 10:39:40 2001
From: hwhatting at hotmail.com (Hans-Werner Hatting)
Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2001 11:39:40 +0100
Subject: "Gothi" (timeline)
Message-ID: <MON.5.MAR.2001.113940.0100.>

On Sat, 24 Feb 2001 03:03:43 EST steve Long posted a concise recapitulation
of the attestation of the "Goth" name. Here some comments:

>The word <Gothi>, with that spelling, does not appear in Latin until after
>Tacitus, who uses <Gotones> if in fact he was referring to the same word that
>later emerges.  Ptolemy uses <Gythones> to refer to a "minor" tribe located
>east of the Vistula in the 2d century AD.

So we have both /u/ and /o/ attested in the root part of the n-stem. With
Tacitus, the /o/ instead of a presumed Gothic /u/ may be due to his sources
(probably West Gmc.).

>Inscriptions from the very early 3d century AD from a legion post in Arabia,
>written in Greek, use <<gouththa>> and in the late 3 century AD, a Sassinid
>Greek inscription used <<gouththton>> ("...tes romaion arches gouththton te
>kai germanon ethnon.")

While "Gothi" can go back to *Gauta-, it is hard to argue the same for
"gouththa" and "gouththon ... ethnon". Either we have conflation of *guto:n-
and *gauta-, or Greek and Latin "Goth-" must go back to *gut-, so we have a
third element.

BTW, what is "gouththa" supposed to be? Acc. Sg. of a Consonant stem? Nom.
or Acc. pl. of a neuter o-stem?

>Throughout this time, <Gothi> and <Getae> are often taken by contemporaries
>to be alternative versions of the same name for the same people, although
>Getae is a much older form used by Herodotus, Strabo and others to refer to
>peoples north of the eastern Danube taken to be Thracian or Dacian or even
>Scythian at different times.  The Goths themselves are also often referred
>to as Scythians, according to Heather.

The latter is a good case for summary nameing - "Scythian" was a default
name for every ethnic group to the North-East of the Mediterranean, as
"Celt" was for everybody in the North-West. The case with "Getae" is a
little different - the Goths suddenly popped up in the area where the Getae
were living, had a similar - sounding name, so people mixed them up. This
use of "Getae" for the Goths must have been quite far-spread and popular, as
Iordanes - AFAIK, himself a Goth - uses this designation for his own people
in his "Historia Getarum".

Another point - it seems that the variant with the n-stem
("gu/oton-")belongs to the older sources, when the Goths were just a faraway
tribe, known only from indirect (other Gmc?) sources. Later, when the
contact becomes close (and violent), we find the stem "guta- / gauta-" >
"Gothi". So maybe this indicates that "Goth" (in the form "guta- / gauta-")
was a self-name, and "gu/oton-" was the form used by other Gmc. tribes?

Best regards,
Hans-Werner Hatting


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Fri Mar  2 07:05:12 2001
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2001 02:05:12 EST
Subject: Goths and Religious Practices
Message-ID: <FRI.2.MAR.2001.020512.EST.>

In a message dated 2/24/2001 4:35:59 AM, hwhatting at hotmail.com writes:
<< So might it be possible that Gmc. */au/ had already become /o:/ in
Ulfila's time, and that Latin _Gothi_ represents *_Gauta- _? >>

I gave some examples earlier of how we might be able to see some "Goth"-type
words in Greek, that might match the meanings sometimes conjectured for the
origin of the Goth name.  The rich variations in Greek can suggest a number
of fairly plausible connections with the early Goths as we understand them.
But Greek is not the only source to look to.

For example, the idea that perhaps "Goth" might refer to a religious practice
(e.g., Baptist) doesn't only jive with a Greek word like <choe:> (n.,
libation) but also with such examples as Sanskrit, <juho:ti>, pour
sacrificial libations, which has been given as cognate with Gothic <giotan>.
I have not looked into Celtic or IIr, and perhaps there are possibility there.

What is interesting however in Greek is that it does supply the -o- / -u-
combination itself across all the variations ranging from <choe:> to passive
forms of the verb <cheo:> that include <chuto> (amphi de hoi thanatos chuto-
The Iliad 13.544).

There is not much to tell us that the Goths were libation-pourers.  But the
pour concept is so broad in Greek that it can be connected with other
practices that also can be fairly associated with the Goths.

For example, <chutos>, poured, also refers to an early practice associated
with "Gothic" remains, the piling on of dirt or large stone in burials.  In
Homer, <chute gaia> is a mound of earth, "especially a sepulchral mound."
Substantively, <chutos> may often mean a mound, bank or dyke.  The inhumation
burial mound (versus cremation) distinguishes apparent early Gothic sites
from other Germanic and certain other cultures in the area. (Cf. Lewis &
Short citing <gounte:> (Lydian word) and <goutarion> as "tomb".)

In any case, this is an important other meaning for the pour word in either
language that may have been overlooked. ("thanonti chutên epi gaian echeuan",
the Odyssey, 3.258.)

Strikingly, the burning of sacrifices yields words that share the /au/ of
*Gaut-.  E.g., Gr,  <kautos>or <kaustos> burnt-offering for the dead ("so
kauton", Hsch.); whole burnt-offering, to be burnt as a sacrifice;
<hiero-kauteô>, sacrifice as a burnt-offering.  Could the "Goth" name have
referred to the retained practice of sacrificing animals, somewhat abandoned
by Greeks and others in the area before 200AD.  Cf., Gothic, <sa:uths>,
sacrifice, burnt-offering - perhaps borrowed from satemizing co-religious in
the Ukraine.

Also, something that distinguishes burials that are thought to be Gothic from
others near the Danube is the large amount of metalworks, especially the
fibulae.  Dobhanov mentions "plenty of iron" as distinguishing "Gothic"
burials.  (Large numbers of "Gothic" graves have been found, settlements are
relatively rare.)

There are several variations of the "pour" words in Greek that refer to
metal-working, including such forms as <chutos>, cast, melted, fused, welded;
and <kausis>, smelting.  But that is for another post.

Regards,
Steve Long


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Fri Mar  2 15:59:01 2001
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2001 10:59:01 EST
Subject: Gothic Holy Men
Message-ID: <FRI.2.MAR.2001.105901.EST.>

In a message dated 2/24/2001 4:10:43 AM, dlwhite at texas.net writes:
<< No, it would be /gutan-/, from earlier /gotan-/, before the
characteristically Gothic change of /o/ to /u/. >>

There is another variation of the "pour" concept in Greek that yields
something that might be related.  Although the story below from Jordanes is
apparently considered a mere association with the Getae, it may be relevant
that this tradition of wailing holy men facing an army is also associated
with other Germans and Celts (e.g., Agricola faces such a similar
demonstration on the isle of Mona [Anglsey].)  (Also, a son of a later
Macedonian Phillip will deal with the Bastarnae, who may have been a
Germanic-speaking people from just north of the Danube.  He may have taken a
Bastarnae wife and did make an alliance with them (with an eye to invading
Rome) and had expansionist tendencies.)

Jordanes writes:
"Then Philip, the father of Alexander the Great, made alliance with the Goths
and took to wife Medopa, the daughter of King Gudila, so that he might render
the kingdom of Macedon more secure by the help of this marriage. It was at
this time, as the historian Dio relates, that Philip, suffering from need of
money, determined to lead out his forces and sack Odessus, a city of Moesia,
which was then subject to the Goths by reason of the neighboring city of Tomi.

"Thereupon those priests of the Goths that are called the Holy Men suddenly
opened the gates of Odessus and came forth to meet them. They bore harps and
were clad in snowy robes, and chanted in suppliant strains to the gods of
their fathers that they might be propitious and repel the Macedonians. When
the Macedonians saw them coming with such confidence to meet them, they were
astonished and, so to speak, the armed were terrified by the unarmed."

Whenever we meet the Goths outside of battle, there are always strong
religious overtones and issues, even down to Arianism and the burial rites
attributed to them.  The broader Germanic tradition of priest as
battle-chanters and rune-writers and Odin as magician may also come to mind.

In this connection there is a string of possible "pour" words (in the sense
of sound pouring out) in Greek that are unique in their meaning:

<goe:s, goe:tos>, sorcerer, wizard,. juggler ("magos kai goe:tos")

<goe:te:s, goe:tou>, wailer

<goos>, weeping, wailing

<goe:teuo:>, bewitch, beguile (in Plato)

<goe:tikos> skilled in witchcraft, juggling

<goe:tis> bewitching, AP12.192 (Strat.). ("goe:tos (sic) is prob.f.l.for
foreg.in PHib.52.18 (iii B. C.) - L&S)

<goe:teia>, witchcraft, jugglery, (in a milder sense) finesse, the magic [of
Nature]

<goe:teuma>, spell, charm

<goe:teusis>, sorcery

<goe:teutikos> = <goe:tikos>

<goe:teutria>, sorceress; (pass), fascinate; (abs), play the wizard

Cf., Gr., <ko:kutos>, shrieking, wailing; <mageutikos>, magic (Plato); of
persons, addicted to magic

Cf., Gothic: <ga:uno:thus> mourning, lamentation; <gudja> priest; (Old
Norse), <godr>

Regards,
Steve Long


From philjennings at juno.com  Mon Mar  5 22:20:54 2001
From: philjennings at juno.com (philjennings at juno.com)
Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2001 16:20:54 -0600
Subject: Arzawa = Razawa?
Message-ID: <MON.5.MAR.2001.162054.0600.>

My Hittite glossary lists no words beginning in the letter R.  This could
be because

Hittite has no words beginning in R.
Hittite scribes used the AR-cuneiform syllable in an ad hoc way, to
signify AR and RA.
Hittites used initial R as a vowel.  Their ears did not distinguish AR
from RA.

Why this matters is, that the nation/confederation of ARzawa, defeated by
the Hittites a few generations before the fall of Troy, might be RAzawa,
parsed as Raza-wa, homeland of Raza.

The Etruscan name for themselves was Rasna or earlier Rasenna, parsed
Rase-na or Rasen-na.

The simple step of identifying Raza with Rase gives the Etruscans a
"Lydian" homeland.

Note that the Hittite defeat of Razawa/Arzawa could have set refugees in
motion well before the fall of Troy.

The Razawa hypothesis becomes less edifying if the Etruscans entered
pre-history with an initial-T version of their name, which was later
truncated.  For this reason, I hope this isn't the case.  I propose that
knowledge of the Etruscans was mediated to the greater world through a
non-Etruscan group of languages that used a Ta, Ter, or Ty prefix to
indicate "those who speak."  The Indo-Anatolian languages have "ta" as
"talk" or "speech."  Early Anatolians may have habitually referred to
those who spoke strange dialects as "Ta-Rasenna-(pl)", "Ter-Mil-(pl)",
"Tar-Iusa-(pl)", and so forth.  "Ta-Rasenna-(pl)" then became "Tyrsennoi"
in Greek.

Comments?


From dlwhite at texas.net  Fri Mar  2 22:04:09 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2001 16:04:09 -0600
Subject: *gwh in Gmc.
Message-ID: <FRI.2.MAR.2001.160409.0600.>

> Is there labialisation of the nasal in French words like moi?  I seem to
> hear it there sometimes - but not in Italian pur.   Or am I off-beam?

        As far as I know, there is no reason not to take "moi" as /mwa/,
just as "roi" is /rwa/.   That is not labialization.
        According to my understanding, phonetic labialization of labials
also occurs as the realization of phonemic velarization.  Thus in both Irish
and Russian velarized /m/ at the beginning of the word for 'we' can strike
English ears as having /mw/.  This just happens to be a convenient way of
making the sort of noise required, if the lips are already in about the
right place, and is not phonemic labialization of labials, contrasting with
phonemic velarization.

Dr. David L. White


From petegray at btinternet.com  Sat Mar  3 16:33:18 2001
From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray)
Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2001 16:33:18 -0000
Subject: *gwh in Gmc.
Message-ID: <SAT.3.MAR.2001.163318.0000.>

>but not in Italian pur.

When that strange word left my machine it was the common Italian word
puo-grave accent.  I had expected it to survive the ethers but it didn't -
sorry.

Peter

[ Moderator's comment:
  Accented characters are not part of 7-bit ASCII, which this system enforces.
  --rma ]


From mcv at wxs.nl  Tue Mar  6 00:00:12 2001
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2001 01:00:12 +0100
Subject: *gwh in Gmc.
In-Reply-To: <009801c09f0c$eab183e0$27fa7ad5@xpoxkjlf>
Message-ID: <TUE.6.MAR.2001.010012.0100.>

On Sun, 25 Feb 2001 09:07:23 -0000, "petegray"
<petegray at btinternet.com> wrote:

>>labialization of .. consonants, ..whose primary place of articulation is
>> labial.

>Is there labialisation of the nasal in French words like moi?  I seem to
>hear it there sometimes - but not in Italian pur.   Or am I off-beam?

French labializes (and palatalizes!) a lot more than Italian or
Spanish do (but [esp. Brazilian] Portuguese is like French in this
respect).  But not at the phonological level.

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


From dlwhite at texas.net  Fri Mar  2 22:55:20 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2001 16:55:20 -0600
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
Message-ID: <FRI.2.MAR.2001.165520.0600.>

> Campbell's "Compendium of the World's Languages" (a far from perfect
> book, but it's what I have here at hand), gives palatalized *and*
> labialized consonants for the very first language decribed in it:
> Abkhazian.  Labialization together with palatalization occurs in
> North-West-Caucasian in general, together with a very poor vowel
> inventory (/@/ vs. /a/).  Here too, *i and *u yielded *y@ and *w@,
> while *a > *@ (and presumably *i: > *ya, *u: > *wa, *a: > *a).
> Something similar is assumed for Proto-(North-)Afro-Asiatic.

        Fair enough, but what we need is a THREE-way contrast of
palatalization, labio-velarization, and whatever "[a]-quality" would be
called, probably "uvularization", a problem being that no such thing as
uvularization (as far as I know) occurs.  Velarization alone produces
something that would more accurately be called "[o]-quality" (perceptually),
and not surprisingly is more than a little difficult to keep distinct from
"[u]-quality", given the very brief window allowed before any vocalic sounds
would begin to be perceived as moraic "true" vowels, or as semi-vowels.
        Given the predictability (if my understanding of my source is
correct) of [u]-quality spellings in Old Irish, their value for establishing
contrast is limited, predictability and contrast being two things that do
not go well together.  But though suspicious, I am (I hope) open-minded:  is
there any unequivocally good evidence for a three way contrast of secondary
articulations in Old Irish, or Tocharian?  Predictable spellings don't
(necessarily) cut it.

Dr. David L. White


From dlwhite at texas.net  Fri Mar  2 23:42:05 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2001 17:42:05 -0600
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
Message-ID: <FRI.2.MAR.2001.174205.0600.>

> A way to reformulate what I've said about a three-way contrast in
> pre-PIE consonants that does not involve secondary articulations,
> multiplication of the consonant inventory, or typological objections,
> would be to focus on what became of the vowels.  So, instead of
> reconstructing, say, three nasals **n (>*n, *-r), **n^ (>*n ~ *i) and
> **nw (> *n ~ *m ~ *u), one would simply reconstruct **na, **ni and
> **nu.  When the vowels disappeared (when unstressed), or merged (when
> stressed), there may well have been a brief and unstable period where
> the three-way contrast was transferred, in the shape of secondary
> articulations, to the consonants, leading to a separate labio-velar
> series in PIE, and to certain transformations of or variations in the
> other consonants (e.g. *n ~ *i, *n ~ *m, *l ~ *i, *t ~ s, *t ~ *i, *p
> ~ *kw, *m ~ *u).

        Well, getting that off the ground would take a lot of work.
        But it should be noted that labialized velars are dramatically more
common than labialized non-velars, in languages of the world generally.  All
this seems to be a lot of trouble to go to just to 1) wind up with a
garden-variety labio-velar series, and 2) avoid having to posit some dialect
mixture in Balto-Slavic.  Labio-velars and dialect mixture are fairly
well-known things after all.
        But granted that the existence of three series of velars in PIE has
supposedly recently been proven on the evidence of some things (which I
forget) in (non-Hittite) Anatolian, are the facts of Balto-Slavic such a
problem after all?  Is it true that even with three series (palatal, velar,
and labio-velar) we must still posit a troubling degree of dialect mixture?

Dr. David L. White


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Sat Mar  3 00:41:47 2001
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language)
Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2001 18:41:47 -0600
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
Message-ID: <FRI.2.MAR.2001.184147.0600.>

Dear Miguel and IEists:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Miguel Carrasquer Vidal" <mcv at wxs.nl>
Sent: Saturday, February 24, 2001 6:38 AM

> On Tue, 20 Feb 2001 22:44:14 -0600, "David L. White"
> <dlwhite at texas.net> wrote:

>> I don't know about Tocharian (the only source available to me here
>> speaks of a two-way contrast), but for Old Irish the idea that there was a
>> three-way contrast has certainly been disputed, notably by Green.  Green
>> notes that such a system is not attested (as far as I know this is true)
>> among living languages

> Campbell's "Compendium of the World's Languages" (a far from perfect
> book, but it's what I have here at hand), gives palatalized *and*
> labialized consonants for the very first language decribed in it:
> Abkhazian.  Labialization together with palatalization occurs in
> North-West-Caucasian in general, together with a very poor vowel
> inventory (/@/ vs. /a/).  Here too, *i and *u yielded *y@ and *w@,
> while *a > *@ (and presumably *i: > *ya, *u: > *wa, *a: > *a).
> Something similar is assumed for Proto-(North-)Afro-Asiatic.

[PR]
Some may want to look at:

Kuipers,Aert H. 1960. Phoneme and Morpheme in Kabardian (Eastern Adyghe). Janua
Linguarum. Studiae Nicolai van Wijk Dedicata. Nr. VIII., ed. by Cornelis H. van
Schooneveld.  's-Gravenhage: Mouton & Co.

He maintained that Kabardian had only one vowel, for which he was severely
criticized.

Also, John Colarusso's comments may be of interest:

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/comment-KabardianMonovocalism.htm

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit ec
at ec hecc, vindgá meiði a netr allar nío, geiri vndaþr . . . a þeim
meiþi, er mangi veit, hvers hann af rótom renn." (Hávamál 138)


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Sat Mar  3 00:45:59 2001
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2001 19:45:59 EST
Subject: Minoan is an IE language?
Message-ID: <FRI.2.MAR.2001.194559.EST.>

In a message dated 3/2/01 5:40:22 PM Mountain Standard Time,
anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK writes:

> . Linear B records go into chariots at great length, but what were they used
> for? Not likely for routine war and travel within Crete.

-- actually, they're very clearly military in purpose; they're associated
with lists of spears, bows, armor, etc.

And horses/chariots were _very expensive_ in terms of Bronze Age economies;
it's exceedingly unlikely that that many were kept around just for show.
Horses were for war.

You can't use a chariot in steep, mountainous country; but then, steep
mountainous country is generally very thinly populated.  Even more so then,
before the widespread deforestation of upland Greece and the development of
advanced transhumant pasture systems.

Classical-era hoplite heavy infantry are also pretty well useless in
broken, uneven country, but remained the dominant military arm for
centuries.

That's because they were extremely useful in the areas most people lived --
on the small percentage of the landscape that was flat, open, arable land.
Control of such land was what war was _about_; the mountains were just
obstacles between the important, flat, places.


From davius_sanctex at terra.es  Sat Mar  3 01:12:07 2001
From: davius_sanctex at terra.es (David Sanchez)
Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2001 02:12:07 +0100
Subject: Minoan is an IE language?
Message-ID: <SAT.3.MAR.2001.021207.0100.>

> Could some of the Linear A inscriptions be different languages?

A mathematical simple proof can answe the question.
If one wish to know if two text are written in teh same language
only it is necessary count the number of symbols in each text and
make a simple statistical chi-2 test to obtain the answer!!!
( All, all text in a concrete languages present a very similar phonemic
ocurrences. The same is true for non phonemic inscriptions).

david sanchez molina
(Universitat Polithcnica de Catalunya)
david.sanchez-molina at upc.es


From epmoyer at netrax.net  Sat Mar  3 08:06:20 2001
From: epmoyer at netrax.net (Ernest P. Moyer)
Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2001 03:06:20 -0500
Subject: Minoan is an IE language?
Message-ID: <SAT.3.MAR.2001.030620.0500.>

Anthony:

Thanks for your comments.

Now we are making some sense of this linguistic muddle in the Mediterranean.

I have a neighbor who came from Crete as a young man.  Several years ago he
returned to visit his relatives, and was impressed by the very difficult task
of reaching them in the mountainous terrain.  He forgot what it was like.

We tend to rigidly classify languages, when the rigidity is only in our minds.

Ernest

"anthony.appleyard at umist.ac.uk" wrote:

[ moderator snip ]

> Could some of the Linear A inscriptions be different languages? Homer said
> that in Crete there were many languages. It could be that for a time
> some or all of pre-IE speakers, non-IE descendants of the Sea Peoples
> migrants, Anatolian speakers. Semitic Phoenicians who had sailed in, and
> Greeks, lived there together. Communication in much of Crete was difficult
> (ignoring the modern motor roads), and the biggest possible freight load was
> what can be carried by the biggest possible mule; Crete for superhighways
> merely had "kalderimia", which are paved mule tracks, very liable on steep
> ground to turn into flights of steps, impassible to wheels. Linear B records
> go into chariots at great length, but what were they used for? Not likely
> for routine war and travel within Crete. And even if I did manage to
> mule-pack the chariots and lead their horses to a flat battleground such as
> the Lassithi Plain, I would find it full of strongly built stone field walls
> and no use for chariots. And the people in the next valley could speak
> another language and hold onto it due to lack of long-range communication.


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Sat Mar  3 01:43:28 2001
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language)
Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2001 19:43:28 -0600
Subject: A question about Greek or Latin
Message-ID: <FRI.2.MAR.2001.194328.0600.>

Dear Xavier and IEists:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Xavier Delamarre" <xavier.delamarre at free.fr>
Sent: Saturday, February 24, 2001 11:30 AM

<snip>

The verbal causative-iterative suffixe has in PIE the form -éyo-/-e,
added to the root in the o grade (giving a: in Sanskrit after Lex
Bartholomae) : *wérto: / *wortéyo: ; *men(o:) / *monéyo: ; *sed(o:) /
*sodéyo: etc.

[PR]

What would you say to the alternate explanation that the causative formant is
*-ye, and that its addition shifted the stress-accent one syllable to the
right, preserving (or re-instating) an otherwise lost final vowel of the root?

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit ec
at ec hecc, vindgá meiði a netr allar nío, geiri vndaþr . . . a þeim
meiþi, er mangi veit, hvers hann af rótom renn." (Hávamál 138)


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Sat Mar  3 06:25:21 2001
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2001 01:25:21 EST
Subject: Non-Indic sustrate vocabulary
Message-ID: <SAT.3.MAR.2001.012521.EST.>

The basic problem is that we just don't have enough writing in the Indus
Valley script to be able to being to understand it.  Probably because most of
their writing was on some perishable material -- ink on palm leaves, at a
guess.  Until and unless someone comes up with a store of fortuitously
preserved material, equivalent to the Vindolandia wooden tablets, it's all
wheel-spinning.

It's a pity they didn't use clay, like the Mesopotamians.


From connolly at memphis.edu  Sat Mar  3 07:07:30 2001
From: connolly at memphis.edu (Leo A. Connolly)
Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2001 01:07:30 -0600
Subject: "whose"
Message-ID: <SAT.3.MAR.2001.010730.0600.>

"David L. White" wrote:

>> Not that it matters here, but wasn't the OE genitive form _hwæs_
>> (_hwaes_, if your machine can't handle the digraph), which points to PIE
>> _o_ rather than _e_?

>> Leo Connolly

>         Yes, the OE form is "hwaes", but I was (over-)generalizing to the
> rest of Germanic, where /e/ seems to have been the rule.  The usual view is
> that OE /ae/ got there simply by a difference of opinion about whether to
> use /o/ or /e/ in IE.

Certainly possible, since other genitives show both vowels.

> Another possibility that occurs to me is that there
> might have been a change of unstressed /e/ after /w/ (voiced or voiceless)
> to /ae/, but I do not know if this checks.

I don't think so.  Why would it have been unstressed in an interrogative
like that?


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Sat Mar  3 15:41:49 2001
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2001 10:41:49 -0500
Subject: la leche
In-Reply-To: <jpaf9t824f7qvv4curpk4t65e8lgjdhlv6@4ax.com>
Message-ID: <SAT.3.MAR.2001.104149.0500.>

>But Arabic /s/ is dorso-alveolar, whereas Spanish /s/ is
>apico-alveolar (sounding slightly hushing to a foreign ear).

	This is true
but Arabic has emphatic /S/
which seems to be a better match for apico-dorsal /s/
than /s^/ is
but I admit I studied Arabic many years ago and was only exposed to
Levantine Saudi varieties

	The other qualm I have about /k/ > /s^/ in charco is that /s^/
normally evolved to /x, h/, so we would expect *jarco /xarko, harko/
	It's true that Portuguese loanwords borrowed after the 1500s
beginning in /s^, z^/ are often Hispanicized as /c^/
	but Corominas 1980 [where he says the word is pre-Romance] claims
that it first appeared 1335
	I'm not trying to be polemical, I'm just trying to figure out this
puzzle

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


From jozo.kapovic at zg.tel.hr  Sat Mar  3 20:31:52 2001
From: jozo.kapovic at zg.tel.hr (=?windows-1250?Q?Mate_Kapovi=E6?=)
Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2001 21:31:52 +0100
Subject: sieve : sipiti
Message-ID: <SAT.3.MAR.2001.213152.0100.>

----Original Message-----
From: Hans-Werner Hatting <hwhatting at hotmail.com>
Date: 2001. ožujak 03 11:15

>On Fri, 23 Feb 2001 02:20:20 +0100 Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote:

>>Pokorny gives mainly Germanic and Tocharian forms (but also Serbian
>>sipiti "drizzle"

>I do not think, pace Pokorny, that _sipiti_ belongs here. I would put it with
>the Slavic family _sypiti/sypati "pour", which must go back to a PIE *suHp-
>(Don't have any etymological dictionary here to check on the exact root form
>reconstructed). A parallel use is Russian _dozhd sypitsya_ „rain is
>pouring down“. There are no phonological problems, as Common Slavic /i/ and
>/y/ have been merged in Southern Slavic.

>Best regards,
>Hans-Werner Hatting

I think you're wrong here. Although Middle South Slavic (i.e.
Croatian/Bosnian/Serbian...) sipiti would fit fonologically (except -i-/-a-
difference) at the first glance with Russian sypat' it doesn't really
beacause the form that Pokorny is quoting has an accent on -i- which
couldn't have come from all-Slavic *y (more on that later).

Firstly, in MSS there are two verbs of sometimes similar meaning: sipati "to
pour smth (like flour) > metaphorically: to snow heavily (rare usage)" and
sipiti "to fall slightly and quietly (e. g. rain)". The first verb means
"heavily falling" (in the rare, metaphorical sense), the second is oposit.

1) Sipati ~ OCS sypati, Mac. sipa, Slovene sípati (the first syllable has a
long rising accent ´), Czech sypati, Russ. sýpat' etc.
The verb in MSS has a short falling accent which has to come from old Slavic
primary acute which was regularly shortened. This agrees with Slovene long
rising accent, because there ProtoSlavic acute remained long. There should
be a long syllable in Czech too, I'm not sure what to make of the Czech form
I quoted.

So, the all-Slavic form was *sýpati (y with acute). This could have come
from PIE *suHp- (as was said). The larynegeal would have regularly inflicted
the BaltoSlavic acute.

2) Sípiti (´ on the first syllable - long rising accent, different from
ProtoSlavic and Slovene acute). As far as I'm aware this verb is attested only
in MSS. The difference in accent says it's not the same word as sipati <
*sýpati. The protoform of this verb (if there was one) would be *sipáti or
*sipě´ti (acute on second syll., the second V in 2. reconstruction is jat).
The long rising accent in MSS comes from retraction of the shortened acute
which was on second syll. Because of retraction the accent becomes rising, and
it's long because -i- in the first syll. is originally long.

This is either of onomatopoeic origin or from PIE *seip-.

Therefore, we're drawn to the conclusion that Middle South Slavic sipiti has
no connection with the Slavic sypati - forms.


From acnasvers at hotmail.com  Sun Mar  4 07:14:09 2001
From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday)
Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2001 07:14:09 -0000
Subject: R: Suffixal -sk-
Message-ID: <SUN.4.MAR.2001.071409.0000.>

Alberto Lombardo (9 Feb 2001) wrote:

>>> I'd like just add that the suffix -asko is the more typical
>>> locative Ligurian suffix; it seems to have had IE links.
>>> The meaning must have been "high, elevated place".

[JER]

>> Could you elaborate on the semantic assessment? If it is the suffix of
>> Italian bergamasco "from Bergamo", I find it hard to see that the
>> adjective is any higher or more elevated than the base-word
>> itself.

[AL]

>There's a big difference between the ligurian and the italian suffix. The
>first one is attested in the name of many locations in the big ancient
>ligurian area, and it also still exists in many names of mountains and
>elevated countryside villages, like Carasco, Amborzasco, Borzonasca and so
>on. The italian suffix, like in "bergamasco", must have had a more recent
>source, and many different meanings too. It sounds as the general adjective
>for the substantive "Bergamo". It means "from Bergamo", "of Bergamo" and
>also "the area around Bergamo" (in this case it's obviously a subst.)

[DGK]

As someone has already pointed out, the _Ligurian_ suffix was also used to
form hydronyms (Neviasca, Vinelasca, Veraglasca, Tulelasca in the Sententia
Minuciorum, CIL I{2}.584) which are not "high" or "elevated". The apparent
association of the suffix with high places is best explained by selective
preservation. Invaders usually take charge of the lowlands first, and their
more intensive agriculture allows a higher population density there. Hence
it is not surprising that altitude favors survival for substratal toponyms.

The hydronym Tulelasca is particularly interesting because the first element
appears to be the substratal word for 'boundary', occurring in Umbrian as
<tuder> and in Etruscan as <tular>, as well as in other toponyms. The
meaning is thus 'belonging to the boundary', and the suffix is purely
generic, used to form substantives from simple nouns. This harmonizes with
proposed etymologies of <carrasco/a> in terms of a root meaning 'stone',
'stony ground', 'barren place', or the like.

Ligurian -asca seems to be the counterpart of Pelasgian -ssos, in that the
latter was also used to form toponyms, hydronyms, and phytonyms (Parnassos,
Ilissos, kuparissos, etc.).


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Wed Mar  7 02:47:01 2001
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language)
Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2001 20:47:01 -0600
Subject: Pre-IE Lexicon
Message-ID: <TUE.6.MAR.2001.204701.0600.>

Dear IEists:

Florent Dieterlen contacted me through my website, and wrote this email.

"
> Sir,
> I looked on a browser for the word " pre-indo-european " and felt on your
> name.
> I started in 1994 a Phd thesis on pre-IE lexicon and phonetics in France,
> Italy and Spain. I have collected about 700 pre- IE words, and drown maps of
> the pre-IE presence in those countries, comparing them with the maps of
> celtic words. I have also maps of the basque-related words ( a large part of
> the 700 words) for the same countries.
> Are you interested ? What is your interest in the field ?
> Best regards,
> Florent Dieterlen
"

I am reasonably sure that some list-members will be interested in pursuing this
new source of information.

Mr. Dieterlen can be contacted at:

fdieterlen at perso.ch

Pat
PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com
(501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA
WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE: http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/
and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html

"Veit ec at ec hecc, vindgá meiði a netr allar nío,
geiri vndaþr . . . a þeim meiþi, er mangi veit,
hvers hann af rótom renn." (Hávamál 138)


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Sat Mar  3 08:47:38 2001
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language)
Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2001 02:47:38 -0600
Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele
Message-ID: <SAT.3.MAR.2001.024738.0600.>

Dear Anton and IEists:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Anton Sherwood" <bronto at pobox.com>
Sent: Saturday, February 24, 2001 7:11 PM

> Ernest Moyer wrote

>>> I find Y'hawa in the Hebrew Pi'el verb table under Hawa = Form or
>>> Mold.  Literally, Y'hawa = "He shall Mold."  Future tense. Some
>>> people believe this is the origin of the Hebrew name for God.

> and Pat Ryan responded in part

>> Then they are rather misguided. The name, avocalicly, is y-h-w-h
>> NOT y-h-w. We do not just drop 'atches' to suit a hypothesis.

> So you reject the obvious assumption that the final `h' is
> merely a mater lectionis?  No comment on the other objections.

[PR]

No, I am not. I was objecting to dropping it in that particular context.

Actually, I am rather inclined to view the final -h in the short form of the
name (yh-) as a mater lectionis for a long /a:/.

Frankly, it looks to me as if the Hebrews brought Ea/Ia with them from Akkad.
After, al la egyptienne, they started playing with the name to find greater
truths, it got expanded to y-h-w-h, which might have been actually pronounced
/ja:wa:/ but looked like a Hiph'il of h-w-h, thus making a bogus theological
point.

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit ec
at ec hecc, vindgá meiði a netr allar nío, geiri vndaþr . . . a þeim
meiþi, er mangi veit, hvers hann af rótom renn." (Hávamál 138)


From petegray at btinternet.com  Sat Mar  3 16:51:34 2001
From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray)
Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2001 16:51:34 -0000
Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele
Message-ID: <SAT.3.MAR.2001.165134.0000.>

>>  y-h-w-h  ... NOT y-h-w.

> So you reject the obvious assumption that the final `h' is
> merely a mater lectionis?

That idea is vary far from obvious!   In most cases where a mater lectionis
is used, there are spellings with and without the letter, but y-h-w is never
found for the name of God.

Peter


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sun Mar  4 03:31:48 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2001 21:31:48 -0600
Subject: Etruscans
Message-ID: <SAT.3.MAR.2001.213148.0600.>

        Well, I am getting impatient waiting for DGK to massacre me
(Remember the good old days when I was just DLW?  They are gone), so I guess
I'll just have to do it myself.  If you want a job done right ...

Demon-David, Destroyer of Self:
        Your grip on Greek historical phonology leaves somewhat to be
desired.  /s/ was never lost after /r/ and /l/.  All the rigamarole you go
through over /rs/ versus /rrh/ is therefore a complete waste of time for all
concerned.  In the future, please, spare us.
        The reason that we find not /tursk-/ but /turs-/ as the Greek form
is, fairly obviously, that /turs-/ was the native form.  (Or one of them.
Your argument that /trusk/ and /etrusk/ are variants of the same word is
admittedly difficult to reject, though I insist that it should not be
regarded as proven.)  The /k/-suffix, like the /i/-suffix, is Umbrian, not
Etruscan.
        The word "thoursk" was cited as Umbrian, and you should be a little
more cautious before you declare it a "fact" that the word is Greek, merely
because it looks Greek.   [Intrusion from Real David:  Now what is this
word?  Umbrian does not have /th/, so how can it really be Umbrian?  It
looks as if a Greek rendering was taken straight into Umbrian without any
modification.]
        It looks like everything in sight is now becoming a "/turs^-/ word"
in your deluded imagination.  Your argument that /tarkwini-/ (which is
Latin, not Etruscan, please be more careful) is highly strained, not least
by the fact that Etruscan "ch" represents /kh/, not /x/.  Furthermore, if
the /turs^-/ word had survived as /tarkhw-/ in Etruscan, what reason would
they have to re-borrow it from Greek as /truia/?
        Overall, your desparate and semi-informed notions have little if
anything to recommned them.

D-D, DoS

        Real David's response to all this will be sent after a decent
interval.


From acnasvers at hotmail.com  Sun Mar  4 04:43:27 2001
From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday)
Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2001 04:43:27 -0000
Subject: Etruscans
Message-ID: <SUN.4.MAR.2001.044327.0000.>

David L. White (21 Feb 2001) wrote:

>Yes (or maybe), but it seems we are converging on the opinion that
>the Lemnians had probably come from the mainland.  The basic rule is that
>people can maintain their identity, ethnic or linguistic, if they feel like
>it, and we are not much in a position to judge at this remove.

True, and butting heads over medieval or modern examples won't accomplish
much. But unless they fell onto the island like Hephaistos, the Lemnians had
to come from _some_ mainland, plausibly Chalcidice. I must admit, however,
that arguments against Thracian or Anatolian derivation are "ex silentio"
and not particularly compelling.

>Upon further reflection, I think the Semitic intermediary, if there
>was one, was probably Carthaginian or Phonecian, since these folk are known
>to have had markets in the area.  That the version with "ty", as opposed to
>"thou" passed through some non-Greek intermediary is indicated by the lack
>of aspiration.  Note also that it must be earlier.

The aspiration in <Thouskoi> is difficult to explain. The term is not
attested as early as <Tursenoi>, and its signification is apparently
geographic 'residents of Etruria', not ethnic. Had <Thouskoi> been borrowed
directly from Lat. <Tusci>, one would not expect aspiration. The Etruscan
forms <Tursikina>, <Trsk> argue against original aspiration. Perhaps
<Thouskoi> comes through Pelasgian, and the aspiration is a hypercorrection
of the p-Italic form of the name, since we have Sabine <teba> 'hill', Oscan
<tifa> id. < Psg. *the:ba.

Greek <Thumbris> 'Tiber' similarly suggests third-party deformation. The
name is possibly from an Archaic Etr. compound *thihvar 'watercourse'; the
river was earlier called <Albula> (Liv. I.3.5). Pelasgians might have
assimilated the new name to <thumbra> 'pungent herb, satureia, savory'.

>Whether the Umbrians would have borrowed a term for their neighbors from
>Greek depends to some extent on how the neighbors got there.  If they arose
>indigenously, not likely, but if they just happened to have barely beaten
>the Greeks getting out to prime colonization real-estate, and the Umbrians
>were in contact with the Greeks, such a borrowing does not seem unlikely.

I can't argue against that, since I have no direct evidence for the date of
arrival of the Etruscans in central Italy. Helmut Rix once advocated a late
date (late 8th c. BCE) on the grounds of the lack of separation of dialects
in Archaic Etruscan. IMHO such evidence from dialects is extremely difficult
to assess, since we have so very few Archaic texts longer than the
stereotyped phrases of funerary, dedicatory, and possessive inscriptions. I
think it very likely that the Umbrians were in central Italy before the
Etruscans, but that leaves a window of several centuries for the arrival of
the latter.

>I am not merely contradicting (I'm having a argument?).  Where people can
>flow, influences can flow, and where we see Etruscan influence on Lemnos, we
>can't tell which it was.

True. However, if Lemnos or its vicinity were the Etruscan homeland, one
would expect to find a great deal more bearing the Etruscan stamp than one
stele and some potsherds. (Ex silentio again, which is my default form of
argument in these matters.)

Again, if Lemnos were the "mother polity" of the whole sweep of Etruscan
civilization from Campania to the Alto Adige, with its own colonies in
Corsica, Languedoc, and Tunisia, one would expect some general
acknowledgement of this by the classical authors.

>I am grateful for these examples, especially the last one.  All I
>had been able to come up with was "Herecele".

Strictly speaking, <Herecele> for the usual <Hercle> is an example of
anaptyche, like <Cluthumustha> and <Chaluchasu>. It is not parallel to the
epenthesis (or apocope) postulated for *Etrs-/*Turs-.

>Not counting the Lydians and the Aeneid.  /truia/ occurs in Etruscan, where I
>would imagine it must be taken as a Greek borrowing.  But since Greek has what
>might be called "invisible /s/" in some circumstances, /truia/ might have been
>/trusia/.  That is not very far from either /trus-/ or /turs-/.  No, I am not
>saying "it is proven", but we have a very suspicious coincidence here,
>especially once the Turshas are thrown into the mix.

One problem here is that many of the forms involving 'Troy' have the long
vowel /o:/, apparently belonging to the root: thus <Tro:s>, gen. <Tro:os>
'Trojan' (subst.); <Tro:ios>, <Tro:ikos> 'Trojan' (adj.). Forms with short
/o/, diphthongized or not, are evidently later. Hence even if the original
root had /s/, it must also have had a _long_ vowel or a diphthong preceding:
*Tro:s-, *Trows-, or the like. This makes it even more difficult IMHO to
connect 'Troy' with Turs-.

DGK


From mcv at wxs.nl  Tue Mar  6 00:06:27 2001
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2001 01:06:27 +0100
Subject: Etruscans (was: minimal pairs)
In-Reply-To: <F288EVHp0yupsIEXAby00018dec@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <TUE.6.MAR.2001.010627.0100.>

On Mon, 26 Feb 2001 08:59:41 -0000, "Douglas G Kilday"
<acnasvers at hotmail.com> wrote:

[B&vdM:]

>>An _ablative_ was formed by adding the gen. -s to the genitive. With
>>the l-gen. this gave -l-s, archaic -las (so the gen. -l is probably
>>from *-la).  This is the so-called double genitive.  With the gen. in
>>-s, that probably came from *-si, this gave *-si-s; syncope gave -s
>>with umlaut, e.g. -uis; -ais became -es.

>The ablative is *not* the so-called double genitive. This is a factual error
>on the part of B&vdM.

Yes, this is wrongly put.  It is *a* double genitive, but not *the*
double genitive, which is as you say (-s'la, etc.)

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


From acnasvers at hotmail.com  Wed Mar  7 11:38:28 2001
From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday)
Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 11:38:28 -0000
Subject: Etruscans (was: minimal pairs)
Message-ID: <WED.7.MAR.2001.113828.0000.>

Miguel Carrasquer Vidal (15 Feb 2001) wrote:

><Histo:r> itself may be interpreted as "knower" (it means "expert" in
>Attic), but also as "seer" (another Homeric meaning, besides "judge,
>referee" is "witness").  "One who sees/discerns well" may not be an
>inappropriate title for a judge or "overseer".  From the context on
>the stele, it seems clear to me that some kind of function/
>magistrature is meant (as I thought even before thinking of Greek
>(eu-)histo:r): it occurs as <seronaith evistho> and <evistho
>seronaith>, together with a PN in the locative: "judge [vel simile] in
>Seruna".  One doesn't expect an epithet in that context.

>But there's really nothing to be concluded as long as there's no
>confirmation of *eu-histo:r as the name of a magistrature, for
>instance in Phocaea or in Chalcidice.

I must admit the juxtaposition of a locative with <evistho> supports its
interpretation as an official title. We have from Musarna

[al]ethnas : arnth : larisal : zilath : tarchnalthi : amce (TLE 174)

and there is no dispute about the reading 'Arnth Alethnas, (son) of Laris,
(who) was the zilath in Tarquinii'. Similarly from Rubiera

... zilath misalalati amake (ET Pa 1.2)

'... was the zilath in Misalala'. At Tarquinii the expression

... zilc . thufi . tenthas . marunuch . pachanati ... (TLE 137)

uses the locative apparently to modify a magistratural adjective: '...
having filled the sole(?) maronic zilacate in Bacchan capacity ...' =
'having been the Bacchan maro' which is <maru pachathuras> 'maro of the
sons/followers of Bacchus' at Tuscania (TLE 190). Likewise there are several
instances of <zilct(h)i> 'in the zilacate'. Hence if Lemnian <evistho> does
refer to a magistrate, the locative <s'eronaith> could refer either to an
actual locality or (less likely IMHO) to the capacity in which the
magistrature was held.

As for my earlier objection to a title containing "good" or "well", and the
lack of attestation of *eu-histo:r as a Greek title, it is conceivable that
the Lemnians borrowed a Greek word which they understood as 'wise man' and
applied it to one of their own offices. Most Lemnians probably lacked
detailed knowledge of Greek and would have considered <evistho> to be
monomorphemic.

DGK


From miskec4096 at hotmail.com  Thu Mar  8 01:27:53 2001
From: miskec4096 at hotmail.com (Kreso Megyeral)
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 02:27:53 +0100
Subject: Etruscans (was: minimal pairs) Ref Hercle, Zimite
Message-ID: <THU.8.MAR.2001.022753.0100.>

Chester Graham wrote:
>  Is there any known language which has intervocalic syllabic continuants?

In Croatian or Serbian (or, rather, Central Southern Slavonic, considering
the newly being created languages of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro) the
vocalic "r" can remain vocalic in front of the "o" which is derived from "l"
at the end of the syllable. Thus, if you have "grlo" - throat, and make a
deminutive form it will be "grlce". Since it has two syllables (grl-ce) the
"l" is at the end of the first one and it becomes "o", following the sound
law which says that every "l" at the end of a syllable becomes "o". So, we
have "groce", but the word has now three syllables, since "r" remains
vocalic (gr-o-ce), and it even holds the accent! Quite atypical feature, but
it's possible. However, there isn't any such example of vocalic sonant
remaining between two vowels.


From dlwhite at texas.net  Fri Mar  2 23:42:05 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2001 17:42:05 -0600
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
Message-ID: <FRI.2.MAR.2001.174205.0600.>

[ Moderator's note:
  The following may be a duplication for some readers.  I apologize for the
  inconvenience.  A note by Pat Ryan was apparently sent twice in place of
  this posting.
  --rma

> A way to reformulate what I've said about a three-way contrast in
> pre-PIE consonants that does not involve secondary articulations,
> multiplication of the consonant inventory, or typological objections,
> would be to focus on what became of the vowels.  So, instead of
> reconstructing, say, three nasals **n (>*n, *-r), **n^ (>*n ~ *i) and
> **nw (> *n ~ *m ~ *u), one would simply reconstruct **na, **ni and
> **nu.  When the vowels disappeared (when unstressed), or merged (when
> stressed), there may well have been a brief and unstable period where
> the three-way contrast was transferred, in the shape of secondary
> articulations, to the consonants, leading to a separate labio-velar
> series in PIE, and to certain transformations of or variations in the
> other consonants (e.g. *n ~ *i, *n ~ *m, *l ~ *i, *t ~ s, *t ~ *i, *p
> ~ *kw, *m ~ *u).

        Well, getting that off the ground would take a lot of work.
        But it should be noted that labialized velars are dramatically more
common than labialized non-velars, in languages of the world generally.  All
this seems to be a lot of trouble to go to just to 1) wind up with a
garden-variety labio-velar series, and 2) avoid having to posit some dialect
mixture in Balto-Slavic.  Labio-velars and dialect mixture are fairly
well-known things after all.
        But granted that the existence of three series of velars in PIE has
supposedly recently been proven on the evidence of some things (which I
forget) in (non-Hittite) Anatolian, are the facts of Balto-Slavic such a
problem after all?  Is it true that even with three series (palatal, velar,
and labio-velar) we must still posit a troubling degree of dialect mixture?

Dr. David L. White


From lmfosse at online.no  Thu Mar  8 13:58:26 2001
From: lmfosse at online.no (Lars Martin Fosse)
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 14:58:26 +0100
Subject: SV: Minoan is an IE language?
Message-ID: <THU.8.MAR.2001.145826.0100.>

David Sanchez [SMTP:davius_sanctex at terra.es] skrev 3. mars 2001 02:12:

>> Could some of the Linear A inscriptions be different languages?

> A mathematical simple proof can answe the question.
> If one wish to know if two text are written in teh same language
> only it is necessary count the number of symbols in each text and
> make a simple statistical chi-2 test to obtain the answer!!!
> ( All, all text in a concrete languages present a very similar phonemic
> ocurrences. The same is true for non phonemic inscriptions).

Wouldn't the question of sample size be relevant here? If inscriptions are
very short, say only four or five words, wouldn't this make the chi-2 test
invalid? As far as I remember, you would have to assume normalcy in order
to use it, otherwise there are other tests with bigger error margins to be
used. Could you define how big a continuous text sample must be before you
can use the chi-2 test?

Lars Martin Fosse

Dr. art. Lars Martin Fosse
Haugerudvn. 76, Leil. 114,
0674 Oslo
Norway
Phone: +47 22 32 12 19
Mobile phone: +47 90 91 91 45
Fax 1:  +47 22 32 12 19
Fax 2:  +47 85 02 12 50 (InFax)
Email: lmfosse at online.no


From gmcdavid at winternet.com  Thu Mar  8 15:46:14 2001
From: gmcdavid at winternet.com (Glenn McDavid)
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 09:46:14 -0600
Subject: Minoan is an IE language?
In-Reply-To: <008f01c0a37e$f837ff00$b41e523e@pc>
Message-ID: <THU.8.MAR.2001.094614.0600.>

On Sat, 3 Mar 2001, David Sanchez wrote:

>> Could some of the Linear A inscriptions be different languages?

> A mathematical simple proof can answe the question.
> If one wish to know if two text are written in teh same language
> only it is necessary count the number of symbols in each text and
> make a simple statistical chi-2 test to obtain the answer!!!
> ( All, all text in a concrete languages present a very similar phonemic
> ocurrences. The same is true for non phonemic inscriptions).

This assumes you can separate the texts into two or more groups before
performing the test.  That might tell you something if you were comparing
collections of tables from two different locations.  Even there you
would have to be sure they dated from about the same time (the script
or language may have changed).  You would need to allow for variations
between scribes, and between local concerns which might lead to variations
in the vocabulary actually represented in the archives.

A far more serious problem would be if you had a situation like the
Hittite archives at Hattusas.  In that case there were several different
languages all together, all written in Akkadian cuneiform.  That problem
could be dealt with because the cuneiform script had already been
deciphered.  We do not have that advantage with Linear A.

Glenn McDavid
mailto:gmcdavid at winternet.com
mailto:Glenn.McDavid at alumni.carleton.edu
http://www.winternet.com/~gmcdavid


From petegray at btinternet.com  Fri Mar  9 19:56:04 2001
From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray)
Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2001 19:56:04 -0000
Subject: Minoan is an IE language?
Message-ID: <FRI.9.MAR.2001.195604.0000.>

>chariots ... but what were they used
> for? Not likely for routine war

Chariots were never used in battle in Greek times - they were used to get
the heroes to battle.   One got off them to fight.  (Or in some cases two
got of them to fight ...)

Peter


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Thu Mar  8 14:22:53 2001
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 09:22:53 -0500
Subject: Non-Indic sustrate vocabulary
In-Reply-To: <5a.11df4ea0.27d1e851@aol.com>
Message-ID: <THU.8.MAR.2001.092253.0500.>

Is what we do have just limited to carved seals?

>The basic problem is that we just don't have enough writing in the Indus
>Valley script to be able to being to understand it.  Probably because most of
>their writing was on some perishable material -- ink on palm leaves, at a
>guess.  Until and unless someone comes up with a store of fortuitously
>preserved material, equivalent to the Vindolandia wooden tablets, it's all
>wheel-spinning.

>It's a pity they didn't use clay, like the Mesopotamians.

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


From lmfosse at online.no  Thu Mar  8 15:49:15 2001
From: lmfosse at online.no (Lars Martin Fosse)
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 16:49:15 +0100
Subject: SV: Non-Indic sustrate vocabulary
Message-ID: <THU.8.MAR.2001.164915.0100.>

JoatSimeon at aol.com [SMTP:JoatSimeon at aol.com] skrev 3. mars 2001 07:25:

> The basic problem is that we just don't have enough writing in the Indus
> Valley script to be able to being to understand it.  Probably because
> most of their writing was on some perishable material -- ink on palm leaves,
> at a guess.  Until and unless someone comes up with a store of fortuitously
> preserved material, equivalent to the Vindolandia wooden tablets, it's
> all wheel-spinning.

> It's a pity they didn't use clay, like the Mesopotamians.

How very true!

Those who are interested, might want to have a look at:

Gregory L. Possehl (1996). Indus Age. The Writing System. University of
Pennsylvania Press.

Asko Parpola (1994). Deciphering the Indus script. Cambridge University
Press.

Possehl discusses a large number of attempts to solve the puzzle. Parpola's
book represents such an attempt.

There is at present no universally acknowledged solution to the problem,
and it may be argued that the problem is unsolvable and will remain so,
just as JoatSimeon suggests.

The problem of the Indus script is, however, closely connected to
ideological struggles related to Indian nationalism ("Hindutva"), and
several attempts have been made to interpret the Indus script language as
Sanskrit. A recent attempt was deconstructed by Prof. Witzel of Harvard
University and his collaborator Steve Farmer in the Indian journal
Frontline a few months ago. Still, the assertion that the language of the
Indus (Harappan) culture was Sanskrit, is frequently met in the Indian
press and also abroad. Such assertions should be regarded with scepticism.

Lars Martin Fosse

Dr. art. Lars Martin Fosse
Haugerudvn. 76, Leil. 114,
0674 Oslo
Norway
Phone: +47 22 32 12 19
Mobile phone: +47 90 91 91 45
Fax 1:  +47 22 32 12 19
Fax 2:  +47 85 02 12 50 (InFax)
Email: lmfosse at online.no


From dlwhite at texas.net  Thu Mar  8 16:05:12 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 10:05:12 -0600
Subject: "whose"
Message-ID: <THU.8.MAR.2001.100512.0600.>

>> Yes, the OE form is "hwaes", but I was (over-)generalizing to
>> the rest of Germanic, where /e/ seems to have been the rule.  The usual view
>> is that OE /ae/ got there simply by a difference of opinion about whether
>> to use /o/ or /e/ in IE.

LC > Certainly possible, since other genitives show both vowels.

        Yes, but it is annoying, since we (or at least I) would like to
reconstruct one genitive of the interrogative for Common Germanic, not two.
But such dreams are perhaps naive.

>> Another possibility that occurs to me is that there
>> might have been a change of unstressed /e/ after /w/ (voiced or
>> voiceless) to /ae/, but I do not know if this checks.

LC > I don't think so.  Why would it have been unstressed in an interrogative
> like that?

        Because it's really from unstressed compounds with the interrogative
as second element, not from the true interrogative itself.
The Conventional Wisdom, at least as represented by Wright, derives the
vowel of the nominative from an unstressed form, so I do not see that an
unstressed genitive would be notably problematic.
        A greater problem, in my view, is that the sound change that the
Conventional Wisdom depends on applies, as far as I can see,  to only to
words:  /hwa/ -> /hwaa/, and /swa/ -> /swaa/.  This is seen as lengthening
of short vowels to long, some sort of de facto mora minimum.  But there are
two suspicious problems.  First, the fact that both words have /w/ is not
mentioned as relevant, and is therefore implicitly left as a concidence.
Maybe, but maybe not.  Second, it is not mentioned that /hwaa/ and /swaa/
quite commonly co-occur, as in the usual OE word for 'whoever', "swa hwa
swa".  Some sort of (for lack of a better term) sympathetic association
seems likely.  The sequence is vaguely reduplicative, a fact that speakers
must have been sensitive to.
        So (just when you thought there was no point) the view I would (very
tentatively) take is that 1) /hwaa/ is a plural intruding into the singular,
originally from indefinites.  Or perhaps it is from a sound change that
applied only to unstressed indefinites, but either way indefinites cannot be
avoided, and 2) that /hwaes/ is from /hwes/, with a change or reanalysis of
unstressed /hwes/ to /hwas/, due to influence from the preceding labial,
from which point /hwae/ is regular.  But perhaps there is something fatally
wrong with all this.

Dr. David L. White


From maxw at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Thu Mar  8 16:12:10 2001
From: maxw at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Max Wheeler)
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 16:12:10 +0000
Subject: charco [was: la leche]
In-Reply-To: <l03130304b6c6bddcd7e4@[209.147.211.31]>
Message-ID: <THU.8.MAR.2001.161210.0000.>

The point that Corominas is making is that charco is a Mozarabic version of
Latin circum, at least as regards the initial consonant, given that there's
substantial evidence that in Mozarabic Romance Latin /k/ before front
vowels was realized as a (pre-)palatal affricate (as it was and is in
Italian). This evidence comes a) from place-names such as Ferrutx <
ferrucium, Marchilliena < Marcilium + -ena  and b) from representation of
Mozarabic words in Arabic script where the reflex of /k/ before front
vowels is written with <jim>, or even more precisely with geminate <jim>
which is interpreted as indicating a voiceless (pre-)palatal affricate,
e.g. <djjmbr> 'December'. The pronunciation of coronal fricatives has
nothing to do with charco. He's claiming that what is 'Arabized' is the
realization of /e/ as /a/.

I've taken the examples above from A. Galmés de Fuentes, Dialectología
mozárabe, Madrid:
Gredos, 1983.

However, Corominas's attempt at relating charco to circum in BDELC is now
of merely academic interest, since in DCECH (1980), in a 6.5 column article
on charco, Corominas & Pascual do not even mention this etymology among the
several they consider or reject, concluding 'de origen desconocido, quizá
prerromano'.

Max

--On Saturday, March 3, 2001 10:41 -0500 Rick Mc Callister
<rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu> wrote:

>> But Arabic /s/ is dorso-alveolar, whereas Spanish /s/ is
>> apico-alveolar (sounding slightly hushing to a foreign ear).

>	 This is true
> but Arabic has emphatic /S/
> which seems to be a better match for apico-dorsal /s/
> than /s^/ is
> but I admit I studied Arabic many years ago and was only exposed to
> Levantine Saudi varieties

>	 The other qualm I have about /k/ > /s^/ in charco is that /s^/
> normally evolved to /x, h/, so we would expect *jarco /xarko, harko/
>	 It's true that Portuguese loanwords borrowed after the 1500s
> beginning in /s^, z^/ are often Hispanicized as /c^/
>	 but Corominas 1980 [where he says the word is pre-Romance] claims
> that it first appeared 1335
>	 I'm not trying to be polemical, I'm just trying to figure out this
> puzzle

____________________________________________________________
Max W. Wheeler
School of Cognitive & Computing Sciences
University of Sussex
Falmer
BRIGHTON BN1 9QH, G.B.

Tel: +44 (0)1273 678975 Fax: +44 (0)1273 671320 Email:
maxw at cogs.susx.ac.uk
____________________________________________________________


From dlwhite at texas.net  Thu Mar  8 16:20:46 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 10:20:46 -0600
Subject: Arzawa = Razawa?
Message-ID: <THU.8.MAR.2001.102046.0600.>

        It has occurred to me to connect /ras-/ with /tors^-/, but I thought
I better not, being far enough out on a limb already...
        It is possible that there was more than one name for these people
floating around.  Note that Troy itself has another name, /ilio-/, or
whatever it was, and that there is some evidence to suggest that Luwian was
spoken in Troy.  Not that this means no other language was spoken in Troy:
Homer specifically refers to the armies of Troy as many-tongued, or
something like that.   Where knowledge is limited, possibilities multiply
...

Dr. David L. White


From acnasvers at hotmail.com  Fri Mar  9 11:58:28 2001
From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday)
Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2001 11:58:28 -0000
Subject: Arzawa = Razawa?
Message-ID: <FRI.9.MAR.2001.115828.0000.>

philjennings at juno.com (5 Mar 2001) wrote:

>Why this matters is, that the nation/confederation of ARzawa, defeated by
>the Hittites a few generations before the fall of Troy, might be RAzawa,
>parsed as Raza-wa, homeland of Raza.

>The Etruscan name for themselves was Rasna or earlier Rasenna, parsed
>Rase-na or Rasen-na.

Rasenna is not "earlier". It is transcribed from the Greek spelling of
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, which has an acute on the epsilon not
corresponding to the Etruscan accent, but showing that the final alpha is
long. Extant Etruscan inscriptions, which predate Dionysius, have forms of
Rasna (or Ras'na in the North). We can deduce that Rasna was trisyllabic,
and the <n> sounded long to Dionysius, who was obliged to include epsilon in
order to produce a legible Greek word. Etruscan allows non-vocalic
continuants as syllabic nuclei, seen in words such as <cn>, <cnl>, <clthi>,
and <ps'l>.

>The simple step of identifying Raza with Rase gives the Etruscans a
>"Lydian" homeland.

One could just as easily give them an "Assyrian" homeland by identifying
Rasna with the city of Resen (Gen. 10:12), which someone else has done. In
this business "simple steps" alone don't amount to much. Unless they are
backed up by other evidence, they usually turn out to be steps in the wrong
direction.

>Note that the Hittite defeat of Razawa/Arzawa could have set refugees in
>motion well before the fall of Troy.

>The Razawa hypothesis becomes less edifying if the Etruscans entered
>pre-history with an initial-T version of their name, which was later
>truncated.  For this reason, I hope this isn't the case.

The "initial-T version" is attested earlier, as Tursikina on the fibula of
Clusium (ca. 600 BCE). Forms of Rasna belong to the 4th cent. BCE or later.
I do not believe that Rasna arose by truncation or any other process from
Turs-. I know of no example of such phonetic contortion during the
historical period of Etruscan. Ras- and Turs- should be regarded as two
distinct roots.

>  I propose that
>knowledge of the Etruscans was mediated to the greater world through a
>non-Etruscan group of languages that used a Ta, Ter, or Ty prefix to
>indicate "those who speak."  The Indo-Anatolian languages have "ta" as
>"talk" or "speech."  Early Anatolians may have habitually referred to
>those who spoke strange dialects as "Ta-Rasenna-(pl)", "Ter-Mil-(pl)",
>"Tar-Iusa-(pl)", and so forth.  "Ta-Rasenna-(pl)" then became "Tyrsennoi"
>in Greek.

>Comments?

Ingenious, but not very convincing.

DGK


From dlwhite at texas.net  Thu Mar  8 20:57:44 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 14:57:44 -0600
Subject: Etruscans
Message-ID: <THU.8.MAR.2001.145744.0600.>

> David L. White (21 Feb 2001) wrote:

>> Yes (or maybe), but it seems we are converging on the opinion that
>> the Lemnians had probably come from the mainland.  The basic rule is that
>> people can maintain their identity, ethnic or linguistic, if they feel
>> like it, and we are not much in a position to judge at this remove.

> True, and butting heads over medieval or modern examples won't accomplish
> much. But unless they fell onto the island like Hephaistos, the Lemnians had
> to come from _some_ mainland, plausibly Chalcidice. I must admit, however,
> that arguments against Thracian or Anatolian derivation are "ex silentio"
> and not particularly compelling.

        We agree.

>> Upon further reflection, I think the Semitic intermediary, if there was one,
>> was probably Carthaginian or Phonecian, since these folk are known to have
>> had markets in the area.  That the version with "ty", as opposed to "thou"
>> passed through some non-Greek intermediary is indicated by the lack of
>> aspiration.  Note also that it must be earlier.

> The aspiration in <Thouskoi> is difficult to explain. The term is not
> attested as early as <Tursenoi>, and its signification is apparently
> geographic 'residents of Etruria', not ethnic. Had <Thouskoi> been borrowed
> directly from Lat. <Tusci>, one would not expect aspiration. The Etruscan
> forms <Tursikina>, <Trsk> argue against original aspiration. Perhaps
> <Thouskoi> comes through Pelasgian, and the aspiration is a hypercorrection
> of the p-Italic form of the name, since we have Sabine <teba> 'hill', Oscan
> <tifa> id. < Psg. *the:ba.

        I have it on good authority (Eric Hamp) that English-like aspiration
occurs in some Pennine Italian dialects.  Perhaps an ancient version of this
is the source.  But what language is "Thouskoi" in?  Something similar, by
the way, appears to be going on with "Punic" versus "Phonecian", and I would
like to know what the story is there.

>> Whether the Umbrians would have borrowed a term for their neighbors from
>> Greek depends to some extent on how the neighbors got there.  If they
>> arose indigenously, not likely, but if they just happened to have barely
>> beaten the Greeks getting out to prime colonization real-estate, and the
>> Umbrians were in contact with the Greeks, such a borrowing does not seem
>> unlikely.

> I can't argue against that, since I have no direct evidence for the date
> of arrival of the Etruscans in central Italy. Helmut Rix once advocated a
> late date (late 8th c. BCE) on the grounds of the lack of separation of
> dialects in Archaic Etruscan. IMHO such evidence from dialects is extremely
> difficult to assess, since we have so very few Archaic texts longer than the
> stereotyped phrases of funerary, dedicatory, and possessive inscriptions.
> I think it very likely that the Umbrians were in central Italy before the
> Etruscans, but that leaves a window of several centuries for the arrival
> of the latter.

>> I am not merely contradicting (I'm having a argument?).  Where people can
>> flow, influences can flow, and where we see Etruscan influence on Lemnos,
>> we can't tell which it was.

> True. However, if Lemnos or its vicinity were the Etruscan homeland, one
> would expect to find a great deal more bearing the Etruscan stamp than one
> stele and some potsherds. (Ex silentio again, which is my default form of
> argument in these matters.)

> Again, if Lemnos were the "mother polity" of the whole sweep of Etruscan
> civilization from Campania to the Alto Adige, with its own colonies in
> Corsica, Languedoc, and Tunisia, one would expect some general
> acknowledgement of this by the classical authors.

        My view is that they were a small group, very open to foreign
influences, and that their later prevalence in Etruria is due to, dare I say
it, elite dominance.   I think we agree that a large group could not have
led an in effect secret existence in the Northern Aegean for several
centuries, even during the Dark Ages.  But classical authors are not in
general reliable for more than a few generations before their time, and for
what it is worth, there are some assertions (evidently accepted by the
Etruscan themselves) that they came from Anatolia.  A soujourn in
Thrace/Chalcidice/Lemnos would not cause this to be untrue.

>> I am grateful for these examples, especially the last one.  All I
>> had been able to come up with was "Herecele".

> Strictly speaking, <Herecele> for the usual <Hercle> is an example of
> anaptyche, like <Cluthumustha> and <Chaluchasu>. It is not parallel to the
> epenthesis (or apocope) postulated for *Etrs-/*Turs-.

        It is an example of an evidently unacceptable cluster being broken
up, which is all it was meant to be.  In one case breaking up is achieved
directly by inserting a vowel, in the other case indirectly by pre-posing a
vowel that creates a syllable boundary.  But the point is that we do have
evidence for some serious differences of opinion among the people of the
time and place about what was phonotactically acceptable.

>> Not counting the Lydians and the Aeneid.  /truia/ occurs in Etruscan, where
>> I would imagine it must be taken as a Greek borrowing.  But since Greek has
>> what might be called "invisible /s/" in some circumstances, /truia/ might
>> have been /trusia/.  That is not very far from either /trus-/ or /turs-/.
>> No, I am not saying "it is proven", but we have a very suspicious
>> coincidence here, especially once the Turshas are thrown into the mix.

> One problem here is that many of the forms involving 'Troy' have the long
> vowel /o:/, apparently belonging to the root: thus <Tro:s>, gen. <Tro:os>
> 'Trojan' (subst.); <Tro:ios>, <Tro:ikos> 'Trojan' (adj.). Forms with short
> /o/, diphthongized or not, are evidently later. Hence even if the original
> root had /s/, it must also have had a _long_ vowel or a diphthong preceding:
> *Tro:s-, *Trows-, or the like. This makes it even more difficult IMHO to
> connect 'Troy' with Turs-.

        Could this long vowel not be secondary, by compensatory lengthening,
/trosy-/ -> /trohy-/ -> /trooy-/, with /y/ later lost where not
re-analyzable as part of a suffix with /i/?  In any event, for there to be a
difference of opinion about whether some vowel is a short high vowel or a
long mid vowel is not unheard of, as seen in Vulgar Latin.  Length is not
necessarily that clear.  The lowering of Greek original long mids would have
to be later, but as far as I know there is no reason that this (somewhat
strange) development has to be especially early.  The lack of a distinction
between /u/ and /o/ also may well have something to do with borrowings at
different times by different peoples taking slightly different forms.

Dr. David L. White


From dlwhite at texas.net  Thu Mar  8 16:33:11 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 10:33:11 -0600
Subject: Goths, Naming and Ablaut
Message-ID: <THU.8.MAR.2001.103311.0600.>

        The case of the Geats gives us pretty good reason to believe that
the ethnonym in question existed in ablaut variants.  To be more specific,
my possibilty 2 would have the Geats and Goths coming from /au/, with the
various /gut-/ words of the Greek sphere coming from /u/.
        The Conventional Wisdom is that past particples of strong verbs come
from stressed /Vn/, whereas the ending of weak adjectives, orginally
"characterizing", somewhat like modern English "-ed" (which is also used to
from past participles), comes from unstressed /Vn/, where V is the
annoyingly variant e/o.  Perhaps a difference of opinion about which
sub-type of /Vn/ was being used, and therefore about how it should be
stressed, result in the ablaut variation seen.  The two appear to be
differently stressed versions of the same thing.
But then again, this sort of stuff is not my strong suit, so please correct
me if I am hopelesly confused ...

Dr. David L. White


From hwhatting at hotmail.com  Fri Mar  9 10:25:15 2001
From: hwhatting at hotmail.com (Hans-Werner Hatting)
Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2001 11:25:15 +0100
Subject: Goths, Naming and Ablaut
Message-ID: <FRI.9.MAR.2001.112515.0100.>

On Thu, 1 Mar 2001 23:12:39 EST Steve Long wrote:

>To address this in a little more detail:
>It should be remembered that the evidence that the Goths looked to
>Scandinavia as their homeland appears after Ulfila and is connected with
>Roman historians writing for neo-Gothic rulers who were well aware of
>classic
>histories and conscious of a need to find their place in them.
(snip)

Generally, I accept that we cannot take the writing of the classical authors
without subjecting them to critique. And you argue quite convincing that we
cannot take the Scandinavian origin of the Goths
for granted. But I'd like to make the following points:
1) I do not see any special "prestige value" for the Goths in coming from
Scandinavia. In accordance to classical criteria, we would expect them to
show that they descend from Greeks or Troians, or from some prestigious
mythical personage, or to some other people known from antiquity. The
link-up and mix-up with the Getae you describe is much more in line with
what we would expect.
2) We have the mention at Ptolemy you quoted, showing them in about the
Wielbark area, so archaeology seems at least to corroborate this part of the
migration history of the Goths. AFAIK, this is not an area which nowadays is
seen as part of the original homeland of the Germanic peoples, so the Goths
have to have got there from somewhere else. Scandinavia seems as good a
candidate for me as Northern Germany.

>And the question is whether the connection is folk etymology or more
>specifically noble etymology.   (With regard for example to the city,
>Gothenburg, it was named in the 17th Century, Go:teborg, in Swedish, for
>the "Go:ta alv", the river.  Not the Goths)

But there may be a link between the river name and the name of the Goths.

>It appears this has been recently discussed on the cybalist, the archives are
>on the web.  There one finds an incredible list of <gud-> place names, along
>with some fair indications that the form may be indigenous to either Slavic or
>Lithuanian (with meanings like marsh, meadow, thicket - all meaning that the
>basic <cheo:> form in Greek for example can easily be extrapolated to take
>depending on context.  (e.g., a marsh is flooded, a meadow can be
>periodically.)

>The problem with Gdansk and Gdynia were also addressed in those archives.  As
>you also point out, <regressive assimilation of obstruents is the norm. We
>would expect *g(=U)t- to yield *kt-.> The problem presented by these place
>names has not been fully appreciated as yet I think.

I would agree that we should not count these names as evidence for anything
"Gothic" as long as we do not have good etymologies for them.

>Here are potentially a
>large number of place names of apparently non-Germanic origin that are
>located in the best "homeland" that archaeology can find for the
>prehistoric <Gothi>.

I do not understand your point here. If we are talking about the Wielbark
area, this  normally is not assumed to be a homeland for Gmc. people. The
Goths would have been there only for some generations, not leaving many
toponyms behind.

>Complicated even more by the existence of a people in the first
>historical works in the east called the Chuds, who do not even appear to be
>IE speakers.

In later times the Chudy (with /ch/ standing for English /ch/, not for Greek
"chi") are a Finno-Ugrian people. I am not able to look it up now, but I
remember having read that the name goes back to a pre-form *tyud- (which
some have linked to West-IE *teuta). I don't see how they come in here;
AFAIK, they are mentioned first in Old Russian sources, long after the
period we are discussing now.

On Fri, 2 Mar 2001 02:05:12 EST Steve Long wrote:

>Also, something that distinguishes burials that are thought to be Gothic
>from others near the Danube is the large amount of metalworks, especially
>the fibulae.  Dobhanov mentions "plenty of iron" as distinguishing "Gothic"
>burials.  (Large numbers of "Gothic" graves have been found, settlements
>are relatively rare.)
>There are several variations of the "pour" words in Greek that refer to
>metal-working, including such forms as <chutos>, cast, melted, fused,
>welded; and <kausis>, smelting.  But that is for another post.

Just as a remark, in German "giessen" = Gothic "giutan" is the normal word
for metal casting. The verbal noun is "Guss", with the zero degree we have
in *Guto:n-.
Concerning the rest of Steve Long's proposals, they make semantical sense to
me, but none of them seems provable.
As the Gythones were mentioned by Ptolemy in the 2nd century AD in an area
quite far away from the Classical world, it seems that the Goths already
carried their name before they crossed the horizon of the Classical world.
So whatever the semantics behind the name, libations or metal casting, I
think it is a name given to them by themselves or by their Gmc. speaking
neighbours. So if we take the Greek forms given by Steve Long as examples
for the sematic range obtainable from PIE *gheu-, I can go along with that;
but I think we win nothing by assuming that the Goths got their name from
the Greeks, or from assuming multiple cross-borrowings, or inter-linguistic
contamination.

Best regards,

Hans-Werner Hatting


From mcv at wxs.nl  Fri Mar  9 01:09:09 2001
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2001 02:09:09 +0100
Subject: *gwh in Gmc.
In-Reply-To: <009701c09f0c$e9f8e240$27fa7ad5@xpoxkjlf>
Message-ID: <FRI.9.MAR.2001.020909.0100.>

On Sun, 25 Feb 2001 09:03:49 -0000, "petegray"
<petegray at btinternet.com> wrote:

>> This looks suspiciously like the Caland pattern.

>I'm both intrigued and ignorant - as normal.   Could you outline the Caland
>pattern, please?

Caland (in 1892/93) noticed that certain Indo-Iranian adjectives in
-ra- and -ma- change that ending to -i- when thay are the first part
of a compound:

Av. d at r@z-ra- "strong"  => d at r@ez-i-ratha "having a strong chariot"

The phenomenon also applies to adjectives in -u, and examples can also
be given from Greek:

Grk. ku:d-r-os "famous", ku:di-aneira "bringing fame to men"

Another thing to note is that the pattern usually also includes an
s-stem neuter (e.g. Grk. <ku:dos>).

The pattern has usually been considered a "Suffix-verband", i.e.
merely a group of suffixes that "go together", but the possibility of
a set of sound-laws behind the pattern has to my knowledge never been
proposed.

What I would suggest is that these forms are in origin athematic
adjectives in *-n (secondarily thematicized).  Besides the normal
primarily thematic pattern in *-no-, we would have:

[old abs./acc.?]  *-n(a) > *-r (> *-r-o-)
[old erg./nom.?]  *-n(u) > *-u or *-m (> *-m-o-),

with a "status constructus" [old gen.?] in *-n(i) > *-i.

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


From alderson+mail at panix.com  Fri Mar  9 02:36:44 2001
From: alderson+mail at panix.com (Rich Alderson)
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 21:36:44 -0500
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
In-Reply-To: <000901c0a36b$f1417180$0d2863d1@texas.net> (dlwhite@texas.net)
Message-ID: <THU.8.MAR.2001.213644.0500.>

In response to the presence of palatalization and labialization in NW Caucasian
languages in combination with small vowel inventories, David L. White wrote on
2 Mar 2001:

> Fair enough, but what we need is a THREE-way contrast of palatalization,
> labio-velarization, and whatever "[a]-quality" would be called, probably
> "uvularization", a problem being that no such thing as uvularization (as far
> as I know) occurs.

This sort of thing occurs in Abaza/Abkhaz, Adyghe/Kabardian, and Ubykh.  One
reasonably accessible account is Aert Kuipers' monograph on Kabardian in the
_Janua Linguarum Series Minor_, in which he first analyses three series in the
obstruent system (palatalized, labialized, and plain) which cause rounding and
fronting in the single vowel.

He then proceeds to re-analyze the plain series as having a feature "open",
which he symbolizes with a superscript <a> to match the superscript <j> and <w>
of the palatalized and labialized series respectively, and postulates that with
the addition of this feature, we need not have any phonemic vowel at all in
Kabardian.

This analysis flies in the face of everything we know about permissible phono-
logical systems and naturalness.

Later studies of the language have found that the proper analysis requires that
there be two vowels, /a/ and /I-/ ("barred i").  The major proponent of this
analysis is, as I recall, John Colarusso; see his grammar of Kabardian for more
details.

25 years ago, I used Kuipers, W. S. Allen on Abaza, and Dum'ezil on Ubykh as
the props for a completely improper analysis of the IE vowel system, as I then
saw it based on Lehmann's monovocalic analysis.  (It took me nearly 15 years to
see where Lehmann and I had got it all wrong:  *i and *u are primary, not *y
and *w.)

In my opinion, we can put this notion aside for PIE.

								Rich Alderson

"Of course, that's just my opinion--I could be wrong."  --Dennis Miller


From mcv at wxs.nl  Fri Mar  9 01:09:22 2001
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2001 02:09:22 +0100
Subject: A question about Greek or Latin
In-Reply-To: <00bc01c0a383$59158640$63444241@Ryan>
Message-ID: <FRI.9.MAR.2001.020922.0100.>

On Fri, 2 Mar 2001 19:43:28 -0600, "proto-language"
<proto-language at email.msn.com> wrote:

>From: "Xavier Delamarre" <xavier.delamarre at free.fr>
>Sent: Saturday, February 24, 2001 11:30 AM

><snip>

>The verbal causative-iterative suffixe has in PIE the form -iyo-/-e,
>added to the root in the o grade (giving a: in Sanskrit after Lex
>Bartholomae) : *wirto: / *wortiyo: ; *men(o:) / *moniyo: ; *sed(o:) /
>*sodiyo: etc.

>[PR]

>What would you say to the alternate explanation that the causative formant is
>*-ye, and that its addition shifted the stress-accent one syllable to the
>right, preserving (or re-instating) an otherwise lost final vowel of the root?

What would you say to the alternate alternate explanation that the
causative formant is merely an agglutinatated verb *[h1]ey-e- (= Hitt.
iy-a-mi etc. "I do/make")?  The Vedic causatives in -paya would
confirm this nicely, if Anatolian had had a form *piya- with pre-verb
*pe- (unfortunately, it hasn't: pai-mi (*pe-h1ei-mi) is "to go" and
pehhi/pai- (*pe-h2ai-h2[a]i) is "to give").

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


From alderson+mail at panix.com  Fri Mar  9 02:39:59 2001
From: alderson+mail at panix.com (Rich Alderson)
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 21:39:59 -0500
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
In-Reply-To: <003001c0a37a$d821b840$63444241@Ryan>
 (proto-language@email.msn.com)
Message-ID: <THU.8.MAR.2001.213959.0500.>

On the topic of Kuipers' analysis of Kabardian, Pat Ryan wrote on 2 Mar 2001:

> He maintained that Kabardian had only one vowel, for which he was severely
> criticized.

No, he was mildly to moderately criticized for that analysis.

He was severely criticized for his suggestion that Kabardian had *NO* phonemic
vowels, only a feature similar to Lehmann's "sonority peak".  Rightly so.

								Rich Alderson


From mcv at wxs.nl  Fri Mar  9 17:19:15 2001
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2001 18:19:15 +0100
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
In-Reply-To: <000901c0a36b$f1417180$0d2863d1@texas.net>
Message-ID: <FRI.9.MAR.2001.181915.0100.>

On Fri, 2 Mar 2001 16:55:20 -0600, "David L. White"
<dlwhite at texas.net> wrote:

>        Given the predictability (if my understanding of my source is
>correct) of [u]-quality spellings in Old Irish, their value for establishing
>contrast is limited, predictability and contrast being two things that do
>not go well together.  But though suspicious, I am (I hope) open-minded:  is
>there any unequivocally good evidence for a three way contrast of secondary
>articulations in Old Irish, or Tocharian?  Predictable spellings don't
>(necessarily) cut it.

The discussion in Thurneysen $156-$174 clearly shows that early Old
Irish undoubtedly had three consonant "qualities", although by the
time of the first glosses, u-quality was already giving way to neutral
quality.  U-quality in Old Irish was certainly not limited to the
dat.sg. and verbal 1st. p.  Take for instance the word <figor> ~
<fiugor> < Lat. figura (/f/ palatal, /g/ labiovelar, /r/ neutral).

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


From petegray at btinternet.com  Fri Mar  9 20:02:19 2001
From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray)
Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2001 20:02:19 -0000
Subject: A question about Greek or Latin
Message-ID: <FRI.9.MAR.2001.200219.0000.>

>What would you say to the alternate explanation that the causative formant is
>*-ye, and that its addition shifted the stress-accent one syllable to the
>right, preserving (or re-instating) an otherwise lost final vowel of the root?

I would ask which explanation were the simpler.   And alas, positing an
"otherwise lost" vowel just for causatives alone seems to me less simple
than positing a suffix -eye/o-.

I then ask which explanation is the better, and alas, I prefer the simpler.

Peter


From sarima at friesen.net  Fri Mar  9 03:13:25 2001
From: sarima at friesen.net (Stanley Friesen)
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 19:13:25 -0800
Subject: R: Suffixal -sk-
In-Reply-To: <F174i89QtpfTYSl1q4g0001a421@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <THU.8.MAR.2001.191325.0800.>

At 07:14 AM 3/4/01 +0000, Douglas G Kilday wrote:
>Ligurian -asca seems to be the counterpart of Pelasgian -ssos, in that the
>latter was also used to form toponyms, hydronyms, and phytonyms (Parnassos,
>Ilissos, kuparissos, etc.).

And maybe more than just counterpart.  Could they perhaps be cognate?  A
shift of *sk => 'ss' is not unheard of.

--------------
May the peace of God be with you.         sarima at ix.netcom.com


From hwhatting at hotmail.com  Fri Mar  9 12:08:27 2001
From: hwhatting at hotmail.com (Hans-Werner Hatting)
Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2001 13:08:27 +0100
Subject: sieve : sipiti
Message-ID: <FRI.9.MAR.2001.130827.0100.>

Dear Mr. Kapovic',
chvala lijepo for your comments. I was not aware of the existence of the
second _sipiti_, with its different accentuation. Seems Pokorny was right,
after all.
Best regards,
Hans-Werner Hatting

[ moderator snip ]


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Fri Mar  9 02:16:38 2001
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language)
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 20:16:38 -0600
Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele
Message-ID: <THU.8.MAR.2001.201638.0600.>

Dear Peter and IEists:
 ----- Original Message -----
From: "petegray" <petegray at btinternet.com>
Sent: Saturday, March 03, 2001 10:51 AM

>>>  y-h-w-h  ... NOT y-h-w.

>> So you reject the obvious assumption that the final `h' is merely a mater
>> lectionis?

> That idea is vary far from obvious!   In most cases where a mater lectionis
> is used, there are spellings with and without the letter, but y-h-w is never
> found for the name of God.

[PR]

But Ya is.

Pat


From alderson+mail at panix.com  Tue Mar 13 00:54:05 2001
From: alderson+mail at panix.com (Rich Alderson)
Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2001 19:54:05 -0500
Subject: [linguist@linguistlist.org: 12.683,
 Jobs: Indo-European Philology at Uppsala U, Sweden]
Message-ID: <MON.12.MAR.2001.195405.0500.>

Forwarded from the LINGUIST mailing list.  Note the very short time to apply
for this position.

								Rich Alderson

> Delivered-To: LINGUIST at listserv.linguistlist.org
> Approved-By:  linguist at LINGUISTLIST.ORG
> Date:         Mon, 12 Mar 2001 22:11:12 -0000
> From: The LINGUIST Network <linguist at linguistlist.org>
> Subject:      12.683, Jobs: Indo-European Philology at Uppsala U, Sweden

> Date:  26 Feb 2001 16:52:07 -0000
> From:  Gunilla Gren-Eklund <Gunilla.Gren-Eklund at afro.uu.se>
> Subject:  Indo-European Philology: Senior Lecturer at Uppsala U, Sweden

> Rank of Job: Senior lecturer
> Areas Required: Comparative Indo-European Philology
> Other Desired Areas:
> University or Organization: Uppsala University
> Department: Dept. of Asian and African Languages
> State or Province: Uppsala
> Country: Sweden
> Final Date of Application: 16 March 2001
> Contact: Gunilla Gren-Eklund Gunilla.Gren-Eklund at afro.uu.se

> Address for Applications:
> Uppsala University, Box 256
> Uppsala
> SE 751 04
> Sweden

> Applications are invited for a Position as Senior Lecturer in
> Comparative Indo-European Philology at the Department of Asian and
> African Languages, Uppsala University, Sweden

> Duties: Instruction, supervision in graduate and undergraduate
> education as well as research in Sanskrit and Comparative
> Indo-European Philology.

> To be eligible for this post as senior lecturer the applicants are
> required to have passed the PhD degree in Comparative Indo-European
> Philology or can certify competence on an equivalent level.  In making
> this appointment as senior lecturer, weight shall be given equally to
> scholarly competence ant teaching skill.

> Application should be made by March 16, 2001.

> The complete advertisement is to be found on
> http://www.personalavd.uu.se/ledigaplatser.html.
> Information is also given by the Head of Department, Professor Gunilla
> Gren-Eklund, Tel +46 18 471 1456, e-mail
> Gunilla.Gren-Eklund at afro.uu.se

> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> LINGUIST List: Vol-12-683


From sarima at friesen.net  Sat Mar 10 06:04:12 2001
From: sarima at friesen.net (Stanley Friesen)
Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2001 22:04:12 -0800
Subject: Minoan is an IE language?
In-Reply-To: <000301c0a8d8$47254100$fd5d01d5@xpoxkjlf>
Message-ID: <FRI.9.MAR.2001.220412.0800.>

At 07:56 PM 3/9/01 +0000, you wrote:

>> chariots ... but what were they used for? Not likely for routine war

>Chariots were never used in battle in Greek times - they were used to get
>the heroes to battle.   One got off them to fight.  (Or in some cases two
>got of them to fight ...)

That was after it had ceased to be an important war machine - after the
chaos and restructuring associated with the Sea People invasions (with the
collapse of the Mycenian states, the Hittite Empire, and the major states
of Mesopotamia).

The chariot does seem to have been a major component of armies prior to
that time.

--------------
May the peace of God be with you.         sarima at ix.netcom.com


From davius_sanctex at terra.es  Sat Mar 10 12:47:22 2001
From: davius_sanctex at terra.es (=?iso-8859-1?Q?David_S=E1nchez?=)
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 13:47:22 +0100
Subject: Minoan is an IE language?
Message-ID: <SAT.10.MAR.2001.134722.0100.>

[On the possibily to use chi-2 test to discriminate if two texts are
written in the same language]

It is unnecessary to separate texts it two groups. Chi-2 homogeneity test is
appliable to only just two texts! If texts are of different times in fact the
test can tell us that we are dealing with differente languages, but
linguistically it is the case if differentiation are sufficiently advancend.

Local variations an variation among scribes might difficult the answer.  In
fact statistical test always depart from a "fundamental hypothesis" the text
can refute this hypothesis, but if the data are of bad quality in general the
test will not refute the "fundamental hypothesis", this allow us to accept the
"fundamental hypthesis" as provisional (the time will confirm or refute the
fundamental hypothesis in this case).

The only serious problem is that you mention of a text containing several
different languages (as it is the case in the Hittite archives at Hattusas).
In this case if the proportion of the two languages in the samples is different
the test will fail (and if there are two test this implies that almost always
the test will fail dealing with two-language tests!).

David Sanchez Molina (www.upc.es)
david.sanchez-molina at upc.es


From davius_sanctex at terra.es  Sat Mar 10 12:55:14 2001
From: davius_sanctex at terra.es (=?iso-8859-1?Q?David_S=E1nchez?=)
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 13:55:14 +0100
Subject: Minoan is an IE language?
Message-ID: <SAT.10.MAR.2001.135514.0100.>

> Wouldn't the question of sample size be relevant here? If inscriptions are
> very short, say only four or five words, wouldn't this make the chi-2 test
> invalid? As far as I remember, you would have to assume normalcy in order
> to use it, otherwise there are other tests with bigger error margins to be
> used. Could you define how big a continuous text sample must be before you
> can use the chi-2 test?

1. The size of the sample is important, all signs must appear at least 4 or 5
times, the total number ideally would be of 50 or more signs!

2. The test in the case of very short inscription is not invalid but in general
will fail in refute the "fundamental hypothesis", that is in general the test
will not say us more than we have assumed as "fundamental hypothesis". In
certain sense we can say that the test will be honest and if the data are very
scace it will be silent, but it will not lie!

3. Normality is not required to use a chi-2 test, that is precisely the strong
point of this test (it is a non parametrical test).

David Sanchez Molina (www.upc.es)
david.sanchez-molina at upc.es


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Sun Mar 11 20:59:38 2001
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2001 15:59:38 EST
Subject: Minoan is an IE language?
Message-ID: <SUN.11.MAR.2001.155938.EST.>

On Sat, 3 Mar 2001, David Sanchez wrote:

> Could some of the Linear A inscriptions be different languages?
> A mathematical simple proof can answe the question.
> If one wish to know if two text are written in teh same language
> only it is necessary count the number of symbols in each text and
> make a simple statistical chi-2 test to obtain the answer!!!
> ( All, all text in a concrete languages present a very similar phonemic
> ocurrences. The same is true for non phonemic inscriptions).

In a message dated 3/10/2001 12:06:08 AM, gmcdavid at winternet.com replies:
<<This assumes you can separate the texts into two or more groups before
performing the test.>>

Linear A has presented all kinds of problems, not the least of which is the
rarity of texts over twenty characters long.  But even beyond that is the
distinct possibility that pictographic symbols were used as needed in the
writing of texts.  The problem with pure pictograms (to distinguish it from
the difficult-to-define "logogram") is that pictograms are language-free and
phonetically independent.  A picture of a grape, e.g., might refer to grapes
or wine or grape-tax or a grape god without regard to what the writer or
reader calls any of those items.   This is rather functional across languages.

It should be obvious why a script developed to accommodate multiple languages
might avoid phonetic equivalencies and therefore that the comparative
statistical distribution of symbols may not correlate to differences in the
sounds of different languages.

On this basis, there appears to be no strong reason to dismiss the notion
that Linear A at some point was used by "Eteo-Cretans" to write in Semitic or
by Lykians-speakers on other occasions.  Recent finds in Anatolia and the
Near East seem to support the notion that Linear A may have been
multi-lingual and there's site (http://www.duke.edu/web/jyounger/LinearA) for
what they are up against just in terms of Linear B phonetic equivalencies,
which seems to support the no known language conclusion.

As far as equating Minoan with "Pelagasian" or similar presumed substrate
languages, it seems those substrates sometimes seem almost universal.  On the
Aegeanet list, e.g., it's been written that forms like the often cited -ss-
have been found common in Hyksos and Hurrian and distributed in an enormous
area.  The fact is that we don't even know what substrates are represented in
the substrates (e.g., could the apparent Greek elements in Minoan texts have
represented a Greek substrate in Minoan?) and no one has convincingly
recreated any of these postulated languages.

In all of this we have evidence that Crete from a very early time was
energetically multilingual, so that who is talking creates a problem in
proper conclusions.  This point about placenames particularly as evidence of
language, by Tom Palaima, appeared recently on the Aegeanet:

"[John Chadwick] points out the positive results but the need for caution in
assessing this kind of documentation.  Take Minneapolis as a name of a place
in the heartland of the good old USA.  It is a hybrid, half Indian, half
Greek.  That tells us something, but just what?  That the founders of
Minneapolis were Indians who had conquered Greeks?  That they were Greeks who
had conquered Indians?  They were Greeks and Indians who had peacefully
coalesced?  Or that they were northern Europeans who inherited a traditon of
culture and learning that made them us e a Greek word, even though they were
not Greek themselves? So in able to be able to analyze and draw proper
conclusions from this other category of information requires a very close
and correct look at the archaeological evidence."

Regards,
Steve Long


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Sat Mar 10 06:13:14 2001
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 01:13:14 EST
Subject: Goths, Naming and Ablaut
Message-ID: <SAT.10.MAR.2001.011314.EST.>

I wrote:
<<Once again we have no good reason to be sure Goth was first a

self-name (cf., "Germans", "Apaches", "Basques").>>

In a message dated 3/8/2001 12:59:19 AM, dlwhite at texas.net writes:
<<I agree.  There are, as I see it, three theoretically possible sources of
the difference between Latin /o/ and Greek /u/.

1)  The Vulgar Latin change of short /u/ to /o/.

2)  A possible Gothic change of /au/ to /o/.

3)  Latin borrowing from other Germanic with /o/, Greek borrowing

from Gothic, with /u/ for other Germanic /o/. >>

Replying:
But of course if the name was given by someone else, there's no reason to
limit it to other Germanics.

In fact, the proposed position of the Goths at the time, east of the Vistula
and later into the Ukraine as far as and beyond Crimea would suggest that
"first word" of the Goths would not have come from other Germanic speakers.

Instead we would expect that the name of the Goths would have come from the
northern and northeastern neighbors of the Greeks.  These would be Thracians,
Dacians, Getae, Celts, Paeonians, Bastarnae, Illyrians, Bosporians and of
course Scythians and Sarmatians.

None of these peoples named above, with the exception of the Bastarnae,
appear to be Germanic speakers.

So if the name of the Goths was given, it could have been given in a
non-Germanic language.  And it may have reached the Greeks being spoken in a
non-Germanic tongue.

If, in fact, the Goth name came into Greek in the forms <gut->, <gaut->,
<goth->, <gud-> or <gout->, it may well have come in the Scythian or Thracian
tongue.  And may have reached Ptolemy in Alexandria fourth-hand and become
<Gythones>.  (On the other hand, it should be remembered that Ptolemy placed
the <Gutae> up in Scandia, with no recognition of any connection with
<Gythones>.)

The Latin situation is different. The Goths first reported by Tacitus in his
Annals are involved with the Marcomanni and Marobodus and Catwalda on the
Roman border far to the west of where Ptolemy's <Gythones> are located.  Here
there are two main speaking factions involved, Germanics and Celts, with
Dacians and Paenonians mixed in.

But key here is that it appears there may have been direct Roman contact with
the "Gotones" in their attempt to subvert the regime in Marobudum.  So
Tacitus' may have had the name from the horse's mouth.  In which case,
whether or not Goth was a given or assumed name or original, what the Romans
seem to have heard was "Got-".

(The Romans seemed quite capable of saying "gut" (e.g., guttur) and "gau-"
(e.g., gaudia) but it appears no other word in Latin began with <got->).

The hitch here is that Tacitus places these "Gotones" lingering around in
Central Europe near the Suevi and getting involved in events a day's drive
west of modern Vienna, precisely when the archaeological Goths and the Goths
of Jordanes are supposed to be marching into what will become Kiev and points
east.

So it may not be impossible that we are dealing with two different groups
here with very similar names.  The Geats and "tribes" with similar names that
in Latin begin with <C> or even <Ch> might suggest this is possible (e.g.,
Cotini, Cotensi, Chatti).  In connection with this it bears noting that
Ptolemy also located north of the eastern Danube tribes named in the later
Latin version <Sargati>, <Piengitae>, <Exobygitae>, <Tyrangitae> and the
Sarmatian <Tyrgetas>.

To sum up, the Latin o/ Greek u question may not be what it appears to be on
closer inspection.

Now, with all that said, it still seems possible to me that Greek originally
gave a name to the historical Goths who later appear on the Danube coming
from the direction of the Ukraine in the early 3d century AD.   And that
those particular Goths could have taken the name as their own or perhaps took
a name in the Greek tongue. One reason among others is simply that when the
Greeks named something, it often stuck - like it or not.

Regards,
Steve Long


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Sun Mar 11 08:09:36 2001
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2001 03:09:36 EST
Subject: "Gothi" (timeline)
Message-ID: <SUN.11.MAR.2001.030936.EST.>

In a message dated 3/8/2001 2:22:24 AM, hwhatting at hotmail.com writes:
<< Another point - it seems that the variant with the n-stem
("gu/oton-")belongs to the older sources, when the Goths were just a faraway
tribe, known only from indirect (other Gmc?) sources. Later, when the contact
becomes close (and violent), we find the stem "guta- / gauta-" > "Gothi". So
maybe this indicates that "Goth" (in the form "guta- / gauta-") was a
self-name, and "gu/oton-" was the form used by other Gmc. tribes?>>

With regard to the n-stem ending attached to a proper name: it is not a
unique thing among the Greeks and to some degree the Romans, even where we
may have non-IE speakers being named - e.g., Sidones, Vascones, Nasamones.
Perhaps these endings, which were applied to peoples (or just gatherings or
groups, see e.g. <Amphictyones, antichthones>) across Greece, Gaul, Germania
and Scythia, were always based on a true n-stem root rather than a
convention.  But it is clear that there are often versions where the use of
the ending is dropped (e.g., Gothones, Gothi, Gothini).

And it may be worth noting the names of Ptolemy's <Gutae> or the later
<Gautoi> in Scandinavia don't show the ending.  This would seem to be the
reverse of what you suggested above, since the Scandinavians were always at a
distance.

I've suggested elsewhere that truly early word of the name of the Goths may
have had to pass through speakers that were not Germanic, just as the names
of other peoples far from the Greeks may have.  But the early Greeks were
exceptionally good at getting around, so direct contact is not out of the
guestion.  In fact, Tacitus, Pliny, etc., retell accounts of Greeks among the
northern Germani and of course there is even evidence of Mycenaean trade in
Denmark, etc.

What would the Gothic name have sounded like to Greeks?  Once again, we don't
have any clear-cut record of the what the early Goths called themselves.  We
have variation in the Greek.  But perhaps we can reconstruct something
backwards from Greek borrowings into Gothic.  (This is from our old friend
Sean Crist's copy of Wright's on the web, where the Browser finder made
searching for Greek refs easier.)  These are cases where a Greek source was
attributed for a word in Gothic, where the Greek contained an <o>:

Gr. <apostolos > Gothic <apau:lstau:lus, apau:lstulus> (strong masc),  apostle

Gr. <diabolos> > Gothic <diabau:lus, diabulus> (strong masc) devil (Wright:
through Lat. diabolus) (OE. de:ofol, OHG. tiufal)

Gr. <korban> > Gothic <kau:rba:n> gift (Greek from the Hebrew)

Gr. <porphura> > Gothic <pau:rpura> purple

Gr. <prophe:te:s>  > Gothic <prau:fe:tus, prau:fe:te:s> (strong masc) prophet

Note that Greek <o> appears to be consistently transliterated as <au:> except
in <diabulus> and <apaulstulus> where <u> alternatively appears.

Does this mean that if the word <got-> was heard in Greek, it would have been
written by Ulfila as <gau:t->?

hwhatting at hotmail.com also writes:
<< (3) They are adopted by another group for various reasons (as the Byzantine
Greeks used to refer to themselves as "Rhomaioi = Romans"; >>

But here I must note that <Rum> will appear soon after and become the name of
these places in everything from Turkish to Persian to Romanian and Russian.
The spelling is attributed to early Arabic in reference to the eastern Empire
and extends to the name of the Balkan provinces of the Ottoman empire. But
this version <Rum> persisted not only into later Greek but also into the
Romance language that was first called "Rumanian" for that very reason.

In fact, without background, how would we account for an Arabic kingdom in
Asia Minor calling itself "Rum"?  Or, without background, how would we
explain the o/u in Romanian/Rumanian?  And should we think that the basis of
<gotthi/gouthth/gotones/geat/getan/gutae/*gaut-> would be any simplier?

Regards,
Steve Long


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Tue Mar 13 05:04:29 2001
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 00:04:29 EST
Subject: Goths/ Prestige of Scandinavia
Message-ID: <TUE.13.MAR.2001.000429.EST.>

In a message dated 3/10/2001 4:28:01 AM, hwhatting at hotmail.com writes:
<< Generally, I accept that we cannot take the writing of the classical authors
without subjecting them to critique. And you argue quite convincing that we
cannot take the Scandinavian origin of the Goths for granted. But I'd like to
make the following points:
1) I do not see any special "prestige value" for the Goths in coming from
Scandinavia. In accordance to classical criteria, we would expect them to
show that they descend from Greeks or Troians, or from some prestigious
mythical personage, or to some other people known from antiquity. The link-up
and mix-up with the Getae you describe is much more in line with what we
would expect.>>

The "prestige value" of a Scandinavian origin was far greater than the
prestige in the other origin stories Jordanes admits hearing, including the
only one he repeats, that the Goths were once slaves among the British.
(B-T-W, there is something about this story that bears returning to at some
point for what it might be saying.)

We of course don't expect Jordanes to give these other stories a fair hearing
and somehow they have been lost to us.  But such stories, particularly in the
time of Theodoric, would certainly have to be countered.  in his single
volume abridgment of Cassiodorus' original 12 volume (yikes!) "Getica",
Jordanes does not seem that compelled to address these issues in detail.
Cassiodorus' lost work however may have had to, since Cassiodorus was
answering to Theodoric himself.

This is part of the problem with Jordanes' work.  It is an abridgment and
after-the-fact and may have been in the nature of a swan song when Gothic
origins were just barely still worth asserting by a now Catholic Goth writing
in Constantinople, but in Jordanes' later time the whole origin question was
losing relevance fast.  Cassiodorus, however, as a Roman patrician and a
member of Theodoric's Gothic-Roman court, was definitely faced in his time
with providing a lineage for the Gothic king and apparently won high praise
for finally doing so.

This rather striking fact is well-illustrated in an old note by Svante Norr
on ONN: <However, the "genetic link" might not be as deep as we wish to
believe. In a letter from Theodoric the Great's young successor Athalaric to
the Roman senate, Cassiodorus' genealogical accomplishments are praised
(Cassiodorus wrote the letter himself, doubtless with great pleasure, Variae
IX, 25, 4-5): "[Cassiodorus] extended his labour even to the ancient cradle
of our house, learning from his reading what the hoary recollections of our
elders scarcely preserved.  From the lurking place of antiquity he led out
the kings of the Goths, long hidden in oblivion. He restored the Amals, along
with the honour of their family, clearly proving me to be of royal stock to
the seventeenth generation." (Barnish ed.1992)

The important point here is that Cassiodorus claims to have based his
research on written (= classical) sources rather than Gothic oral tradition.
We also know that Tacitus's Germania was studied and much appreciated at
Theodoric's court (He is even said to have once reproached some visiting
Aesti on their ignorance of the work; Variae V, 2). The 'discovery' of a
people known as gothones up in the north must have appeared very palatable to
a king in search of an origin myth and a genealogy that would let his family
stand forth as a second gens Iulia and legitimate his rule before Goth and
Roman alike.

There are other theories about Jordanes' aims (see J.J. Donnely's on the web
somewhere), but they don't so much deal with "why Scandinavia?" possibly
because Jordanes was already given Scandinavia.  W. Goffart, The Narrators of
Barbarian History (1988) is often quoted for the theory that Jordanes was
writing more or less in order to counter Procopius' account of how Heruli
were successfully repatriated to the north, and meant to distinguish two
different types of Scandinavian origins and to point out that the Goths (as
Getae) were not such recent comers (like the Heruli) to Classical regions,
apparently even predating the Romans' advent in Italy.

Other factors that may have been involved was the presence of King Rodulf at
Theodoric's court.  Jordanes writes: [In Scandia there are also] "the
Grannii, Augandzi, Eunixi, Taetel, Rugi, Arochi and Ranii, over whom Roduulf
was king not many years ago. But he despised his own kingdom and fled to the
embrace of Theodoric, king of the Goths, finding there what he desired."
Jordanes adds in the next line: "All these nations surpassed the Germans in
size and spirit,..."  Suggesting perhaps that a Scandinavian origin might
separate the Goths from the less desirable status of continental Germans.

I also think another good explanation for the prestige value of Scandinavian
origins is apparent in both the Cassiodorus quotes above and in Jordanes.
The origins were not really about the Goths as a people.  They were
repeatedly about kings and royal families.  There was no question that late
Gothic kings as Germanic speakers could not credibly claim a southern or
eastern origin, but they had to distinguish themselves from the leaders of
continental Germanic coalitions like the Vandals and Alemanni, who had no
staying power.  Pliny made the Goths members of the Vandals and there is no
mention of that in Jordanes.  Scandinavia was a way of keeping the Gothic
rulers clear of the Roman puppet German kings mentioned by Tacitus and the
Stilicho-types who had no claim to rule by right of ancestry.

Regards,
Steve Long


From karhu at umich.edu  Wed Mar 14 22:11:53 2001
From: karhu at umich.edu (Marc Pierce)
Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2001 17:11:53 -0500
Subject: Armenian loan words in Greek
Message-ID: <WED.14.MAR.2001.171153.0500.>

Hi,

In his "Grammatik des Klassischen-Armenischen," Schmitt suggests that
evidence for vowel epenthesis in Classical Armenian can also be found in
the adaption of Armenian names into foreign languages (Greek is the only
one he names).  I have as yet been unable to track down any references on
this topic.  Is anyone aware of any such studies?  I do have Clackson's
'Linguistic Relationship between Armenian and Greek," but it seems to
focus on shared correspondences rather than loan words.

Any assistance I could receive would be greatly appreciated.

Marc Pierce
University of Michigan


From davius_sanctex at terra.es  Sat Mar 10 13:00:21 2001
From: davius_sanctex at terra.es (=?iso-8859-1?Q?David_S=E1nchez?=)
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 14:00:21 +0100
Subject: Non-Indic sustrate vocabulary
Message-ID: <SAT.10.MAR.2001.140021.0100.>

I read some time ago, that a scandinavian group have claimed
that they have proved Indus Valley script was written in a form
of a dravidian language. I was strongly surpresed and I was very
doubtful about the feasibility of this claim.

What can be said about the actual feasibility of claims of this type?


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Sun Mar 11 19:38:17 2001
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2001 14:38:17 -0500
Subject: Etruscans
In-Reply-To: <001701c0a812$7ca8f860$ad6163d1@texas.net>
Message-ID: <SUN.11.MAR.2001.143817.0500.>

	Tuscan unvoiced stops are aspirated or fricativized in some areas.
This is well documented.
	My undergrad Italian prof had Calabrian parents and told of a
similar phenomenon in their dialect, e.g. /lu xurkhu/ "fork"

>        I have it on good authority (Eric Hamp) that English-like aspiration
>occurs in some Pennine Italian dialects.

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


From acnasvers at hotmail.com  Mon Mar 12 09:14:23 2001
From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday)
Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2001 09:14:23 -0000
Subject: Etruscans
Message-ID: <MON.12.MAR.2001.091423.0000.>

David L. White (8 Mar 2001) wrote:

>I have it on good authority (Eric Hamp) that English-like aspiration occurs in
>some Pennine Italian dialects.  Perhaps an ancient version of this is the
>source.  But what language is "Thouskoi" in?  Something similar, by the way,
>appears to be going on with "Punic" versus "Phonecian", and I would like to
>know what the story is there.

The Pennine Alps are a long way from the Sabine country. Not knowing much
about Alpine dialects, I wouldn't know whether to attribute the aspiration
to substrate or the influence of German. If I squint at the map, I can see
the Matterhorn and a place called Zermatt, so I presume that German is, or
recently was, spoken here.

"Thouskoi" is late Classical Greek, with circumflexed "ou". Dioscorides (ca.
50 CE) gives 13 of their phytonyms, several of which are clearly Latin,
evidently from the Tuscan dialect which was heavily influenced by Etruscan.
"Punic" is from Lat. Punicus, earlier (or archaistic) Poenicus, from Gk.
Phoinikos, probably borrowed before the Romans bothered reproducing
aspiration. This of course is from "Phoinix", which is problematic. It means
'Phoenician' already in Homer, 'date-palm' (i.e. Phoenician tree), 'dark
red, Tyrian purple' obtained from shellfish, and of course 'phoenix-bird'
(Hdt. II.73), probably based on the actual flamingo. The etymological
situation is a mess. Some proposals I have seen are:

(1) "Phoinix" originally referred to the date-palm, Phoinikia meant
'Palm-land' and the other usages originally meant 'Phoenician dye/color' and
'Phoenician bird' or 'Ph.-colored bird'.

(2) The color-sense is primary, connected with <phoinos> 'blood-red',
<phonos> 'slaughter', etc. Phoinikia meant 'land of the red ones' referring
to their use of dye.

(3) The bird's name is primary, derived from Egyptian <bynw>. How a fabulous
Egyptian bird came to give its name to Phoenicia is anybody's guess.

I don't find any of these satisfactory. Probably we are dealing with some
confusion or assimilation of originally distinct words.

>My view is that they [the Etruscans] were a small group, very open to foreign
>influences, and that their later prevalence in Etruria is due to, dare I say
>it, elite dominance.  I think we agree that a large group could not have led
>an in effect secret existence in the Northern Aegean for several centuries,
>even during the Dark Ages.  But classical authors are not in general reliable
>for more than a few generations before their time, and for what it is worth,
>there are some assertions (evidently accepted by the Etruscan themselves) that
>they came from Anatolia.  A soujourn in Thrace/Chalcidice/Lemnos would not
>cause this to be untrue.

I have grave doubts that the Etruscan presence in Etruria, Romagna, and the
Po valley was a small elite. That _may_ have been the case in Campania
before the Samnite conquest. But in Etruria and the northern areas, a
substantial part of the general population must have been Etruscan, and I
don't see the elite-dominance model applying.

As for classical Etruscans wanting to believe in glorious ancestors who
fought in the Trojan War, this sort of romantic illusionism is practically
ubiquitous. In the USA it isn't hard to find folks who insist they are
descended from their Sunday-school heroes, seizing on the flimsiest
superficialities to establish their own membership in the fabled Lost
Tribes.

>Could this long vowel [in <Tro:s>, <Tro:ios>, etc.] not be secondary, by
>compensatory lengthening, /trosy-/ -> /trohy-/ -> /trooy-/, with /y/ later
>lost where not re-analyzable as part of a suffix with /i/?

I don't see any compensatory lengthening in Epic genitives like <megaroio>,
where we have /oyo/ < */ohyo/ < */osyo/.

>In any event, for there to be a difference of opinion about whether some vowel
>is a short high vowel or a long mid vowel is not unheard of, as seen in Vulgar
>Latin.

According to Palmer, Vulgar Latin first "closed" the quality of long vowels,
giving nine distinct vowel-timbres (/a:/ could not be "closed"). The
phonemic distinction of vowel-quantity was then lost, as stressed vowels
became long and unstressed ones short. Convergence of close /o/ with open
/U/, and of close /e/ with open /I/, formed the basis of Continental West
Romance. I don't know which dialect of VL you have in mind when you cite
convergence of /o/ with /I/.

>Length is not necessarily that clear.  The lowering of Greek original long
>mids would have to be later, but as far as I know there is no reason that this
>(somewhat strange) development has to be especially early.  The lack of a
>distinction between /u/ and /o/ also may well have something to do with
>borrowings at different times by different peoples taking slightly different
>forms.

I don't see what borrowing has to do with the lack of /o:u/ distinction in
Etruscan. Having only one phonemic back-vowel quality is an essential
characteristic of the language.

DGK


From colkitto at sprint.ca  Sat Mar 10 18:33:58 2001
From: colkitto at sprint.ca (Robert Orr)
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 13:33:58 -0500
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
Message-ID: <SAT.10.MAR.2001.133358.0500.>

Somewhere (I think in a recent edition of Folia Linguistica Historiographca)
Alexis Manaster Ramer suggests a similar analysis for Gothic, Arabic, etc.

But perhaps this is an artifact of the method, rather than anythng about the
actual language(s).

Robert Orr

-----Original Message-----
From: Rich Alderson <alderson+mail at panix.com>
Date: Saturday, March 10, 2001 5:45 AM

>In response to the presence of palatalization and labialization in NW
>Caucasian languages in combination with small vowel inventories, David L.
>White wrote on 2 Mar 2001:

>> Fair enough, but what we need is a THREE-way contrast of palatalization,
>>labio-velarization, and whatever "[a]-quality" would be called, probably
>>"uvularization", a problem being that no such thing as uvularization (as far
>>as I know) occurs.

>This sort of thing occurs in Abaza/Abkhaz, Adyghe/Kabardian, and Ubykh.  One
>reasonably accessible account is Aert Kuipers' monograph on Kabardian in the
>_Janua Linguarum Series Minor_, in which he first analyses three series in the
>obstruent system (palatalized, labialized, and plain) which cause rounding and
>fronting in the single vowel.

>He then proceeds to re-analyze the plain series as having a feature "open",
>which he symbolizes with a superscript <a> to match the superscript <j> and
><w> of the palatalized and labialized series respectively, and postulates that
>with the addition of this feature, we need not have any phonemic vowel at all
>in Kabardian.

>This analysis flies in the face of everything we know about permissible phono-
>logical systems and naturalness.

>Later studies of the language have found that the proper analysis requires
>that there be two vowels, /a/ and /I-/ ("barred i").  The major proponent of
>this analysis is, as I recall, John Colarusso; see his grammar of Kabardian
>for more details.

>25 years ago, I used Kuipers, W. S. Allen on Abaza, and Dum'ezil on Ubykh as
>the props for a completely improper analysis of the IE vowel system, as I then
>saw it based on Lehmann's monovocalic analysis.  (It took me nearly 15 years
>to see where Lehmann and I had got it all wrong:  *i and *u are primary, not
>*y and *w.)

>In my opinion, we can put this notion aside for PIE.

> Rich Alderson

>"Of course, that's just my opinion--I could be wrong."  --Dennis Miller


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Sun Mar 11 04:50:47 2001
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language)
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 22:50:47 -0600
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
Message-ID: <SAT.10.MAR.2001.225047.0600.>

Dear Rich and IEists:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Rich Alderson" <alderson+mail at panix.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 08, 2001 8:36 PM

<snip>

> Later studies of the language have found that the proper analysis requires
> that there be two vowels, /a/ and /I-/ ("barred i").  The major proponent of
> this analysis is, as I recall, John Colarusso; see his grammar of Kabardian
> for more details.

[PR]
But is not /I-/ a high/mid central vowel? opposed to /a/, a low central vowel.

I would be inclined to regard /I-/ as an allophone of /a/ in specified
phonological environments.

As you rightly observe, vocalic contrasts are the common pattern in the world's
languages but the commonest contrast set is front-central-back.

[RA]
> 25 years ago, I used Kuipers, W. S. Allen on Abaza, and Dum'ezil on Ubykh as
> the props for a completely improper analysis of the IE vowel system, as I
> then saw it based on Lehmann's monovocalic analysis.  (It took me nearly 15
> years to see where Lehmann and I had got it all wrong:  *i and *u are
> primary, not *y and *w.)

[PR]
I still harbor the feeling that Lehmann was correct; and I have written to that
effect extensively on this list and at my website.

Without rehearsing my arguments, why do you not tell us a few IE words in which
you believe /i/ and /u/ are primary?

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit ec
at ec hecc, vindgá meiði a netr allar nío, geiri vndaþr . . . a þeim
meiþi, er mangi veit, hvers hann af rótom renn." (Hávamál 138)


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Sun Mar 11 04:57:32 2001
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language)
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 22:57:32 -0600
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
Message-ID: <SAT.10.MAR.2001.225732.0600.>

Dear Rich and IEists:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Rich Alderson" <alderson+mail at panix.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 08, 2001 8:39 PM

> On the topic of Kuipers' analysis of Kabardian, Pat Ryan wrote on 2 Mar 2001:

>> He maintained that Kabardian had only one vowel, for which he was severely
>> criticized.

> No, he was mildly to moderately criticized for that analysis.

> He was severely criticized for his suggestion that Kabardian had *NO*
> phonemic vowels, only a feature similar to Lehmann's "sonority peak".
> Rightly so.

[PR]
Rather than reopen the discussion of 'what is a phoneme', I will simply stand
corrected for the purposes of the discussion.

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit ec
at ec hecc, vindgá meiði a netr allar nío, geiri vndaþr . . . a þeim
meiþi, er mangi veit, hvers hann af rótom renn." (Hávamál 138)


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sun Mar 11 21:49:00 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2001 15:49:00 -0600
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
Message-ID: <SUN.11.MAR.2001.154900.0600.>

> The discussion in Thurneysen $156-$174 clearly shows that early >Old
> Irish undoubtedly had three consonant "qualities",

        The discussion shows more clearly that Thurneysen _believed_ that
Old Irish had three consonantal qualities than that it did.  As a
pre-phonemic Neo-Grammarian he felt no need to adduce minimal or even
near-minimal pairs, and did not do so.  Nonetheless, I have found at least
one:  "nert" vs. "neirt" vs. "neurt".  The problem is that this, and all the
other possible cases I have come across, involve /r/, which is more than a
litle suspect for a distinction that is supposed to have existed "across the
board".
        Three /r/s, velarized (perhaps as in American English), neutral
(trilled), and palatalized, with the last tending to fade out, since it is
hard to say, would not be terribly surprising.  I would not be terribly
surprised to find a three way contrast with /l/ and /n/ as well, though I
have not yet.  Such a thing, if my understanding is correct, exists in at
least some of the modern dialects, though here it is not a retention, and
the third quality is velarization, not labio-velarization (again, if my
understanding is correct).   (It is easier to make phonetic sense of
velarized /l/ than velarized /n/.)

> U-quality in Old Irish was certainly not limited to the
> dat.sg. and verbal 1st. p.  Take for instance the word <figor> ~
> <fiugor> < Lat. figura (/f/ palatal, /g/ labiovelar, /r/ neutral).

        But "fiugor" also appears as "figor", and it is not entirely clear
that "iu", were used, was not meant to more clearly signal velarization,
which is to say non-palatalization, rather than a distinctive
labio-velarization.  Nonetheless, my original assertion, probably
mis-remembered, about morphological predictability seems to have gone too
far.

        Can we not hear from some specialists on Irish?

Dr. David L. White


From dlwhite at texas.net  Mon Mar 12 18:15:40 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2001 12:15:40 -0600
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
Message-ID: <MON.12.MAR.2001.121540.0600.>

>> Fair enough, but what we need is a THREE-way contrast of palatalization,
>> labio-velarization, and whatever "[a]-quality" would be called, probably
>> "uvularization", a problem being that no such thing as uvularization (as far
>> as I know) occurs.

> This sort of thing occurs in Abaza/Abkhaz, Adyghe/Kabardian, and Ubykh.  One
> reasonably accessible account is Aert Kuipers' monograph on Kabardian in the
> _Janua Linguarum Series Minor_, in which he first analyses three series in
> the obstruent system (palatalized, labialized, and plain) which cause
> rounding and fronting in the single vowel.

> He then proceeds to re-analyze the plain series as having a feature "open",
> which he symbolizes with a superscript <a> to match the superscript <j> and
> <w> of the palatalized and labialized series respectively, and postulates
> that with the addition of this feature, we need not have any phonemic vowel
> at all in Kabardian.

> This analysis flies in the face of everything we know about permissible
> phonological systems and naturalness.

> Later studies of the language have found that the proper analysis requires
> that there be two vowels, /a/ and /I-/ ("barred i").

        Now I am thoroughly confused.  The analysis with three contrasting
consonantal qualities is seemingly presented as a fact at first only to be
dismissed as wrong later.  If "[a]-quality", which leads to the conclusion
that there is no /a/, is an illusion, then how are there three qualities?

Dr. David L. White


From epmoyer at netrax.net  Sat Mar 10 11:22:31 2001
From: epmoyer at netrax.net (Ernest P. Moyer)
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 06:22:31 -0500
Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele
Message-ID: <SAT.10.MAR.2001.062231.0500.>

Pat:

I find your speculations of the origin of YHWH curious. Remember, this form is
part of, and should be connected with, the full conjugation of an important
Semitic verb.  That verb means "to be," "to exist," "to form," "to mold," "to
constitute," and so on.

To suggest that it was expanded from a pagan Akkadian Ea/Ia neglects that
important root verb.  I do not know anything about the Akkadian language, but
I surmise that such an important verb should appear in that Semitic language
also.

It seems to me that to neglect the significance of Creativity in that verb, and
speculatively cast the origin of the name upon some pagan superstitious source,
is a real failure in linguistic studies.

Such speculation also rejects the devout religious attitudes of people who
truly believed in God, and not merely pagan gods.

Ernest

proto-language wrote:

[ moderator snip ]

> Frankly, it looks to me as if the Hebrews brought Ea/Ia with them from Akkad.
> After, al la egyptienne, they started playing with the name to find greater
> truths, it got expanded to y-h-w-h, which might have been actually pronounced
> /ja:wa:/ but looked like a Hiph'il of h-w-h, thus making a bogus theological
> point.


From epmoyer at netrax.net  Sat Mar 10 11:29:51 2001
From: epmoyer at netrax.net (Ernest P. Moyer)
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 06:29:51 -0500
Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele
Message-ID: <SAT.10.MAR.2001.062951.0500.>

Peter:

I am sure that any name so profound as that of God would not be a vehicle for
linguistic play.  Remember, after about 300 BC the Jews would not even
pronounce it, and have held to that superstition to this day.  So to play
around with the name of God was strictly a no-no.

Ernest

petegray wrote:

>>>  y-h-w-h  ... NOT y-h-w.

>> So you reject the obvious assumption that the final `h' is merely a mater
>> lectionis?

> That idea is vary far from obvious!   In most cases where a mater lectionis
> is used, there are spellings with and without the letter, but y-h-w is never
> found for the name of God.

> Peter


From petegray at btinternet.com  Sun Mar 11 09:42:07 2001
From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray)
Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2001 09:42:07 -0000
Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele
Message-ID: <SUN.11.MAR.2001.094207.0000.>

Yah is indeed found as an alternative for Yahweh, but my point still stands -
it is never found without the written <h>.  Indeed, in some places there is a
sign which indicates it must be pronounced.

Peter

>>> `h' is merely a mater lectionis?

>> In most cases where a mater lectionis is used, there are spellings with and
>> without the letter, but y-h-w is never found for the name of God.

> But Ya is.


From epmoyer at netrax.net  Tue Mar 13 08:47:20 2001
From: epmoyer at netrax.net (Ernest P. Moyer)
Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 03:47:20 -0500
Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele
Message-ID: <TUE.13.MAR.2001.034720.0500.>

Pat:

Brown, Driver and Briggs tell me that Yah is contracted from YHWH and is the
proper spelling.  See page 219.

In the few passages I have examined it is always spelled Yah.

Did you forget the "aitch?"

Ernest

proto-language wrote:

> Dear Peter and IEists:
>  ----- Original Message -----
> From: "petegray" <petegray at btinternet.com>
> Sent: Saturday, March 03, 2001 10:51 AM

>>>>  y-h-w-h  ... NOT y-h-w.

>>> So you reject the obvious assumption that the final `h' is merely a mater
>>> lectionis?

>> That idea is vary far from obvious!   In most cases where a mater lectionis
>> is used, there are spellings with and without the letter, but y-h-w is never
>> found for the name of God.

> [PR]

> But Ya is.

> Pat


From philjennings at juno.com  Wed Mar 14 22:20:09 2001
From: philjennings at juno.com (philjennings at juno.com)
Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2001 16:20:09 -0600
Subject: Arzawa = Razawa?
Message-ID: <WED.14.MAR.2001.162009.0600.>

I wrote:

>> The simple step of identifying Raza with Rase gives the Etruscans a "Lydian"
>> homeland.

Douglas G. Kilday answered:

> One could just as easily give them an "Assyrian" homeland by identifying
> Rasna with the city of Resen (Gen.  10:12), which someone else has done. In
> this business "simple steps" alone don't amount to much. Unless they are
> backed up by other evidence, they usually turn out to be steps in the wrong
> direction.

Perhaps during their sojourn in Assyria, the proto-Etruscans learned the trick
of using tular boundary stones from the Kassites next door, whose "kudurrus"
were an innovation.  But now I'm being silly.  Please don't think I'm ready to
have the Etruscans wander the world anywhere the letters "r", "s" [and "n"] are
found in dangerous proximity.

(I am, however, almost brave enough to notice Anatolian-type "ta-prefixed"
place names in the Balkans, where some people think the Anatolian-speaking
peoples originated.  Or perhaps, like the "trail of tears" this is an Etruscan
"trail of ta-'s."  Even if the phenomenon exists, it might be interpreted in
several ways.  As a continuation of this parenthesis, I was expecting someone
well-versed in Common Anatolian and its daughter languages to shoot me down
about my ta-prefix idea, and the fact that I'm still on my feet has me rather
amazed.)

The Razawa hypothesis is just a hypothesis.  As long as the only texts
referring to Arzawa are in the Hittite language, or distant and indirect, all
we'll see is the way the Hittites worked the name.  Then too, Arzawa must have
embraced populations that spoke Anatolian languages, and had equal difficulties
pronouncing "Razawa."  The dominant ethnicities of Arzawa may have shifted
through time, and/or people switched languages.  The emigration of refugees
would have tilted the balance.  Perhaps the Khirbet Kerak incursion in Canaan
represents the first of a series of refugee movements, each of which weakened
the position of "pre-Anatolian" peoples and languages in Asia Minor.

I admit ignoring the t-r-s-k sequence.  If t-r-s-n evolved from r-s-n as I
hypothesize (or simply wish - hypothesis is a pretty fancy name for it), then
I'm obliged to assert that t-r-s-k had a separate evolution, or that someone
found it meaningful to add the -k.  Kilday points out that t-r-s-k has the
oldest attestation, and here I'm making it out to be younger and possibly
derivative, to which I plead guilty.  With my focus on Arzawa and on dates of
1200 bce or before, a date of 600 bce for "Tursikina" allows for six centuries
of change.

Assuming an east-to-west movement of proto-Etruscan refugees, and noting that
the t-r-s-n form is the more eastward form, my musings are at least slightly
coherent.  Whether they correspond to reality is another story.

I will now page among all these archives, in the suspicion that this "-k" issue
has been dealt with at great length.


From alderson+mail at panix.com  Mon Mar 12 19:16:41 2001
From: alderson+mail at panix.com (Rich Alderson)
Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2001 14:16:41 -0500
Subject: [linguist@linguistlist.org: 12.660, Qs: IE Substratum?]
Message-ID: <MON.12.MAR.2001.141641.0500.>

Forwarded from the LINGUIST list with the author's permission.

------- Start of forwarded message -------
Delivered-To: LINGUIST at listserv.linguistlist.org
Date:         Sun, 11 Mar 2001 17:14:05 -0000
From: The LINGUIST Network <linguist at linguistlist.org>
Subject:      12.660, Qs: NP Length Statistics, IE Substratum?

LINGUIST List:  Vol-12-660. Sun Mar 11 2001. ISSN: 1068-4875.

Subject: 12.660, Qs: NP Length Statistics, IE Substratum?

[ snip ]

Date:  Fri, 9 Mar 2001 06:09:13 -0500 (EST)
From:  decaen at chass.utoronto.ca (Vincent DeCaen)
Subject:  IE substratum?

dear indoeuropeanists out there,

i would be ever so grateful for direction on the **non**IE substratum of
ancient Greek, and especially Hittite. the only thing i've been able to
find is an old dissertation on nonIE in Greek. i'm looking for phonology,
and typological information.

Dr Vincent DeCaen     <decaen at chass.utoronto.ca>
c/o Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, 4 Bancroft Ave., 2d floor
University of Toronto, Toronto ON, CANADA, M5S 1A1

Hebrew Syntax Encoding Initiative, www.chass.utoronto.ca/~decaen/hsei/


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Thu Mar 15 05:07:19 2001
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 00:07:19 EST
Subject: Minoan is an IE language?
Message-ID: <THU.15.MAR.2001.000719.EST.>

In a message dated 3/14/01 9:16:46 PM Mountain Standard Time, X99Lynx at aol.com
writes:

> On this basis, there appears to be no strong reason to dismiss the notion
> that Linear A at some point was used by "Eteo-Cretans" to write in Semitic
> or

-- except that Linear A is not exclusively a pictographic or logographic
script; like the derived Linear B script, it contains both syllabic and
pictographic elements, and many of the elements are common to both.

The only thing one can say with even a high degree of probability is that
whatever language the Linear A script was designed for wasn't Indo-European,
given the clumsiness of Linear B for that purpose -- despite the fact that it
was specifically intended for Mycenaean Greek.

Therefore it's a safe bet that Linear A was totally unsuitable for writing
Mycenaean and had to be substantially modified to be useable at all, even to
the very limited extent that Linear B achieves.


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Fri Mar 16 13:20:23 2001
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2001 08:20:23 EST
Subject: Minoan is an IE language?/Sound Equivalence
Message-ID: <FRI.16.MAR.2001.082023.EST.>

In a message dated 3/2/2001 7:12:07 PM, JoatSimeon at aol.com writes:

<< -- I find this unlikely.  The Linear B script, developed from Linear A, is
not only unsuited to writing Greek, it's grossly unsuited to writing any
early IE language --  >>

Which raises the question of relative degree of sound equivalency in a
language.  One might think that languages that had just adopted a foreign
alphabet would have these equivalency problems.  But that after a thousand
years or so the correspondences would be worked out and traces of conversion
would gradually disappear.

But maybe the amount of intake a language undergoes -- the amount of
borrowing it does -- might also affect the degree of stable equivalence.

In this regard, the following story may be of interest:

<<Study: English a Factor in Dyslexia

WASHINGTON (March 15) - When English-speaking children with dyslexia begin to
read, they face the awesome task of learning more than 1,100 ways that
letters in the written language are used to symbolize the 40 sounds in the
spoken language.

This may explain why there are twice as many identified dyslexics in
English-speaking cultures as in countries with less complex languages,
according to a study appearing Friday in the journal Science.

The study by an international team compared the brain scan images and reading
skills of dyslexic university students in Italy, France and England.

The researchers found virtually no difference in the neurological signature
for dyslexia, but there was an immense difference in how well the students
learned to read their native languages.

``It is much easier for dyslexics to learn to read in languages where there
is a one-to-one relationship between a letters and the sounds,'' said Chris
D. Frith, a researcher at the University College London and a co-author of
the study. ``In English, there are more than a thousand ways to spell the
sounds.''

In Italian, dyslexic students have a far easier time. The 33 sounds in
Italian are spelled with only 25 letters or letter combinations.

The researchers noted that identified dyslexics are rare in Italy because the
language helps learning readers to quickly overcome problems caused by the
disorder. To find dyslexics among Italian university students, the researcher
had to conduct special tests to identify those with the neurological
signature for the disorder.

Experts have estimated that between 5 percent and 15 percent of Americans
have some degree of dyslexia.  Dyslexia involves a brain structure that makes
it difficult for a learning reader to connect verbal sounds with the letters
or symbols that ``spell'' that sound. Such connections are essential to learn
to read.

In the study, researchers found that English, French and Italian dyslexics
did equally poorly in tests based on the short-term memory of verbal sounds,
a key measure for the disorder. Yet the Italians were far better at reading
their native language than were the English and French students.

The students were then put through a series of reading exams using positron
emission tomography to measure and image blood flow in specific parts of the
brain, an indication of neurological activity. All of the students had the
same deficits in the left temporal lobe of the brain while performing reading
tasks.

``Although Italian dyslexics read more accurately than French or English
dyslexics, they showed the same degree of impairment'' in the brain image,
the study found.

This suggests, the researchers said, that it is the language difference alone
that makes it more difficult for English-speaking dyslexics to learn how to
read.

``The complexity of the English and French written languages stems from
historical events that have introduced spellings from other languages, while,
in comparison, Italian has remained quite pure,'' said Eraldo Paulesu of the
University of Milan Bicocca, the lead author of the study.

In English, many words share the same letter combinations, but involve
different sounds when spoken. For example: mint and pint; cough and bough,
and clove and love. In French, the complexity stems from different letter
combinations that ``spell'' the same or similar sound, such as ``au temps''
(at the time) and ``autant'' (as much, or so much).

Firth said that Spanish, Finnish and Czech are ``dyslexia friendly''
languages because they lack the sound-spelling complexity of English and
French. Japanese, he said, is also easier for children learning to read
because of its consistency of sounds and symbols.>>

Regards,
Steve Long


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Thu Mar 15 05:14:51 2001
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 00:14:51 EST
Subject: Goths, Naming and Ablaut
Message-ID: <THU.15.MAR.2001.001451.EST.>

In a message dated 3/14/01 9:45:22 PM Mountain Standard Time, X99Lynx at aol.com
writes:

> Now, with all that said, it still seems possible to me that Greek originally
> gave a name to the historical Goths who later appear on the Danube coming
> from the direction of the Ukraine in the early 3d century AD.

-- since there's no evidence that the Goths ever called themselves anything
but Goths, parsimony would indicate that this was "always" their word for
themselves as an ethnic group, at the next stage up from the various tribal
identifiers like the Amals, the Teurings, etc.

Incidentally, I'm not aware of any evidence that the Gothic tribes who
appeared on the Danube in the 3rd century came via the Ukraine; the Gothic
tradition was that the split into eastern and western groups occurred in the
course of their migration southward from the Vistula basin.

Given the extreme mobility of Germanic groups in that era, there's no reason
to doubt it that I can see.


From hwhatting at hotmail.com  Thu Mar 15 06:19:16 2001
From: hwhatting at hotmail.com (Hans-Werner Hatting)
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 07:19:16 +0100
Subject: Goths, Naming and Ablaut
Message-ID: <THU.15.MAR.2001.071916.0100.>

On Sat, 10 Mar 2001 01:13:14 EST Steve Long wrote:

>So if the name of the Goths was given, it could have been given in a
>non-Germanic language.  And it may have reached the Greeks being spoken in
>a non-Germanic tongue.

This is a possibility. As long as we have no good Etymology, we should
explore all avenues. But if, on all these avenues, we do not find some
convincing proposals, only a lot of associations, it might be better to
stick to a Germanic etymology - here at least we have a root, variants of
the name which stick to an ablaut pattern, and we just have to get the
semantics straight.

>And may have reached Ptolemy in Alexandria fourth-hand and become <Gythones>.
>(On the other hand, it should be remembered that Ptolemy placed the <Gutae> up
>in Scandia, with no recognition of any connection with <Gythones>.)

One thing we should keep in mind is on what information Ptolemy relied. For
the mediterranean region, he probably was able to tell who was situated
where. For the regions farther away, he had to rely on travellers' stories
and on older written sources, and he certainly did not check them.
Especially the written sources must have been outdated in many cases. E.g.,
our form "Gythones" looks suspicious to me - AFAIK, at Ptolemy's time Greek
_y_ did not render /u/ any more, so it seems Ptolemy copied from an older
source, written at least 200 years earlier. The _Gutae_ came from another
source, and as at that time the Goths were just a faraway people, Ptolemy
had no reason to waste his readers' time by speculations about a possible
relationship between Gythones and Gutae.

>But key here is that it appears there may have been direct Roman contact with
>the "Gotones" in their attempt to subvert the regime in Marobudum.  So
>Tacitus' may have had the name from the horse's mouth.  In which case, whether
>or not Goth was a given or assumed name or original, what the Romans seem to
>have heard was "Got-".

Which would not be astonishing if their sources were West Germanic, which is
very propbable in that area.

>The hitch here is that Tacitus places these "Gotones" lingering around in
>Central Europe near the Suevi and getting involved in events a day's drive
>west of modern Vienna, precisely when the archaeological Goths and the Goths
>of Jordanes are supposed to be marching into what will become Kiev and points
>east.  So it may not be impossible that we are dealing with two different
>groups here with very similar names.  The Geats and "tribes" with similar
>names that in Latin begin with <C> or even <Ch> might suggest this is possible
>(e.g., Cotini, Cotensi, Chatti).  In connection with this it bears noting that
>Ptolemy also located north of the eastern Danube tribes named in the later
>Latin version <Sargati>, <Piengitae>, <Exobygitae>, <Tyrangitae> and the
>Sarmatian <Tyrgetas>.

Not impossible, but unlikely, as the Goths did not vanish from the Roman
horizon afterwards, so I think we ought to assume an identity between
Tacitus' Goths and the later ones. I think it is more likely that the Goths
Tacitus mentions are Visigoths, while the ones going down to the Crimea were
Ostrogoths. Correct me if I'm wrong - I don't remember when exactly the
Visigoth - Ostrogoth split was supposed to have happened.

>Now, with all that said, it still seems possible to me that Greek originally
>gave a name to the historical Goths who later appear on the Danube coming from
>the direction of the Ukraine in the early 3d century AD.  And that those
>particular Goths could have taken the name as their own or perhaps took a name
>in the Greek tongue. One reason among others is simply that when the Greeks
>named something, it often stuck - like it or not.

In this case, we would have:
1. the Goths, named by the Greeks (or anybody else in the Balkan
neighbourhood);
2. Tacitus' Gotones, which are to be kept separate;
3. the Gythones;
4. the Gutae (= Geats?).

Of which, at least the latter two must have got their names earlier. To me,
it seems unlikely that these people have to be kept separate. After all,
until we find more evidence, I favour to explain all these names as denoting
the same (or related) people, and as coming from a Germanic source (Gmc.
*giut/gaut/gut-, PIE *gheu-d- "pour").

Best regards,
Hans-Werner Hatting


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Thu Mar 15 05:26:00 2001
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 00:26:00 EST
Subject: "Gothi" (timeline)
Message-ID: <THU.15.MAR.2001.002600.EST.>

In a message dated 3/14/01 10:17:08 PM Mountain Standard Time,
X99Lynx at aol.com writes:

> In fact, without background, how would we account for an Arabic kingdom in
> Asia Minor calling itself "Rum"?

-- ah... that's a _Turkish_ kingdom in Anatolia, not Arabic.


From hwhatting at hotmail.com  Thu Mar 15 07:22:09 2001
From: hwhatting at hotmail.com (Hans-Werner Hatting)
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 08:22:09 +0100
Subject: "Gothi" (timeline)
Message-ID: <THU.15.MAR.2001.082209.0100.>

On Sun, 11 Mar 2001 03:09:36 EST Steve Long wrote:

>With regard to the n-stem ending attached to a proper name: it is not a
>unique thing among the Greeks and to some degree the Romans, even where we
>may have non-IE speakers being named - e.g., Sidones, Vascones, Nasamones.
>Perhaps these endings, which were applied to peoples (or just gatherings or
>groups, see e.g. <Amphictyones, antichthones>) across Greece, Gaul, Germania
>and Scythia, were always based on a true n-stem root rather than a
>convention.  But it is clear that there are often versions where the use of
>the ending is dropped (e.g., Gothones, Gothi, Gothini).

>And it may be worth noting the names of Ptolemy's <Gutae> or the later
><Gautoi> in Scandinavia don't show the ending.  This would seem to be the
>reverse of what you suggested above, since the Scandinavians were always at
>a distance.

The possibility that _-ones_ was not based on anything in the original name,
but an addition by Greeks and Romans, did not occur to me - thanks for that
suggestion!

We would then only have ablaut variants, not stem variants.

>I've suggested elsewhere that truly early word of the name of the Goths may
>have had to pass through speakers that were not Germanic, just as the names
>of other peoples far from the Greeks may have.  But the early Greeks were
>exceptionally good at getting around, so direct contact is not out of the
>guestion.  In fact, Tacitus, Pliny, etc., retell accounts of Greeks among the
>northern Germani and of course there is even evidence of Mycenaean trade in
>Denmark, etc.

Just a suggestion - maybe I am wrong:

I think people who go to places abroad will be interested in finding out the
names of people they are visiting, especially if they want to trade with
them, so most probably they will ask those people, or their neighbours. And
if they give them a name themselves, it will be propbably easily
etymologisable. On the other hand, if suddenly other people turn up on your
door step, it is much more likely that you name them yourself, or take a
name for them from your own neighbours, or mix them up with other people
having some similarity with them - be it cultural, some outward traits, or
geopgraphical situation.

So if the Greeks had commercial contacts to the Goths before, it is (by this
chain of reasoning)less likely that _Goth_ is a name given to them by the
Greeks, and more likely that it is theri own name, or a name given to them
by earlier neighbours.

>These are cases where a Greek source was
>attributed for a word in Gothic, where the Greek contained an <o>:

>Gr. <apostolos > Gothic <apau:lstau:lus, apau:lstulus> (strong masc),
>apostle

>Gr. <diabolos> > Gothic <diabau:lus, diabulus> (strong masc) devil (Wright:
>through Lat. diabolus) (OE. de:ofol, OHG. tiufal)

>Gr. <korban> > Gothic <kau:rba:n> gift (Greek from the Hebrew)

>Gr. <porphura> > Gothic <pau:rpura> purple

>Gr. <prophe:te:s>  > Gothic <prau:fe:tus, prau:fe:te:s> (strong masc)
>prophet

>Note that Greek <o> appears to be consistently transliterated as <au:> except
>in <diabulus> and <apaulstulus> where <u> alternatively appears.

>Does this mean that if the word <got-> was heard in Greek, it would have been
>written by Ulfila as <gau:t->?

>From this, it seems that Ulfila wrote _au_ for Greek /o/ when it was
accented or came before the accented syllable, and /u/ otherwise. This could
also support the idea that Gothic _au_ was really pronounced /o/.
But what to make of the Greek forms with _y_ and _ou_, which seem to point
to a Greek pronounciation /gut-/, not /got-/? If I haven't missed something,
/o/ seems to be attested only in the Latin sources.

>But here I must note that <Rum> will appear soon after and become the name of
>these places in everything from Turkish to Persian to Romanian and Russian.
>The spelling is attributed to early Arabic in reference to the eastern Empire
>and extends to the name of the Balkan provinces of the Ottoman empire. But
>this version <Rum> persisted not only into later Greek but also into the
>Romance language that was first called "Rumanian" for that very reason.

>In fact, without background, how would we account for an Arabic kingdom in
>Asia Minor calling itself "Rum"?

A minor squibble - if you are talking about the Rum Seljuk empire, they were
Turkic.

>Or, without background, how would we explain the o/u in Romanian/Rumanian?
>And should we think that the basis of
><gotthi/gouthth/gotones/geat/getan/gutae/*gaut-> would be any simplier

It may be as complicated. But shouldn't we look for the simpler solution? We
can doubt some pillars which it is based on, but we should drop it only if
we find that it is counter to fact, or that we have other facts supporting
another theory.

Best regards,
Hans-Werner Hatting


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Thu Mar 15 06:48:00 2001
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 01:48:00 EST
Subject: Goths/ Prestige of Scandinavia
Message-ID: <THU.15.MAR.2001.014800.EST.>

In a message dated 3/14/01 10:55:41 PM Mountain Standard Time,
X99Lynx at aol.com writes:

> Pliny made the Goths members of the Vandals and there is no
> mention of that in Jordanes.

-- the linguistic evidence indicates a very close link between Vandals and
Goths; they were both East Germanic speakers -- unlike the Alemmanni or
Franks or Saxons.  The personal names are identical, for instance, and quite
distinct from more westerly German groups.

The historical evidence bears this out.  The Goths seem to have been the
easternmost of the Germanics and the Vandals early, and close, neighbors.

The tradition of Scandinavian origins probably refers to the antecedents of
the ruling clan/clans rather than the Gothic ethnos as a whole, which was
mixed to begin with and became more so later.

There's no reason that the tradition couldn't be true in that sense; besides
the Geats/Gotar of Sweden, whose name is at least suggestive, there are
plenty of subsequent historical analogies.   The Scandinavians who, as the
"Russ", later gave their name to Russia, are an example.


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Thu Mar 15 09:46:31 2001
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 09:46:31 +0000
Subject: Non-Indic sustrate vocabulary
In-Reply-To: <002901c0a962$11b2e600$aa1d523e@pc>
Message-ID: <THU.15.MAR.2001.094631.0000.>

David Sánchez writes:

> I read some time ago, that a scandinavian group have claimed
> that they have proved Indus Valley script was written in a form
> of a dravidian language. I was strongly surpresed and I was very
> doubtful about the feasibility of this claim.

> What can be said about the actual feasibility of claims of this type?

I think the reference must be to Asko Parpola's work.  Parpola, a Finn, is the
leader of a Finnish group which has been investigating the Indus Valley texts
for some years.  In 1994, Parpola published a book entitled Deciphering the
Indus Script, from Cambridge UP.  There he reaches the conclusion that the
language of the Indus Valley texts is most likely Dravidian.

The response to this book has been surprisingly muted, as far as I can judge.
It has not caused a storm of controversy, and I hardly ever see even a
reference to it, favorable or unfavorable.  Perhaps it is merely that most
scholars regard the book as wholly respectable but far from convincing.
Indeed, in his contribution to the 1996 Daniels and Bright volume The World's
Writing Systems (Oxford UP), Parpola is very cautious and puts forward no
strong conclusions at all.

A summary of Parpola's work can be found here:

  http://www.harappa.com/script/parpola0.html

I haven't read the book, but I think it is fair to say that the material
presented on this Website is no more than suggestive, and far from convincing.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk

Tel: (01273)-678693 (from UK); +44-1273-678693 (from abroad)
Fax: (01273)-671320 (from UK); +44-1273-671320 (from abroad)


From lmfosse at online.no  Thu Mar 15 09:51:11 2001
From: lmfosse at online.no (Lars Martin Fosse)
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 10:51:11 +0100
Subject: SV: Non-Indic sustrate vocabulary
Message-ID: <THU.15.MAR.2001.105111.0100.>

David Sanchez [SMTP:davius_sanctex at terra.es] skrev 10. mars 2001 14:00:
> I read some time ago, that a scandinavian group have claimed
> that they have proved Indus Valley script was written in a form
> of a dravidian language. I was strongly surpresed and I was very
> doubtful about the feasibility of this claim.

> What can be said about the actual feasibility of claims of this type?

I refer to my earlier mails with bibliographic details. The "Nordic group"
is Prof. Parpola of the University of Helsinki (I believe, but correct me
if he belongs to another Finnish university). Parpola has published
extensively on the Indus Script, and regards its underlying language as an
early form of Dravidian. He has tried to interpret the script in this
spirit. This has been challenged by among others Prof. Witzel of Harvard,
who sees the underlying language as possibly an an early form of Munda (or
some language X). (See the Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies). The French
scholar Bernard Sergent has suggested that the underlying language is
rather an early version of Burushaski. He rejects Dravidian on grounds of
physical anthropology ("skull measures"). Se his book L'origine de l'Inde.

A fourth possibility that has been discussed loosely is that the Indus
script was used for several different languages, a solution that would fit
the rather enormous territory covered by the Indus civilization.

No interpretation of the Indus script has so far received general
acceptance among scholars. It is possible that the problems of the script
cannot be solved.

Best regards,

Lars Martin Fosse

Dr. art. Lars Martin Fosse
Haugerudvn. 76, Leil. 114,
0674 Oslo
Norway
Phone: +47 22 32 12 19
Mobile phone: +47 90 91 91 45
Fax 1:  +47 22 32 12 19
Fax 2:  +47 85 02 12 50 (InFax)
Email: lmfosse at online.no


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Thu Mar 15 14:56:43 2001
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language)
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 08:56:43 -0600
Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele
Message-ID: <THU.15.MAR.2001.085643.0600.>

Dear Peter and Ernest and IEists:

Original Message -----
From: "petegray" <petegray at btinternet.com>
Sent: Sunday, March 11, 2001 3:42 AM

I fear that I have abraded some religious sensibilities and I apologize for any
disrespect perceived but not intended.

I have combined my answers to Peter and Ernest into one post for convenience
(uninterested readers will only have to press DELETE once).

1)

<snip>

>[PRp]
>But Ya is.

[PG]

>> Yah is indeed found as an alternative for Yahweh, but my point still stands
>> - it is never found without the written <h>.  Indeed, in some places there
>> is a sign which indicates it must be pronounced.

AND

[EPM]

> Brown, Driver and Briggs tell me that Yah is contracted from YHWH and is the
> proper spelling.  See page 219.

> In the few passages I have examined it is always spelled Yah.

> Did you forget the "aitch?"

[PR]

There are a number of personal names in the OT which seem by some scholars to
be analyzed as containing the divine name Ya, written simply [y]; e.g. Jehu
(y-hw?), 'Ya is he'; 'Ya is able'; Jeremai (yrm-y), 'Ya is high'); Jeribai
(yryb-y), 'Ya contends'; Jeshishai (yshysh-y), 'Ya is high'; etal.

These are the standard interpretations in the field (Young's Analytical
Concordance) though, of course, it might be possible to tease another analysis
from them.

2)

[EPM]

>I find your speculations of the origin of YHWH curious.  Remember, this form
>is part of, and should be connected with, the full conjugation of an important
>Semitic verb.  That verb means "to be," "to exist," "to form," "to mold," "to
>constitute," and so on.

>To suggest that it was expanded from a pagan Akkadian Ea/Ia neglects that
>important root verb.  I do not know anything about the Akkadian language, but
>I surmise that such an important verb should appear in that Semitic language
>also.

>It seems to me that to neglect the significance of Creativity in that verb,
>and speculatively cast the origin of the name upon some pagan superstitious
>source, is a real failure in linguistic studies.

>Such speculation also rejects the devout religious attitudes of people who
>truly believed in God, and not merely pagan gods.

[PR]
To the worshipper of any single god, all other worship is pagan.

"Expanded" is not really what I had in mind. I had thought more along the lines
of a people borrowing a creator god, E/Ia from the Mesopotamian culture; and
perhaps writing it [yh] to give it better recognizability or to indicate a long
vowel (/ja:/). At some point realizing that the verb form [yhwh], having to do
with "creation", contained the first two consonants of the form in which [y]
had come to be written ([yh]), perceived that [yhwh] could better explicate the
nature of Ya as 'creator' (since [y] or [yh] could provide no Hebrew
etymology).

Alternatively, [yhwh] might be an explicationally expanded from of [y-hw(3)],
'he is Ya'.

I have also explained that E/Ia should be analyzed as Sumerian E(11)-a, 'that
which is engendered', or 'the engenderer', so the creative aspect of the god is
not being neglected.

3)

[EPM]

> I am sure that any name so profound as that of God would not be a vehicle for
> linguistic play.  Remember, after about 300 BC the Jews would not even
> pronounce it, and have held to that superstition to this day.  So to play
> around with the name of God was strictly a no-no.

[PR]

The Hebrews were in the Egyptian cultural orbit.

If I need to give examples of the ubiquitous habit of Egyptian word-play with
divine concepts, by which they meant no disrespect but only hoped to illuminate
inherent connections among important concepts, then the discussion is simply
pointless.

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit ec
at ec hecc, vindgá meiði a netr allar nío, geiri vndaþr . . . a þeim
meiþi, er mangi veit, hvers hann af rótom renn." (Hávamál 138)


From bronto at pobox.com  Fri Mar 16 05:23:30 2001
From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood)
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 21:23:30 -0800
Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele
Message-ID: <THU.15.MAR.2001.212330.0800.>

"Ernest P. Moyer" wrote:

> Pat:
> I find your speculations of the origin of YHWH curious. Remember,
> this form is part of, and should be connected with, the full
> conjugation of an important Semitic verb.  That verb means "to be,"
> "to exist," "to form," "to mold," "to constitute," and so on.

> To suggest that it was expanded from a pagan Akkadian Ea/Ia
> neglects that important root verb. . . .

Unless the connexion with the verb is just one more in a fairly long list of
Biblical folk-etymologies.

--
Anton Sherwood  --  br0nt0 at p0b0x.com  --  http://ogre.nu/


From dlwhite at texas.net  Thu Mar 15 15:41:36 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 09:41:36 -0600
Subject: Etruscans
Message-ID: <THU.15.MAR.2001.094136.0600.>

> David L. White (8 Mar 2001) wrote:

>> I have it on good authority (Eric Hamp) that English-like aspiration occurs
>> in some Pennine Italian dialects.  Perhaps an ancient version of this is the
>> source.  But what language is "Thouskoi" in?  Something similar, by the way,
>> appears to be going on with "Punic" versus "Phonecian", and I would like to
>> know what the story is there.

> The Pennine Alps are a long way from the Sabine country. Not knowing much
> about Alpine dialects, I wouldn't know whether to attribute the aspiration
> to substrate or the influence of German. If I squint at the map, I can see
> the Matterhorn and a place called Zermatt, so I presume that German is, or
> recently was, spoken here.

        Geography is becoming confused.  I believe Hamp's original words (it
was 10-15 years ago) were something like "mountains of central Italy".  The
Alps have nothing to do with anything.  I would gues the phenomenon must be
the same thing recently pointed out as existing in Tuscan, though if it is
truly general to Tuscan we must wonder why it did not become established in
standard Italian.  My point was that aspiration is known from that general
area, and might one way or another explain the evident /th/ of "Thouskoi".
        But I could have sworn I saw "Thoursk-" cited (as Umbrian) at one
point.  What is this?

> I have grave doubts that the Etruscan presence in Etruria, Romagna, and the
> Po valley was a small elite. That _may_ have been the case in Campania
> before the Samnite conquest. But in Etruria and the northern areas, a
> substantial part of the general population must have been Etruscan, and I
> don't see the elite-dominance model applying.

        I would say _originally_ a small elite.  People can easily shift
their ethnic identity.  The genetic evidence shows that this clearly
happened in Turkey, where people who now think of themselves as Turks had
ancestors who thought of themseves as Greeks (who in turn probably had
ancestors who thought of themselves as Phrygians, etc... )  I note that
class divisions in Etruscan society seem to have been unusually rigid, with
no true middle class.  This might be because class divisions went back to
earlier ethnic divisions re-analyzed, there being great efforts to keep the
conquered in their place by erecting uncrossable class barriers.  Otherwise
the failure of Etruscan society to develop a middle class comparable to what
existed among the Greeks and Romans is somewhat strange.

> As for classical Etruscans wanting to believe in glorious ancestors who
> fought in the Trojan War, this sort of romantic illusionism is practically
> ubiquitous. In the USA it isn't hard to find folks who insist they are
> descended from their Sunday-school heroes, seizing on the flimsiest
> superficialities to establish their own membership in the fabled Lost
> Tribes.

        We are not disagreeing about anything here.  But the fact that they
_could_ be wrong does not mean they were.  My point was that the
after-the-fact glory of Troy could well have caused any northern Aegean
interlude to be skipped over.

>> Could this long vowel [in <Tro:s>, <Tro:ios>, etc.] not be secondary, by
>> compensatory lengthening, /trosy-/ -> /trohy-/ -> /trooy-/, with /y/
>> later lost where not re-analyzable as part of a suffix with /i/?

> I don't see any compensatory lengthening in Epic genitives like <megaroio>,
> where we have /oyo/ < */ohyo/ < */osyo/.

        Nor in the ancestor of /naio/, from /nasyo/.  With dentals followed
by /y/ it appears (to me) that what happend was (in effect) metathesis, as
in /melaina/ from /melanya/, followed, where applicable, by /s/-loss:
/nasyo/ -> /naiso/ -> /naio/.  In such a sequence compensatory lengthening
would not be expected, as the /s/, by the time it is lost, has ceased to be
moraic.
        The process I posit would have to be later than the change of
original /sy/.  But as the word for Troy was clearly not part of the IE
inheritance, I see no great problem with that, not counting ad-hocness.  But
for foreign borrowings to have unique sequences, regarded as at least
awkward, is not unheard of.  There would have been a second loss of /sy/
phonologically parallel with the loss of /sw/, which _did_ involve
compensatory lengthening, probably because it did not involve (de facto)
metathesis.  I admit that this probably did not happen, preferring option #2
below, but I do think there is nothing _fatally_ wrong with it.

>> In any event, for there to be a difference of opinion about whether some
>> vowel is a short high vowel or a long mid vowel is not unheard of, as seen
>> in Vulgar Latin.

> According to Palmer, Vulgar Latin first "closed" the quality of long vowels,
> giving nine distinct vowel-timbres (/a:/ could not be "closed"). The
> phonemic distinction of vowel-quantity was then lost, as stressed vowels
> became long and unstressed ones short. Convergence of close /o/ with open
> /U/, and of close /e/ with open /I/, formed the basis of Continental West
> Romance.

        Yes, the point is that long mids can sound like short highs, or
mergers would not happen.  Thus one language's long mid could sound like
another's short high.  When it happened in Latin is irrelevant, though I
believe most observers would posit a difference in quality for Latin shorts
and longs going way back into pre-history.

> I don't know which dialect of VL you have in mind when you cite
> convergence of /o/ with /I/.

        Must have been a typo.

>> Length is not necessarily that clear.  The lowering of Greek original long
>> mids would have to be later, but as far as I know there is no reason that
>> this (somewhat strange) development has to be especially early.  The lack of
>> a distinction between /u/ and /o/ also may well have something to do with
>> borrowings at different times by different peoples taking slightly different
>> forms.

> I don't see what borrowing has to do with the lack of /o:u/ distinction in
> Etruscan. Having only one phonemic back-vowel quality is an essential
> characteristic of the language.

        Certainly no sane observer would suggest that the lack of a
distinction bewteen /o/ and /u/ in Etruscan was _caused_ by borrowing.  My
point is that, where no distinction exists, it is possible for intermediate
phonetic types to be produced.  I particularly recall a professor of mine,
from Massachusetts, who made no distinction between the vowel of "caught"
and the vowel of "cot" (which seems to be the trend these days), routinely
producing for either (in my idiolect) a vowel that sounded exactly "on the
cusp" between the two, thereby annoying the hell out of me.  (I kept feeling
like asking him which one he meant.)  If the same sort of thing happened
with Etruscan /o-u/, then some difference of opinion among borrowing
languages about whether the vowel in question "was"  /o/ or /u/ is entirely
understandable, even predictable.  In sum, for Etruscan /o-u/ to have
sounded like short /u/ to some Greeks (or other people) of one period and
dialect and like long /o/ to other Greeks (or other people) of another
period and dialect would be not at all suprising.  The only thing I would
say is that since an open long /o/ of the later omega type would almost
certainly not have been what Etruscan /o-u/ sounded lke the borrowing with
long /o/ must predate lowering of this, which in turn was probably motivated
by the creation of a new vowel from /ou/ of various sources. But again, this
(unless I am missing something does not seem like a fatal, or even
near-fatal, problem.

Dr. David L. White


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Fri Mar 16 05:41:42 2001
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2001 00:41:42 EST
Subject: Etruscans
Message-ID: <FRI.16.MAR.2001.004142.EST.>

In a message dated 3/15/2001 3:01:29 AM, acnasvers at hotmail.com writes:
<< In the USA it isn't hard to find folks who insist they are descended from
their Sunday-school heroes, seizing on the flimsiest superficialities to
establish their own membership in the fabled Lost Tribes. >>

I'd double-check this one.  One does not hear an awful lot about personal
genealogical descent from the Lost Tribes, except maybe for late at night at
certain Irish-American taverns on the westside of Manhattan.  And even there,
the debate usually deal with more productive questions, like whether those
Tribes were actually Lost or merely Misplaced.  My guess is that outside the
state of Utah and among members of the Mormon faith, the overwhelmingly vast
majority of Americans do not even know who the Lost Tribes were.

As far as Etruscan origins go, certain things might be worth mentioning:

- There is (as far as I know) no evidence of anything but Villanovian
settlements in Etruscan regions before somewhere around 800BC.  The first
clear evidence of a foreign presence afterward is Greek.  But when
identifiably Etruscan settlements emerge they have some features that do not
seem Villanovian or Greek at all.  These features are however identifiable
with other locations around the Mediterranean.

- Many elements of the so-called "orientalizing" of later Etruscan culture
feature things emphatically not Greek or Early Roman, such as bucherro
pottery, which clearly establish some kind of ties with Asia Minor.  There
are other elements that suggest ties with Crete or the southern Mediterranean
coast.  These elements are not peripheral to Etruscan culture.  Their
eastern, non-Greek character had a pronounced effect on scholars from the
earliest finds and they are still plain to see in Etruscan artifact
collections.

- What is odd about the Etruscan settlement on Lemnos is not the stele.  What
is odd is that it is on Lemnos, without an apparent serious stronghold
structure, dangerously in the very teeth of a very Greek sea.  I have seen
different earliest dates for the settlement itself.  (And how early this
settlement would be scientifically dated would make a difference.)

I understand that there were over a hundred cremation burials in the
necropolis, including men and women.  The women's graves contain early
bucherro pottery and the male graves contain weapons, including
characteristically Cretan axes and daggers.

What the stele tells us is the settlement appears to have had a strong
Etruscan connection.  It does not tell us why these settlers were there.
Even as a trading colony, it is a fish out of water.  The strong implication
is I think some kind of a license or patronage allowed the settlement to be
there.  One wonders if the coming of the Persians had something to do with
this.

- Putting aside the question of who the Etruscans were for a moment, the
Etruscan language appears to the have been strongly centered in Italy from
all the evidence we have.

If it came from foreign parts, it could have come with very few carriers, but
it would have had to provide indigenous people a very good economic or social
reason to adopt it.

If it represented a large migration, we would like to see evidence of the
language elsewhere, other than in a small colony in a sea of Greeks.

On the other hand, if it was a local language adopted by immigrants from Asia
Minor and points east and south - or even Greeks - we might see the very same
footprint as in the cases above.

The origin of the Etruscan language may not tell us where some or many of the
people we know as Etruscans came from.

-  The adoption of the Greek alphabet seems to be a thing somewhat taken for
granted in all this.  But what were the mechanics of this process? How much
bi-lingualism do you need to even understand the concept?  How do we envision
converting a whole "people" without an alphabet to writing (and reading)
using the Greek method?  Would it help if many of them at first also spoke
and wrote Greek?

Regards,
Steve Long


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Fri Mar 16 19:43:52 2001
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2001 14:43:52 -0500
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
In-Reply-To: <000701c0aa75$2860c520$376163d1@texas.net>
Message-ID: <FRI.16.MAR.2001.144352.0500.>

Wouldn't <nert> and <neirt> both be palatalized?

>        The discussion shows more clearly that Thurneysen _believed_ that
>Old Irish had three consonantal qualities than that it did.  As a
>pre-phonemic Neo-Grammarian he felt no need to adduce minimal or even
>near-minimal pairs, and did not do so.  Nonetheless, I have found at least
>one:  "nert" vs. "neirt" vs. "neurt".  The problem is that this, and all the
>other possible cases I have come across, involve /r/, which is more than a
>litle suspect for a distinction that is supposed to have existed "across the
>board".

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


From alderson+mail at panix.com  Thu Mar 15 23:36:43 2001
From: alderson+mail at panix.com (Rich Alderson)
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 18:36:43 -0500
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
In-Reply-To: <00bc01c0a9e6$d72b8660$fbf1fea9@Ryan>
 (proto-language@email.msn.com)
Message-ID: <THU.15.MAR.2001.183643.0500.>

On 10 Mar 2001, Pat Ryan wrote:

[I had written:]

>> Later studies of the language have found that the proper analysis requires
>> that there be two vowels, /a/ and /I-/ ("barred i").  The major proponent of
>> this analysis is, as I recall, John Colarusso; see his grammar of Kabardian
>> for more details.

> But is not /I-/ a high/mid central vowel? opposed to /a/, a low central
> vowel.

High central unrounded.  And the operative word there is "opposed".

> I would be inclined to regard /I-/ as an allophone of /a/ in specified
> phonological environments.

Only if you don't look at Colarusso's evidence for the phonemic status of the
opposition, that is, that both occur in the *same* environments, and neither
can be motivated from the other.

> Without rehearsing my arguments, why do you not tell us a few IE words in
> which you believe /i/ and /u/ are primary?

Any word in which *i or *u can be reconstructed.  That they may alternate in
morphophonological rules with *y and *w is irrelevant to their phonemic status,
though the consonantal forms may have originated in fortitions of originally
vocalic segments.  (For the concept of fortition processes, see P. Donegan's
Ohio State dissertation, still available I believe as a working paper from the
linguistics department there.)

								Rich Alderson


From alderson+mail at panix.com  Thu Mar 15 23:48:58 2001
From: alderson+mail at panix.com (Rich Alderson)
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 18:48:58 -0500
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
In-Reply-To: <003101c0ab20$830945a0$762863d1@texas.net> (dlwhite@texas.net)
Message-ID: <THU.15.MAR.2001.184858.0500.>

On 12 Mar 2001, David White wrote:

> Now I am thoroughly confused.  The analysis with three contrasting
> consonantal qualities is seemingly presented as a fact at first only to be
> dismissed as wrong later.  If "[a]-quality", which leads to the conclusion
> that there is no /a/, is an illusion, then how are there three qualities?

The analysis of the obstruents as occurring in three series, to wit, plain,
palatalized, and labialized, is unremarkable.  Presumably, your confusion stems
from my comments on Kuipers' re-analysis of "plain":

>> He then proceeds to re-analyze the plain series as having a feature "open",
>> which he symbolizes with a superscript <a> to match the superscript <j> and
>> <w> of the palatalized and labialized series respectively, and postulates
>> that with the addition of this feature, we need not have any phonemic vowel
>> at all in Kabardian.

That is, in order to motivate a completely vowelless analysis of the phonologi-
cal system of Kabardian, Kuipers introduces an _ad hoc_ feature which he calls
"open" and symbolizes as a superscript <a> on the formerly undecorated plain
series.  This feature must then be present on every obstruent which does not
color surrounding vowels by fronting and/or rounding them, and since the color
of any vowel is thereby predicted by the coloration of the surrounding obstru-
ents, there is no need in his analysis for any phonemic vowel at all.

This latter claim ("no phonemic vowel at all") is what I referred to when I
said

>> This analysis flies in the face of everything we know about permissible
>> phonological systems and naturalness.

However, as I pointed out briefly,

>> Later studies of the language have found that the proper analysis requires
>> that there be two vowels, /a/ and /I-/ ("barred i").

so there is no need for his "open" feature, since the analysis that caused him
to propose it was fatally flawed in any case.

								Rich Alderson


From mom20 at hermes.cam.ac.uk  Tue Mar 20 15:13:44 2001
From: mom20 at hermes.cam.ac.uk (M.O.McCullagh)
Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 15:13:44 +0000
Subject: Morphological remodelling
In-Reply-To: <00bc01c0a383$59158640$63444241@Ryan>
Message-ID: <TUE.20.MAR.2001.151344.0000.>

 Can anyone on the list think of examples of morphological remodelling
within a verbal paradigm based on a single ending? The only secure example
I have been able to come up with is the creation of new middle imperative
endings in Greek from the basis of the second plural ending -sthe. That
example seems to me particularly interesting because second plural forms
are statistically the least frequent of all the personal endings
(according to Bybee's Morphology). I'd be very interested to hear of
similar remodellings, inside or outside IE.

 Matthew McCullagh,
 Cambridge University


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Sat Mar 17 04:01:43 2001
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2001 23:01:43 EST
Subject: Minoan is an IE language?/Sound Equivalence
Message-ID: <FRI.16.MAR.2001.230143.EST.>

In a message dated 3/16/01 8:05:01 PM Mountain Standard Time, X99Lynx at aol.com
writes:

> This may explain why there are twice as many identified dyslexics in
> English-speaking cultures as in countries with less complex languages,

-- it's not the complexity of the English language that's the problem, it's
the horrors of English orthography.  English spelling was regularized just
when the language was going through a major series of sound-shifts.

As originally pronounced, back in the 16th century, English spelling was
simple and highly phonetic.


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sat Mar 17 05:06:25 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2001 23:06:25 -0600
Subject: Italian as a "Pure" Language
Message-ID: <FRI.16.MAR.2001.230625.0600.>

> ``The complexity of the English and French written languages stems from
> historical events that have introduced spellings from other languages, while,
> in comparison, Italian has remained quite pure,'' said Eraldo Paulesu of the
> University of Milan Bicocca, the lead author of the study.

        Heavens to Betsy, that's really too much to go for.  Most of the
difficulties in English spellings come from things like "through", "enough",
"do", "bead" vs. "head", and "now" vs. "mow", which are quite native.
Things like "pizza" or even "frail" have very little to do with it.  The
main advantage Italian has, to simplify a bit, is that it did not go through
the Great Vowel Shift.

Dr. David L. White


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sat Mar 17 05:16:21 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2001 23:16:21 -0600
Subject: Goths, Naming and Ablaut
Message-ID: <FRI.16.MAR.2001.231621.0600.>

> After all, until we find more evidence, I favour to explain all these names
> as denoting the same (or related) people, and as coming from a Germanic
> source (Gmc.  *giut/gaut/gut-, PIE *gheu-d- "pour").

> Best regards,
> Hans-Werner Hatting

        I agree (and grow somewhat weary).  But I will note, before I nod
off, that it is quite likely that the other Germans, more specifically the
West Germans, had a name for the Goths, and that the Romans would have
picked this up from contact with them.  As little more than a vague rumor
from the shadowy margins of the "known" world, no doubt, but still they
probably would have heard it.  There is no reason to think that the
borrowing of the name must have passed directly, "as the crow flies" (or
wolf runs), from the Goths wherever they were at the time of first
attestation in Latin, passing through third-language intermediaries.
        Furthermore the occurence of what appear to be ablaut variants
suggests, however weakly, that the name was Germanic, as Germanic is known
to have preserved ablaut variation to a greater extent than most of the rest
of the family.

Dr. David L. White


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sat Mar 17 13:44:08 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 07:44:08 -0600
Subject: Gothic "au"
Message-ID: <SAT.17.MAR.2001.074408.0600.>

> From this, it seems that Ulfila wrote _au_ for Greek /o/ when it was
> accented or came before the accented syllable, and /u/ otherwise. This could
> also support the idea that Gothic _au_ was really pronounced /o/.

        That Gothic "au" was, among other things (probably), a spelling for
/o/, as "ai" was for /e/, is not disputed by most observers.  The evidence,
some of which we have just seen, is too strong.

Dr. David L. White


From rao.3 at osu.edu  Sat Mar 17 11:42:50 2001
From: rao.3 at osu.edu (Vidhyanath Rao)
Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 06:42:50 -0500
Subject: Non-Indic sustrate vocabulary
Message-ID: <SAT.17.MAR.2001.064250.0500.>

"anthony.appleyard at umist.ac.uk" <anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK> wrote

> PS: What is current belief about the Dravidian outliers Brahui and Kurukh
> and Malto?
> (2) Some say that the Brahui are descended from soldiers recruited in south
> India and dumped in Baluchistan, and that the Kurukh and Malto immigrated
> from south India.
> But is (2) derived from a proper chronicled account? Or is it derived from
> tales invented by a wandering storyteller who noticed the resemblance in
> language and made long stories out of it?

I don't think that Brahui have origin stories that connect them to the south.
[Being Muslims, they would presumably prefer a westerly origin.]
Kurukh and Malto do have traditions of migration from points southwest.
But I doubt that a wandering storyteller would know enough historical
linguistics to see the connections with the major Dravidian languages, or
enough about the minor Dravidian languages.

The strongest argument for (2) that I have seen is that Indo-Iranian borrowings
in Brahui all seem to be from Iranian languages and of a stage after 10c CE.
This is very surprising if they had been there from before any I-Ir presence.


From petegray at btinternet.com  Sat Mar 17 11:16:59 2001
From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray)
Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 11:16:59 -0000
Subject: Non-Indic sustrate vocabulary
Message-ID: <SAT.17.MAR.2001.111659.0000.>

>.. Indus Valley script ... a form
> of a dravidian language. I was strongly [surprised]..

Why surprised?  I would have expected it as a possibility.

Peter


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sat Mar 17 13:49:38 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 07:49:38 -0600
Subject: Munda in Early NW India
Message-ID: <SAT.17.MAR.2001.074938.0600.>

> This has been challenged by among others Prof. Witzel of Harvard,
> who sees the underlying language as possibly an an early form of Munda (or
> some language X).

        Munda has "voiced aspirates", or, more precisely, murmured sounds,
which appear to be native (though of course they also occur in borrowings
from Indic).  I believe it also has retroflex sounds.  So perhaps the
suggestion is not absurd, as it might motivate the appearance of such sounds
in Indic, which is otherwise a bit odd, though strangely this (the oddity)
has not (to my knowledge) received much comment.

Dr. David L. White


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sat Mar 17 13:58:47 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 07:58:47 -0600
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
Message-ID: <SAT.17.MAR.2001.075847.0600.>

> The analysis of the obstruents as occurring in three series, to wit, plain,
> palatalized, and labialized, is unremarkable.

        What is another example?

> Presumably, your confusion stems
> from my comments on Kuipers' re-analysis of "plain":

        Practically speaking, "plain" would have to be "[a]-colored", to
stay out of the way of consonants that were [i]-colored or [u]-colored.
Otherwise, with normal coarticulation, "plain" velars (to take the most
obvious case) would develop de facto [i]-coloring near /i/.   Of course,
this would not apply to a language without /i/, but Old Irish does have /i/.
If part of the claim is that [a]-coloring does not exist, I agree, but
assert that it would have to for the sound-system commonly posited for Old
Irish to be viable.

Dr. David L. White


From sarima at friesen.net  Sat Mar 17 14:17:42 2001
From: sarima at friesen.net (Stanley Friesen)
Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 06:17:42 -0800
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
In-Reply-To: <200103152336.SAA06266@panix2.panix.com>
Message-ID: <SAT.17.MAR.2001.061742.0800.>

At 06:36 PM 3/15/01 -0500, Rich Alderson wrote:

>Any word in which *i or *u can be reconstructed.  That they may alternate in
>morphophonological rules with *y and *w is irrelevant to their phonemic
>status, though the consonantal forms may have originated in fortitions of
>originally vocalic segments.  (For the concept of fortition processes, see P.
>Donegan's Ohio State dissertation, still available I believe as a working
>paper from the linguistics department there.)

I am not sure if this is what you mean here, but I find I have a tendency
in my speech to excrete a consonantal segment between two vowels in
different syllables.  Thus, starting with a sequence like 'u' + 'e' I tend
to produce the sequence 'uwe', and for sequences like 'ei' + 'e' I tend to
produce sequences like 'eye' or 'eiye'.  Even without an original high
vowel, I tend towards consonantal glides, thus I more readily pronounce 'e'
+ 'e' as 'eye' than as 'e?e' (using '?' for the glottal stop), and 'o' + o'
tends towards 'owo' for me.

As far as I can see, these sorts of processes could produce most of the 'w'
and 'y' sounds reconstructed for PIE.

--------------
May the peace of God be with you.         sarima at ix.netcom.com


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Sat Mar 17 17:10:20 2001
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language)
Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 11:10:20 -0600
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
Message-ID: <SAT.17.MAR.2001.111020.0600.>

Dear Rich and IEists:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Rich Alderson" <alderson+mail at panix.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2001 5:36 PM

>> On 10 Mar 2001, Pat Ryan wrote:

<snip>

>> Without rehearsing my arguments, why do you not tell us a few IE words in
>> which you believe /i/ and /u/ are primary?

[RA]

> Any word in which *i or *u can be reconstructed.  That they may alternate in
> morphophonological rules with *y and *w is irrelevant to their phonemic
> status, though the consonantal forms may have originated in fortitions of
> originally vocalic segments.  (For the concept of fortition processes, see P.
> Donegan's Ohio State dissertation, still available I believe as a working
> paper from the linguistics department there.)

[PR]

If an IE word with [i] could be related convincingly as a cognate with an AA
word containing [y] in the same position, would that influence your opinion of
the phonemic status of [i] in IE?

The idea, of course, being that the AA [y] would represent a Nostratic [y].

And, I also wonder if, perhaps, we are talking past each other. I do not doubt
that, at some point, [i] became phonemic in IE. It is just that I favor the
idea that in earliest IE, what became [i] must have been [y]. Does that make
any difference in your position?

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit ec
at ec hecc, vindgá meiði a netr allar nío, geiri vndaþr . . . a þeim
meiþi, er mangi veit, hvers hann af rótom renn." (Hávamál 138)


From bmscott at stratos.net  Sat Mar 17 19:01:43 2001
From: bmscott at stratos.net (Brian M. Scott)
Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 14:01:43 -0500
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
In-Reply-To: <l0313030ab6d81d2c827b@[209.147.211.21]>
Message-ID: <SAT.17.MAR.2001.140143.0500.>

On 16 Mar 2001, at 14:43, Rick Mc Callister wrote:

> Wouldn't <nert> and <neirt> both be palatalized?

Presumably not the final group in <nert>: modern Irish has <neart>.

Brian M. Scott


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sat Mar 17 14:06:07 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 08:06:07 -0600
Subject: "neirt" versus "nert"
Message-ID: <SAT.17.MAR.2001.080607.0600.>

> Wouldn't <nert> and <neirt> both be palatalized?

        No.  /e/ is traditionally held to have palatalized preceding
consonants, leaving following consonanats as they were.  Confusion of
spelling between the two types ("nert" for "neirt"), which occasionally
occurs (if I am remembering correctly), probably indicates the difficulty of
pronouncing palatalized /r/, which is mostly (or entirely?) gone from modern
Irish.

Dr. David L. White


From petegray at btinternet.com  Sat Mar 17 11:13:48 2001
From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray)
Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 11:13:48 -0000
Subject: *gwh in Gmc.
Message-ID: <SAT.17.MAR.2001.111348.0000.>

>Caland
> >pattern

Thanks!

peter

[ Moderator's note:
  Mr. Gray is responding to Miguel Carrasquer Vidal's message with the headers

    From: Miguel Carrasquer Vidal <mcv at wxs.nl>
    Date: Fri, 09 Mar 2001 02:09:09 +0100
    Message-ID: <14agatkqbc2tr1024a58iojoc146i9pccu at 4ax.com>

  --rma ]


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sat Mar 17 16:22:22 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 10:22:22 -0600
Subject: Etruscan
Message-ID: <SAT.17.MAR.2001.102222.0600.>

        It's time (past time) for Demon David (Destroyer of Self) to get the
thrashing he so fully and richly deserves.
...

> Demon-David, Destroyer of Self:
>   Your grip on Greek historical phonology leaves somewhat to be
> desired.  /s/ was never lost after /r/ and /l/.  All the rigamarole you go
> through over /rs/ versus /rrh/ is therefore a complete waste of time
> for all concerned.  In the future, please, spare us.

        I will try.  (A distinctly un-devastating rejoinder.)

>         The reason that we find not /tursk-/ but /turs-/ as the Greek form
> is, fairly obviously, that /turs-/ was the native form.

        Is it?  What language is suffixal /k/, not to mention suffixal /i/,
from?  Some recent comments, if I have understood them correctly, seem to
indicate that is /k/ was Etruscan, in which case the question "why not
/turskenoi/?" is quite valid.

>         It looks like everything in sight is now becoming a "/turs^-/
> word" in your deluded imagination.

        It is not as if I am trying to connect /turs^/ with "Veia", after
all.  More to the poinst, it appears that the subtlety of my argument about
"Tarchun" has not been appreciated.  We begin with two propositions of quite
uncertain validity,
plus one fact:

        1) That "Tarchun" is to be connected with /tors^/.
        2) That the Etruscans (or at least an elite among them)
            came from Anatolia.
        3) Tarchun was the first Etruscan city.

        Now if both these propositions are true, we have an explanation for
why the first Etruscan city should bear the name "Tarchun".  If they are not
both true, then there is only a one in seven chance that the first Etruscan
city would just happen to bear the only name among seven that is conceivably
relatable to /tors^/.   Thus it would appear that there is a 6 out of 7
chance that both propositions are true.  This sort of argument is surely not
traditional, but that is irrelevant to its validity.

> Your argument that /tarkwini-/ (which is Latin, not Etruscan, please be more
> careful) is [one of them] is highly strained, not least by the fact that
> Etruscan "ch" represents /kh/, not /x/.

        It is fairly normal for aspirates to have voiceless fricatives as
allophones, or such sound changes as we see in Greek would not get off the
ground.  Furthermore, the variation we see in "mach" '5' versus "muvalch"
'50' suggests an original rounded /x/ (or at least [x]), as it is a lot
easier to motivate loss of [x] than loss of [kh].  The very common occurence
of "chv" after sonorants, particularly /l/ and /r/, suggests a unitary
phoneme that had to be spelled as a sequence owing to the nature of the
spelling system.  Etruscan "Tarchun" could quite possibly go back to such a
thing, which in some cases might have been a later development of /s^/, for
phonetic reasons which have been given before.

> Furthermore, if the /turs^-/ word had survived as /tarkhw-/ [or anything] in
> Etruscan, what reason would they have to re-borrow it from Greek as /truia/?

        The various changes it went through rendered the original word
(/tursik-/?) no longer recognizable as the same word as /troia/ by the time
"the glory that was Troy" came along in a Greek guise.  So they engaged in a
relatively straightforward re-borrowing.  Stranger things have happened.

        While I am at it, I may note the the nativist view has Etruscan
civilization developing in Etruria in response to Greek (and Phonecian)
contacts in Campania, since it is only there that such contacts can be
found.  Perhaps I am missing something here, but would it not make more
sense for a civilization that developed in response to Greek contacts in
Campania to develop in Campania, not Etruria?  The something I am perhaps
missing might be said to be the wealth in metals of Etruria, but Campania
had its own wealth in agriculture.  In any event, I think there is an
awkward gap to be jumped. It makes more sense to think that a small group of
Northern Aegeans, inspired to get out of a somewhat precarious existence
there, hit the colonial jackpot at the beginning of the colonial age,
beating the Greeks (and Phonecians) to prime territory, and so impressing
the natives with their superior culture that assimiliation is positively to
be expected.

Dr. David L. White


From stevegus at aye.net  Sun Mar 18 01:53:56 2001
From: stevegus at aye.net (Steve Gustafson)
Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 20:53:56 -0500
Subject: Etruscans
Message-ID: <SAT.17.MAR.2001.205356.0500.>

David L. White wrote:

>> According to Palmer, Vulgar Latin first "closed" the quality of long vowels,
>> giving nine distinct vowel-timbres (/a:/ could not be "closed"). The
>> phonemic distinction of vowel-quantity was then lost, as stressed vowels
>> became long and unstressed ones short. Convergence of close /o/ with open
>> /U/, and of close /e/ with open /I/, formed the basis of Continental West
>> Romance.

>         Yes, the point is that long mids can sound like short highs, or
> mergers would not happen.  Thus one language's long mid could sound like
> another's short high.  When it happened in Latin is irrelevant, though I
> believe most observers would posit a difference in quality for Latin shorts
> and longs going way back into pre-history.

The similarity between /e/ and /I/, at least, goes back to the earliest
authentic Latin inscriptions we know of.  The Duenos bowl contains FECED for
CL -fecit-.   A blurred distinction between /o/ and /U/ goes back almost as
far in Latin inscriptions; Old Latin frequently writes CONSOL or even COSOL
for CL -consul-.

--
Heus, nunc, mihi cantate hanc aeruginem.

Ceterum censeo sedem Romanam esse delendam.


From acnasvers at hotmail.com  Mon Mar 19 04:05:44 2001
From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday)
Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2001 04:05:44 -0000
Subject: Etruscans
Message-ID: <MON.19.MAR.2001.040544.0000.>

X99Lynx at aol.com (16 Mar 2001) wrote:

>As far as Etruscan origins go, certain things might be worth mentioning:

>- There is (as far as I know) no evidence of anything but Villanovian
>settlements in Etruscan regions before somewhere around 800BC.  The first
>clear evidence of a foreign presence afterward is Greek.  But when
>identifiably Etruscan settlements emerge they have some features that do not
>seem Villanovian or Greek at all.  These features are however identifiable
>with other locations around the Mediterranean.

Late Mycenaean pottery and hut-foundations (ca. 1200 BCE) are known from
Luni sul Mignone SE of Tarquinii. This may not have been a permanent
settlement. The Mycenaeans were there to exploit the metals. It is not
surprising that Mediterranean cultural elements diffused into Etruria. Trade
in metals (or acquisition without compensating the natives) probably went on
continuously for several centuries before 800.

>- Many elements of the so-called "orientalizing" of later Etruscan culture
>feature things emphatically not Greek or Early Roman, such as bucherro
>pottery, which clearly establish some kind of ties with Asia Minor.  There
>are other elements that suggest ties with Crete or the southern
>Mediterranean
>coast.  These elements are not peripheral to Etruscan culture.  Their
>eastern, non-Greek character had a pronounced effect on scholars from the
>earliest finds and they are still plain to see in Etruscan artifact
>collections.

I don't know what bucchero-ware has to do with Asia Minor. Etruscans
certainly traded with Syria and Phoenicia, not just Greece; incorporation of
non-Greek elements into Etruscan artefacts is not surprising. Cretan motifs
probably came in early, through contacts with Mycenaeans. One should not
expect Etruscan culture to be a mere imitation of the Greek.

>- What is odd about the Etruscan settlement on Lemnos is not the stele.
>What
>is odd is that it is on Lemnos, without an apparent serious stronghold
>structure, dangerously in the very teeth of a very Greek sea.  I have seen
>different earliest dates for the settlement itself.  (And how early this
>settlement would be scientifically dated would make a difference.)

Not only the earliest, but the latest date of Etruscan presence on Lemnos
would be of great interest.

>I understand that there were over a hundred cremation burials in the
>necropolis, including men and women.  The women's graves contain early
>bucherro pottery and the male graves contain weapons, including
>characteristically Cretan axes and daggers.

>What the stele tells us is the settlement appears to have had a strong
>Etruscan connection.  It does not tell us why these settlers were there.
>Even as a trading colony, it is a fish out of water.  The strong implication
>is I think some kind of a license or patronage allowed the settlement to be
>there.  One wonders if the coming of the Persians had something to do with
>this.

The settlement may have been a trading "station" or "outpost", not a true
colony. Perhaps it was "licensed" to Etruscans by the Chalcidians. After the
eclipse of Chalcidian power, these Etruscans would have been on their own.
Pelasgians, not Etruscans, were evicted from Lemnos by the Athenians under
Miltiades (Hdt. VI.139-40). Possibly these Pelasgians, or their forefathers,
had taken over the island and forced the remaining Etruscans to flee to
Chalcidice (cf. Thuc. IV.109.4).

>- Putting aside the question of who the Etruscans were for a moment, the
>Etruscan language appears to the have been strongly centered in Italy from
>all the evidence we have.

>If it came from foreign parts, it could have come with very few carriers, but
>it would have had to provide indigenous people a very good economic or social
>reason to adopt it.

Yes, and this "elite dominance" model advocated by Dr. White generally
requires many centuries to obliterate the indigenous languages. I'm not
aware of any evidence for native non-Etruscan speech in non-peripheral parts
of Etruria between 700 BCE and Latinization.

>If it represented a large migration, we would like to see evidence of the
>language elsewhere, other than in a small colony in a sea of Greeks.

>On the other hand, if it was a local language adopted by immigrants from Asia
>Minor and points east and south - or even Greeks - we might see the very same
>footprint as in the cases above.

If the immigration was by individuals and small groups, it would have little
impact on the language, and indeed this sort of immigration must have
occurred throughout Etruscan times. Large groups which stayed together would
form enclaves, and this probably did happen with Greeks, Carthaginians, and
eventually Latin-speakers in Etruria.

The fundamental linguistic question is one of date: when did speakers of
proto-Etruscan enter Etruria? If it was many millennia BCE, one would not
expect much in the way of pre-Etruscan substrate. If it was a century or two
before 800, one would expect a lot of non-Etruscan toponyms and hydronyms.
The evidence is hard to interpret, but seems to favor a middle ground. Most
of the ancient names in Etruria sound Etruscan, but a few (e.g. Soracte,
Umbro) look like substratal relics.

>The origin of the Etruscan language may not tell us where some or many of the
>people we know as Etruscans came from.

Yes, the origin of the Etruscans and the origin of the Etruscan language are
different questions. The latter question, in my opinion, can be more clearly
defined than the former.

>- The adoption of the Greek alphabet seems to be a thing somewhat taken for
>granted in all this.  But what were the mechanics of this process? How much
>bi-lingualism do you need to even understand the concept?  How do we envision
>converting a whole "people" without an alphabet to writing (and reading) using
>the Greek method?  Would it help if many of them at first also spoke and wrote
>Greek?

It probably would help, and it probably did happen. Early Archaic Etruscan
alphabetaria contain letters not used for writing Etruscan (b, d, o,
samekh). They have the complete Cumaeo-Pithecusan form of the
Euboico-Chalcidian alphabet. One can infer that the earliest Etruscan
litterati could speak and write Greek, and their writing of Etruscan was an
application of their ability to write Greek. The "schools" of litterati in
different Etruscan city-states all had their own opinions of the best way to
adapt the Greek system to Etruscan, leading to the orthographic
discrepancies among the Archaic inscriptions of Tarquinii, Caere, Vulci,
Veii, and Clusium.

The mechanism I favor involves the acquisition of bilingualism by those
Etruscans who dealt directly with Greek traders from Cumae and Pithecusae in
the mid-8th c. BCE; the ability to speak Greek would have had clear
advantages. During the second half of this century, many of these Etruscans
learned to write Greek also. Before 700, some of them got the idea to write
Etruscan, and during the 7th c. this idea spread through Etruria. Eventually
schools were established for ordinary free Etruscans to learn to write,
independently of knowing Greek. In my opinion, this model of "Etruscan
teachers" of writing works better than the model of "Greek teachers" which
some authors assume.

If the community on Lemnos was indeed a trading-station licensed by the
Chalcidians, presumably the acquisition of letters there was similar. The
Lemnian alphabet is Euboico-Chalcidian, but not Cumaeo-Pithecusan, and the
adaptation to writing Lemnian is independent of the schemes used for
mainland Etruscan: Lemnian uses <o>, not <u>, for the back-vowel.

DGK


From petegray at btinternet.com  Sat Mar 17 11:30:57 2001
From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray)
Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 11:30:57 -0000
Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele
Message-ID: <SAT.17.MAR.2001.113057.0000.>

>I fear that I have abraded some religious sensibilities

Not as far as I am concerned, Pat.  I understood our discussion to be
entirely linguistic.  But thanks for the sensitivity.

Peter


From petegray at btinternet.com  Sat Mar 17 11:24:29 2001
From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray)
Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 11:24:29 -0000
Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele
Message-ID: <SAT.17.MAR.2001.112429.0000.>

> to play around with the name of God was strictly a no-no.

I nowhere suggested that anyone did "play" with this word - though now that
you mention it, the Hebrews themselves did play with it in the burning bush
story ("I am who I am").

Peter


From petegray at btinternet.com  Sat Mar 17 11:22:01 2001
From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray)
Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 11:22:01 -0000
Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele
Message-ID: <SAT.17.MAR.2001.112201.0000.>

>YHWH ... should be connected with, the full conjugation of ...  "to be,"

I am sure Ernest is right, but to be fair on Pat, the connection with the
verb "to be" is only suggested, not proved!    The form of Yah- or Yawheh is
only similar to it, not identical to it in any of its attested forms.

Peter


From epmoyer at netrax.net  Mon Mar 19 14:01:37 2001
From: epmoyer at netrax.net (Ernest P. Moyer)
Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2001 09:01:37 -0500
Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele
Message-ID: <MON.19.MAR.2001.090137.0500.>

Anton:

Thanks for the comment.

I shy away from folk etymologies, recognizing in them the expression of desires
and wishes, rather than objective understanding.  But, as Richard Nixon said,
just because one is paranoid does not mean that someone is not out to get him.
Folk etymologies sometimes have a core of truth to them.

The strength of the verb, and its prominence, led me to my thoughts.

Ernest

Anton Sherwood wrote:

[ moderator snip ]

> Unless the connexion with the verb is just one more in a fairly long list of
> Biblical folk-etymologies.
>
> --
> Anton Sherwood  --  br0nt0 at p0b0x.com  --  http://ogre.nu/


From petegray at btinternet.com  Sat Mar 17 08:38:42 2001
From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray)
Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 08:38:42 -0000
Subject: A question about Greek or Latin
Message-ID: <SAT.17.MAR.2001.083842.0000.>

> What would you say to the alternate alternate explanation that the
> causative formant is merely an agglutinatated verb *[h1]ey-e-

The suggestion that it might be causes me no problem;  the assertion that it
is so would need proof.

I'm happy with the idea that all suffixes began life as independent
morphemes way back in early Ur-pre-proto-pre-PIE.  I think you mean more
than that, so we would need to find firm evidence for:
  (a) the existence of such a verb
  (b) the use of such a verb as a causative
  (c) the acceptance of this explanation as better than any alternative.

What about the "going" root Pokorny 296 *ei / *ia:  ?

Peter


From epmoyer at netrax.net  Mon Mar 19 13:43:22 2001
From: epmoyer at netrax.net (Ernest P. Moyer)
Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2001 08:43:22 -0500
Subject: Arzawa = Razawa?
Message-ID: <MON.19.MAR.2001.084322.0500.>

Phil:

My theme has been that a Semitic influence impacted not only on the Lemnos
stele, with the word Naphoth, but also on the "proto-Etruscans" who may have
originated in Assyrian lands.  Remember, the northern ten tribes were not only
removed to specifically named cities of the Assyrians, what we might now
recognize as Anatolian, but also "the cities of the Medes."  Those areas
extended as far north and east as the edges of the Caspian Sea.

I prominent prefix on Hebrew verbs is the future second person ta-. If this has
some connection to the ta- forms you cite, then I suppose we should be wary of
assigning origins.

Ernest

philjennings at juno.com wrote:

[ moderator snip ]

> Perhaps during their sojourn in Assyria, the proto-Etruscans learned the
> trick of using tular boundary stones from the Kassites next door, whose
> "kudurrus" were an innovation.  But now I'm being silly.  Please don't think
> I'm ready to have the Etruscans wander the world anywhere the letters "r",
> "s" [and "n"] are found in dangerous proximity.

[ Moderator's note:
  It is hardly ever necessary to quote an entire message, unless one wishes to
  comment on each paragraph in turn.  Please restrict quoted material to that
  addressed.
  --rma ]


From camelot at avalon.sul.com.br  Sat Mar 10 18:31:37 2001
From: camelot at avalon.sul.com.br (Doroteia Cheeseman)
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 15:31:37 -0300
Subject: Research
Message-ID: <SAT.10.MAR.2001.153137.0300.CAMELOT@AVALON.SUL.COM.BR>

[ Moderator's note:
  The following query arrived some time ago at the administrative mailbox for
  the Indo-European list.  After asking for and receiving clarification of
  the question, I am forwarding the entire exchange to the list, in the hope
  that one or more readers can be of assistance.  This seems like something
  we as a group ought to encourage.

  Due to the nature of the request, I have left off the usual Reply-To: header
  pointing to the Indo-European list; replies will instead go to the sender.
  --rma ]

Dear Sirs

We are putting together a history of the Portuguese language. We would like
any information on the role of Indo- European languages in it's formation
(Pre- Latin)

If you have any suggestions please advise

Thank you

David

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Rich Alderson <ALDERSON at toad.xkl.com>
To: <camelot at avalon.sul.com.br>
Sent: Monday, March 12, 2001 10:07 PM

It is unclear from the question as asked what sort of information you are
looking for:  Portuguese is an Indo-European language, a member of the
Romance branch of the Italic sub-family.  Are you asking what *other*
Indo-European languages have influenced Portuguese in its development?
Or do you question the Indo-European lineage of the Portuguese language?

Is this for inclusion in a published work, or an academic paper?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "Doroteia Cheeseman" <camelot at avalon.sul.com.br>
To: "Rich Alderson" <ALDERSON at toad.xkl.com>
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 17:12:04 -0300

Dear Mr Alderson

Sorry for the confusion of my original message.

We want to put together a video, that would trace Portuguese's history as far
back as possible.  We believe that this would entail looking at the Proto
Indo-European language.  I would be grateful if you could suggest someone we
could contact, who specialises in this area.  We hope to visit Armenia and
Italy for people to interview.

Thanks again

Regards

David Cheeseman


From jediaz at fimo-cr.uclm.es  Fri Mar 23 11:44:05 2001
From: jediaz at fimo-cr.uclm.es (Javier Diaz)
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 12:44:05 +0100
Subject: research project: IE archaological objects
Message-ID: <FRI.23.MAR.2001.124405.0100.>

Dear all,

We are organising a research project dealing with the analysis of the IE
lexicon for material culture. Our research will focus on the analysis of the
different IE roots for archaeological objects (which will be grouped in
previously established semantic categories) and their form and evolution in
each individual language or language family. We would like to hear about
researchers working on any of these two fields (IE lexicology and IE
archaeology) who might be interested in contributing to the project, especially
in one of the following linguistic areas: Indo-Iranian, Albanian, Celtic,
Balto-Slavic.

For more information, please don't hesitate to contact me!

Javier Díaz
jediaz at fimo-cr.uclm.es


From connolly at memphis.edu  Thu Mar 22 03:27:50 2001
From: connolly at memphis.edu (Leo A. Connolly)
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 21:27:50 -0600
Subject: Morphological remodelling
Message-ID: <WED.21.MAR.2001.212750.0600.>

"M.O.McCullagh" wrote:

>  Can anyone on the list think of examples of morphological remodelling
> within a verbal paradigm based on a single ending? The only secure example
> I have been able to come up with is the creation of new middle imperative
> endings in Greek from the basis of the second plural ending -sthe. That
> example seems to me particularly interesting because second plural forms
> are statistically the least frequent of all the personal endings
> (according to Bybee's Morphology). I'd be very interested to hear of
> similar remodellings, inside or outside IE.

The obvious example is the spread of -r in Danish, Swedish, and both
kinds of Norwegian from the 2.sg. (PIE -si > -z -r> into all active
forms of the present.  One could also mention the "middle" in -s, but
that's an old reflexive.

Leo Connolly


From dlwhite at texas.net  Thu Mar 22 03:58:22 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 21:58:22 -0600
Subject: Morphological remodelling
Message-ID: <WED.21.MAR.2001.215822.0600.>

> Can anyone on the list think of examples of morphological remodelling
> within a verbal paradigm based on a single ending? The only secure example
> I have been able to come up with is the creation of new middle imperative
> endings in Greek from the basis of the second plural ending -sthe. That
> example seems to me particularly interesting because second plural forms
> are statistically the least frequent of all the personal endings
> (according to Bybee's Morphology). I'd be very interested to hear of
> similar remodellings, inside or outside IE.
>
>  Matthew McCullagh,
>  Cambridge University

        There are various cases involving the 3ps taking over, though that
is probably not what you had in mind.
        It seems to me as well that the semantic link between 2nd person and
imperative makes interference between the two not as improbable as it might
be between some other forms.

Dr. David White


From adahyl at cphling.dk  Thu Mar 22 10:36:53 2001
From: adahyl at cphling.dk (Adam Hyllested)
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 11:36:53 +0100
Subject: Morphological remodelling
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.4.21.0103201504300.18513-100000@orange.csi.cam.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <THU.22.MAR.2001.113653.0100.>

On Tue, 20 Mar 2001, M.O.McCullagh wrote:

>  Can anyone on the list think of examples of morphological remodelling
> within a verbal paradigm based on a single ending? The only secure example
> I have been able to come up with is the creation of new middle imperative
> endings in Greek from the basis of the second plural ending -sthe. That
> example seems to me particularly interesting because second plural forms
> are statistically the least frequent of all the personal endings
> (according to Bybee's Morphology).

But this rule does not apply to the imperative mood, where, for obvious
reasons, the second singular and second plural forms are the _most_
frequent. I doubt you can find any morphological remodelling in other
moods based on the second plural endings (except for the exception that
proves the rule, of course ;-).

Adam Hyllested


From maxw at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Thu Mar 22 12:27:03 2001
From: maxw at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Max Wheeler)
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 12:27:03 +0000
Subject: Morphological remodelling
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.4.21.0103201504300.18513-100000@orange.csi.cam.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <THU.22.MAR.2001.122703.0000.>

It sounds as if an example of what you're looking for can be seen in the
remodelling of the preterite (past perfective indicative) in Occitan and
Catalan. In both of these languages an /-r-/ element, original to the 3pl
suffix (Lat. -erunt) appears in the 2sg, 1pl and 2pl, and, in Occitan, in
the 1sg as well. Representative preterite paradigms are, for <cantar>
'sing':

Occitan:
cantèri
cantères
cantèt
cantèrem
cantèretz
cantèren < *cant+ederunt

Catalan:
cantí
cantares
cantà
cantàrem
cantàreu
cantaren < Lat. canta(ve)runt

In both languages the spread of the /r/ element from the 3pl to the other
persons, replacing PN affixes inherested from the Latin preterite, is a
post-medieval development (as far as one can judge from texts, of course).

Major source with discussion of the Occitan development in
Ronjat, J. 1937. Grammaire istorique [sic] des parlers provençaux modernes.
Montpellier: Société des Language Romanes. Vol III, §575 ff.

I hope this is the kind of thing you're looking for.

Max Wheeler

--On Tuesday, March 20, 2001 15:13 +0000 "M.O.McCullagh"
<mom20 at hermes.cam.ac.uk> wrote:

>  Can anyone on the list think of examples of morphological remodelling
> within a verbal paradigm based on a single ending? The only secure example
> I have been able to come up with is the creation of new middle imperative
> endings in Greek from the basis of the second plural ending -sthe. That
> example seems to me particularly interesting because second plural forms
> are statistically the least frequent of all the personal endings
> (according to Bybee's Morphology). I'd be very interested to hear of
> similar remodellings, inside or outside IE.

>  Matthew McCullagh,
>  Cambridge University

____________________________________________________________
Max W. Wheeler
School of Cognitive & Computing Sciences
University of Sussex
Falmer
BRIGHTON BN1 9QH, G.B.

Tel: +44 (0)1273 678975 Fax: +44 (0)1273 671320 Email:
maxw at cogs.susx.ac.uk
____________________________________________________________


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Fri Mar 23 11:22:27 2001
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 11:22:27 +0000
Subject: Morphological remodelling
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.4.21.0103201504300.18513-100000@orange.csi.cam.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <FRI.23.MAR.2001.112227.0000.>

--On Tuesday, March 20, 2001 3:13 pm +0000 "M.O.McCullagh"
<mom20 at hermes.cam.ac.uk> wrote:

>  Can anyone on the list think of examples of morphological remodelling
> within a verbal paradigm based on a single ending? The only secure example
> I have been able to come up with is the creation of new middle imperative
> endings in Greek from the basis of the second plural ending -sthe. That
> example seems to me particularly interesting because second plural forms
> are statistically the least frequent of all the personal endings
> (according to Bybee's Morphology). I'd be very interested to hear of
> similar remodellings, inside or outside IE.

See this:

Calvert Watkins. 1962. Indo-European Origins of the Celtic Verb, vol. I:
The Sigmatic Aorist, pp. 93-96, Dublin: Institute for Advanced Studies.

Watkins draws attention to such remodelings in Celtic, Polish and Persian,
at least, all based upon the third-singular forms.  The observation that
such remodelings are typically based upon third-singular forms has been
dubbed 'Watkins's Law'.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk

Tel: (01273)-678693 (from UK); +44-1273-678693 (from abroad)
Fax: (01273)-671320 (from UK); +44-1273-671320 (from abroad)


From stevegus at aye.net  Thu Mar 22 04:38:20 2001
From: stevegus at aye.net (Steve Gustafson)
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 23:38:20 -0500
Subject: Italian as a "Pure" Language
Message-ID: <WED.21.MAR.2001.233820.0500.>

David L. White wrote:

>> ``The complexity of the English and French written languages stems from
>> historical events that have introduced spellings from other languages,
>> while, in comparison, Italian has remained quite pure,'' said Eraldo Paulesu
>> of the University of Milan Bicocca, the lead author of the study.

>         Heavens to Betsy, that's really too much to go for.  Most of the
> difficulties in English spellings come from things like "through", "enough",
> "do", "bead" vs. "head", and "now" vs. "mow", which are quite native.
> Things like "pizza" or even "frail" have very little to do with it.  The
> main advantage Italian has, to simplify a bit, is that it did not go through
> the Great Vowel Shift.

That might be simplifying a bit too much.  French has thrashed its sound
system even more violently than English did, and retains a traditional
orthography whose broad outlines were fixed slightly earlier than English's.
Yet the pronunciation of French words can usually be inferred from the
spelling.

There are a number of different factors that made English so hard.  The main
etymological difficulty is not a difference between Germanic English and
Anglo-French words; they were written using the same system.  The real
dichotomy is between native [English and Anglo-French] and learned
[neo-Latinisms from scientific, technical, and religious vocabularies].
This gives English two competing systems of etymological spellings.  Either
one in isolation is fairly predictable; but you always have to know if you
are dealing with a learned word or an older one.

French consistently represents the speech of a relatively small community
that has always been the prestige dialect of French.  British English
developed that much later, and the prestige dialect tended to borrow from
surrounding forms much more freely.  The variety of pronunciations of the
digraph "ea" [bread, break, bream] is one conspicuous result of this
complicating factor.

--
Heus, nunc, mihi cantate hanc aeruginem.

Ceterum censeo sedem Romanam esse delendam.


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Thu Mar 22 08:54:56 2001
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 03:54:56 EST
Subject: Italian as a "Pure" Language
Message-ID: <THU.22.MAR.2001.035456.EST.>

In a message dated 3/21/2001 9:37:51 PM, dlwhite at texas.net writes:
<<Heavens to Betsy,... most of the difficulties in English spellings come
from things like "through", "enough", "do", "bead" vs. "head", and "now" vs.
"mow", which are quite native.... Things like "pizza" or even "frail" have
very little to do with it. >>

I wonder how many very young Americans recognize the written word "pizza"
before they ever encounter good confusing native words like psychology,
Philly, piqued, posh, pneumonia or pterodactyl (although pterodactyls are hot
these days.)  But, pizza would end up being confusing enough, if you started
there early.  In their later confusion, they might wonder why "pizza" was not
spelled "pete/sa," ("pete-" as in from the Aramaic "Peter") which it so often
sounds like these days.

Or, for that matter, why not "peet/za" (as in "tee-pee" or "creed", not as in
"beers" or "peers"; "-z- as in "Zorro" or "Men 'n Boyz")
or "peat/sa" (as in "treaty" and "please", not as in "treasure" or "clear")
or "piet/xa" ("pie-" as in "piedmont", not "piety" or "pierced ears"; "x-" as
in "Xanadu - the fragrance" or "Xerox", not "maximum" or "Exx/on.")
or even "peace/a" (as in "cease", not as in "fealty" or "feast")

I don't think it's quite that clear that the spelling difficulties in English
are mostly from "native" words. I suspect it would be very difficult to prove
that.  There are an awful lot of non-native words in English that can offer
many spelling variations.  And there are a lot more non-native than native
words in English.

And by the way, don't you mean "phrale" as in "ale" or "pale"?

<<The main advantage Italian has, to simplify a bit, is that it did not go
through the Great Vowel Shift.>>

That and pizza.  Reminds me of an old Monte Python routine: "the name is
spelled Wharburtondyswyddthrushwarbler, but it's pronounced Romney-Smythe."
That Vowel Shift sure wreaked (or reeked) havoc with some words.  Especially
caused angst I understand at Caembrige.

Regardz,
S. Longe


From petegray at btinternet.com  Thu Mar 22 19:59:36 2001
From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray)
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 19:59:36 -0000
Subject: Italian as a "Pure" Language
Message-ID: <THU.22.MAR.2001.195936.0000.>

>> ``The complexity of the English and French written languages stems from
>> ... introduced spellings from other languages, while ... Italian has
>> remained quite pure

It is an interesting process in languages - some (like English) use the
original spelling and learn to pronounce it despite the spelling, while
others (like German) spell the word according to native rules.   The
disadvantage of the first method is obvious;  the disadvantage of the second
method is that it is sometimes difficult even for a speaker of the original
language to identify the word quickly.  For example, words probably know to
many of you out there, spelled in German as foto-umlaut-j, or miljo-umlaut
(For non-Germanists, o-umlaut is roughly the sound in "her".)

Peter


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Thu Mar 22 05:42:20 2001
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 00:42:20 EST
Subject: Minoan is an IE language?/Sound Equivalence
Message-ID: <THU.22.MAR.2001.004220.EST.>

In a message dated 3/21/2001 9:10:19 PM, JoatSimeon at aol.com writes:
<< -- it's not the complexity of the English language that's the problem, it's
the horrors of English orthography.  >>

When you are learning to read, of course, orthography becomes an integral
part of the language.  Dyslexia would at first impression not be a problem,
or even apparent, if English were only a spoken language and not a written
one.  There is a great deal of linguistic work being done on dyslexia, based
on the idea that the sound-symbol correspondence is at least in part a
linguistic subject.

Aside from all that, there was a startling statement in that article I
quoted.  It says that there are in English "more than 1,100 ways that letters
in the written language are used to symbolize the 40 sounds in the spoken
language."  While, in Italian, "the 33 sounds in Italian are spelled with
only 25 letters or letter combinations." [?] If these numbers are correct,
that's a giant variance.   And whatever problems English might create for
dyslexics would seem also to apply to some future decipherer faced with
matching up symbols and sounds.

Relating this back to Linear A, all we really have there at this point is
orthography.  If a comparable "horror" existed for the base language or
languages of Linear A, we should expect unpredictability in sound-symbol
correspondence.  And some serious difficulties for anyone who would hope to
crack such a code.

If the situation in English can be attributed in any way to imported words,
we do have evidence that Crete was "multi-national" in Homer's time,
suggesting perhaps not only a variety of symbols for the same sound, but also
a large number of sounds.

Regards,
Steve Long


From sarima at friesen.net  Thu Mar 22 06:02:43 2001
From: sarima at friesen.net (Stanley Friesen)
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 22:02:43 -0800
Subject: Non-Indic sustrate vocabulary
In-Reply-To: <000301c0af01$227e3b20$b26d01d5@xpoxkjlf>
Message-ID: <WED.21.MAR.2001.220243.0800.>

At 11:16 AM 3/17/01 +0000, petegray wrote:

>>.. Indus Valley script ... a form
>> of a dravidian language. I was strongly [surprised]..

>Why surprised?  I would have expected it as a possibility.

Indeed, I would even say I have long suspected this to be the case.

Having looked at the Web page mention, I find the evidence strongly
suggestive, especially the homophonies.  Until the approach can be used to
produce reasonable reading for most inscriptions it cannot be held as
"established", but I think the author has produced a good prima facie case
for treating Dravidian as the default hypothesis.

--------------
May the peace of God be with you.         sarima at friesen.net


From hstahlke at gw.bsu.edu  Thu Mar 22 14:02:09 2001
From: hstahlke at gw.bsu.edu (Herb Stahlke)
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 09:02:09 -0500
Subject: Munda in Early NW India
Message-ID: <THU.22.MAR.2001.090209.0500.>

As a non-IEist, I have some difficulty evaluating statements of
this sort about substratum languages.  Why would this be any
stronger a proposal than the idea that Germanic developed its
stress shift, two-term tense system and periphrastic tenses
through contact with early Finnic speakers in the Baltic region?
Both strike me as convenient but pretty much lacking in evidence.

Herb Stahlke

>>> dlwhite at texas.net 03/17/01 08:49AM >>>
> This has been challenged by among others Prof. Witzel of Harvard,
> who sees the underlying language as possibly an an early form of Munda (or
> some language X).

        Munda has "voiced aspirates", or, more precisely, murmured sounds,
which appear to be native (though of course they also occur in borrowings from
Indic).  I believe it also has retroflex sounds.  So perhaps the suggestion is
not absurd, as it might motivate the appearance of such sounds in Indic, which
is otherwise a bit odd, though strangely this (the oddity) has not (to my
knowledge) received much comment.

Dr. David L. White


From hwhatting at hotmail.com  Thu Mar 22 05:31:14 2001
From: hwhatting at hotmail.com (Hans-Werner Hatting)
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 06:31:14 +0100
Subject: Scandinavian Origins of the Goths
Message-ID: <THU.22.MAR.2001.063114.0100.>

Some thoughts on things mentioned in the last posts by Steve Long and Joat
Simeon:

1. As Joat Simeon pointed out, the Goths belong to the East Germanic Group,
which is linguistically different from the West Germanic dialects some of
the other Germanic people having contacts with the Roman empire were
speaking. So, whatever the political reasons for which the Gothic court
might have wished to emphasize any differences to these people, these
differences were real.

2. Concerning the prestigiousness of the Scandinavian origins: It would have
been much more consistent on Cassiodorus' and Jordanes' side to stick to the
Goths = Getae - equation, as this implied that the Goths were in the area
from antiquity, and even being related by marriage to the ancestors of
Alexander the Great. This would have differentiated them satisfactorily from
the other Germanic tribes. My opinion is that they simply could not do so,
as the Scandinavian origins were too widely known among the Gothic
leadership, and so they were reported  alongside with the Getae theory.

3. The Gothic court might have milked the Scandinavian origins of the Goths
(or part of the Goths) for what it was worth politically, but this does *not*
imply that anybody invented them. The political usefulness Steve Long
describes may, of course, have been an additional reason why Jordanes does
not suppress this tradition, as he seemingly does with others.

4. I would take the presence of King Rodulf at Theodoric's court not as
evidence for the invention of the Scandinavian version, but as evidence that
at least the Gothic elite never lost the connection to their ancestral
lands. What is more likely - that a dethroned monarch goes to the court of
another ruler because he is a distant relative and can hope for some
support, or that a court accepts a refugee king and only then decides to
declare, BTW, we did not know that before, but where he comes from is our
homeland? We should keep in mind that the Goths (or those of the court who
cared about what the Romans thought about them) might have felt an urge to
show the Romans that they were not common-and-garden barbarians, but I
assume that the Gothic elite - like all elites - had traditions about their
origins, which could not be simply tossed aside or replaced for mere
political reasons. This does not exclude, of course, the possibility that
Cassiodorus made the family tree of the Amalungs more impressive by adding
to it.

5. That said, I agree with Joat Simeon that the Goths were probably not
ethnically monolithic. The Ostrogoths probably had added other ethnic
elements (Germanic and Non-Germanic) on the Vistula, from their empire in
the Ukraine, and from the time they fought together with the Huns in the
Balkans. Each of these groups had their own histories, so Cassiodorus and
Jordanes may have found several deviating traditions among the Goths
themselves, as well as wild speculations among Roman authors.

6. Some support for the theory that the ethnic core of the Goths (those who
gave the language) came from Scandinavia is that the East Germanic Dialects,
to which Gothic belongs, show a close linguistic relationship to the Nordic
dialects, which led some linguists to posit a bipartite division of Germanic
(Gotho-Nordic vs. South-Germanic) instead of the usual tripartite division.

Best regards,
Hans-Werner Hatting


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Thu Mar 22 17:47:45 2001
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 12:47:45 EST
Subject: Gothic "au"
Message-ID: <THU.22.MAR.2001.124745.EST.>

In a message dated 3/21/2001 10:29:39 PM, dlwhite at texas.net writes:
<< That Gothic "au" was, among other things (probably), a spelling for
/o/, as "ai" was for /e/, is not disputed by most observers.  The evidence,
some of which we have just seen, is too strong. >>

This appears to miss the point.  There are loads of words in Wright's where
Gothic words contain an <o>.  The point is that practically every time
indicated where Gothic borrowed a word with a Greek <o> it is transliterated
as <au> (or rarely <u>).  This does not appear to be random or occasional.
If I remember correctly, the rare exceptions are where the vowel begins the
word or is from the Hebrew.  The significance might be at minimum that what
could mistakenly be attributed to a Germanic ablaut would appear to be
actually the orthographic changes that happened in borrowing.

Regards,
Steve Long


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Fri Mar 23 07:41:02 2001
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 02:41:02 EST
Subject: The Goth Question
Message-ID: <FRI.23.MAR.2001.024102.EST.>

<< So if the name of the Goths was given, it could have been given in a
non-Germanic language.  And it may have reached the Greeks being spoken in a
non-Germanic tongue.>>

In a message dated 3/16/2001 11:14:45 PM, hwhatting at hotmail.com writes:
<<This is a possibility. As long as we have no good Etymology, we should
explore all avenues. But if, on all these avenues, we do not find some
convincing proposals, only a lot of associations, it might be better to stick
to a Germanic etymology - here at least we have a root, variants of the name
which stick to an ablaut pattern, and we just have to get the semantics
straight... After all, until we find more evidence, I favour to explain all
these names as denoting the same (or related) people, and as coming from a
Germanic source (Gmc.*giut/gaut/gut-, PIE *gheu-d- "pour").>>

First, let me again thank Hans-Werner Hatting especially and all the others
here who have been patient with this little exploration of the Goth question
and to those who have responded to it.  Hopefully, this exercise has had some
value to members of the list.  It has certainly been of great value to me.

There's a basic relevance to Indo-European here that comes in part from the
relationship suggested above: (Gmc.*giut/gaut/gut-, PIE *gheu-d- "pour").
Other IE languages presumably share equally in the (PIE *gheu-d- "pour")
heritage.

Hans-Werner Hatting's suggestion above that it's best to stick to a German
etymology and stay within the ablaut pattern seems to be in fact the sole
basis of most of the recent linguistic discussions regarding the origins of
both the Goths and their name.

My best understanding is furthermore that this very question have been a
central issue in the current debate on the relationship of the Germanic
branches of the period.  Essentially, one of the main linguistic claims for a
Scandinavian origin has been based on a commonality between Gutnish (the
language spoken on Gotland) and Gothic.  To the extent that linguists now
favor a Northwest/East division of Germanic, the argument in favor of a
Scandinavian/Gothic connection would appear to be weakened, since it had
relied on a West/Northeast (Gotho-Nordic) split, the validity of Holtzmann's
law and the like.

Despite this, certain scholars still see a clean linguistic path between
Scandinavia and the historical Goths.  One approach I've already mentioned
has been taken by Thorsten Andersson.  My understanding is that his position
has been that <*gaut-> is the same as the Gotlander <go:t->, and that the
forms <gutar> and <goth> both go back to a short u.  In this, they are simply
ablaut variants of the stem <*geut->.  Another way I've seen this described
is that <go:tar> (in Goteland) comes from <*gautoz> which would have also
yielded <*gutaniz> which yielded both <Goths> and <Gutar>.  The <gutan-> form
being particularly important due to "the Pietroassa Ring" where the word
<gutani> can be cut from within the undifferentiated runic inscription.  (I
have not mentioned the ring in my previous posts because it is dated from the
4th or just as likely the 5th century AD and although it was found in
Romania, neither its context nor its provenance are known.)

There are a number of things that are a little bit troubling here, at least
from the point of view of someone familiar with, say, legal standards of
evidence and proof.

It starts, as I mentioned, with sticking to a Germanic etymology.  I have no
problem with that being a possibility or even a probability.  But it is a
little startling that no other possible path has been entertained in the
serious literature.  Especially when all this talk of ablaut is used to
explain the variances in the different forms of the Goth name.  It doesn't
take much to suspect that all the significant variables may be attributable
not only to Germanic, especially when the historical name hardly ever even
appears in Germanic until centuries later.  Before 600AD, 99% of the time the
name shows up, it seems to be in a non-German language.

A basic question becomes why the ablaut, once established, doesn't stay in
one place.  Why did the name, mainly appearing in the nominative or genitive,
need to undergo the kind of ablaut changes being suggested.  If these changes
were the kind found in names or nouns, like OE *goz/*gez (goose/geese), their
Germanic nature would be a little easier to understand.

Another problem with sticking with Germanic is that the total variances seem
far greater than either ablaut or "western German" languages can account for.
 Attested are <Gothti>, <Goththi>, <Gouththa>, <Gouthththa>, <Gythones>,
<Gutones> in less than a hundred year period in Greek alone, where western
German and the subtleties of ablaut do not appear to be at issue.

Then there's the whole question of the initial "G".  There is a rather large
group of names that share the time and place with the Goths that might even
be considered as referring to the Goths if the loose orthography of the time
were also considered.  I have a folder full of examples of "c" and "g" and
"k" interchangeability that applies to a wide range of persons, peoples and
things, but never it seems to the Gothic name. (Except in the case of Strabo,
who oddly uses a "b".) Is this a presumption that a Germanic name would never
suffer from such laxity in transcription?

There's quite a bit more, but I'll hold up here.

The problem with sticking to a purely Germanic etymology is that it seems to
leave a good deal of evidence out that might better explain what actually
happened.  Not that it is sure to but it seems it might and therefore
deserves to be entertained.  If I were a judge, I think I'd have to let it
in, conditioned upon its materiality and relevance.

The idea that sticking to Germanic may not be the best solution to the Goth
question may be some kind of heresy.  In which case it still can be capped,
since as far as I know it's only been really brought up on this list.

Regards,
Steve Long


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Fri Mar 23 16:39:48 2001
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 11:39:48 EST
Subject: Goths, Naming and Ablaut
Message-ID: <FRI.23.MAR.2001.113948.EST.>

In a message dated 3/16/2001 10:46:30 PM, JoatSimeon at aol.com writes:
<<Incidentally, I'm not aware of any evidence that the Gothic tribes who
appeared on the Danube in the 3rd century came via the Ukraine; the Gothic
tradition was that the split into eastern and western groups occurred in the
course of their migration southward from the Vistula basin. >>

According to the map on p. 42 of Heather's book, the majority of the raids of
the 3d century originated in the Ukraine.  The very first raid, on Histria at
the mouth of the Danube, has an arrow coming from the east, but I don't
believe there is any real information on that.  It may have been originally
seaborne as most of the others were.  The exception appears to be Cniva's
group breaking through the limes at Oescus, but this more westerly location
was considered a known weak point by earlier commentators and may not tell us
where that particular contingent actually came from.

<<-- since there's no evidence that the Goths ever called themselves anything
but Goths, parsimony would indicate that this was "always" their word for
themselves as an ethnic group, at the next stage up from the various tribal
identifiers like the Amals, the Teurings, etc.>>

Well, there is some evidence that the Goths called themselves other things.
You mention "Teurings".  When Ammiamus first tells of the coming of the Huns,
he records that escaping "Greuthungi" met with a king of the "Tervingi" just
west of the Dniester river.  As Heather points out although these
designations will be later reported by Jordanes to equate to "Ostrogoth" and
"Visigoth", the divisions don't hold up at all historically.  BTW,
"Greuthungi" is not a happy word as it seems to correspond to little in
written Gothic, with the off-hand possible exception of "needy."  "Tervingi"
may correspond to <<thorn>aírh-wakan>, to keep watch, used by Ulfila in
connection with shepherds.  I believe early on Grimm took the <-ing->/<-ung>
contrast to be indicative of two different dialects.  And again, in reliable,
attestable Gothic, the Goths call themselves anything but Goths.  It may mean
something that all the variants that could correspond to Goth are taken up
with other meanings.

Regards,
Steve Long


From dlwhite at texas.net  Thu Mar 22 16:32:32 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 10:32:32 -0600
Subject: Etruscans
Message-ID: <THU.22.MAR.2001.103232.0600.>

> Yes, and this "elite dominance" model advocated by Dr. White generally
> requires many centuries to obliterate the indigenous languages. I'm not
> aware of any evidence for native non-Etruscan speech in non-peripheral
> parts of Etruria between 700 BCE and Latinization.

        It is fairly common for "language death" or "shift", which is after
all what we are talking about here, to occur over two generations:  first
generation monolingual in substrate, second generation bilingual, and third
generation monolingual in superstrate.  (Yes, three minus one is two.)  On
the other hand the death of Greek in Anatolia took nearly a thousand years,
which clearly implies stable bilingualism, a situation well-known from
various parts of the world.  There are no valid generalizations, but
abandonment of a language, once it becomes seen as "the thing to do", can be
quite rapid.

        I must wonder as well what evidence of the speech of the lower
classes we have.  If they were not Etruscan speaking (or bilingual), would
we know it?  Surely whatever funerary monuments lower-class Etruscans might
somehow have been able to produce would have followed the upper-class model,
that being the whole point of such things. For funerary inscriptions to be
in a suitably "lofty" language that the unfortunate deceased would not have
understood is hardly unknown.  ("Hic iacet")
        With regard to possible connections between "elite dominance" and
strict class stratification (digressing slightly), a situation similar to
what I posit for early Etruria seems to have existed in early medieval
Saxony, where outside of Northalbingia the Saxons appear to have been an
upper-class rigorously and brutally holding other non-Saxon tribes, victims
of earlier conquest, in subjection.  The task became so challenging that
they (evidently) found it expedient to call upon the Franks for help.  (At
least this is the interpretation of Robinson, and I see not reason to doubt
it.)  Grant posits that the upper-class in Etruria similarly called on the
Romans for help in holding down their lower-classes.  (I suppose even then
the Romans were known to leave local aristocracies in place, which is of
course the main thing the Etruscan aristocracy would have been interested
in.)

> Large groups which stayed together would form enclaves, and this probably did
> happen with Greeks, Carthaginians, and eventually Latin-speakers in Etruria.

        And of these the Latins (at least) in time linguistically converted
the original populations of their hinterlands, unless we are all now
supposed to believe that the original population of Etruria (not to mention
the rest of the Roman Empire) was exterminated by Roman colonists cruelly
scattering their seed corn to the winds (which surely would have come as a
nasty shock to the hopeful Etruscan aristocrats; but it is a Fantasy
Scenario anyway.)

> The fundamental linguistic question is one of date: when did speakers of
> proto-Etruscan enter Etruria? If it was many millennia BCE, one would not
> expect much in the way of pre-Etruscan substrate. If it was a century or two
> before 800, one would expect a lot of non-Etruscan toponyms and hydronyms.

        Hydronyms are more reliable than other "nyms", but even hydronyms
can point in the wrong direction.  For example, most of the river names of
Texas, for example Trinity, Brazos, Colorado, Pedernales, Llano, San Marcos,
Blanco, Guadalupe, and San Antonio (not sure about Sabine, Neches, and
Nueces), are Spanish.  What does this tell us, that the original inhabitants
of Texas were Spanish speaking, as opposed to the rest of North America,
where Amerindian names are more usual?  Not really.  The Spanish were just
more willing to give new (often religious) names to rivers.  It's up to the
people in charge, and they can do as they please, regardless of our
retrospective need for solid principles and firm expectations.

Dr. David L. White


From dlwhite at texas.net  Thu Mar 22 16:51:10 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 10:51:10 -0600
Subject: Etruscan
Message-ID: <THU.22.MAR.2001.105110.0600.>

        Surely Demon-David (Destroyer of Self) cannot be expected to take
all this lying down ...

>         It is not as if I am trying to connect /turs^/ with "Veia", after
> all.  More to the poinst, it appears that the subtlety of my argument about
> "Tarchun" has not been appreciated.  We begin with two propositions of quite
> uncertain validity, plus one fact:

>         1) That "Tarchun" is to be connected with /tors^/.
>         2) That the Etruscans (or at least an elite among them)
>             came from Anatolia.
>         3) Tarchun was the first Etruscan city.

>         Now if both these propositions are true, we have an explanation for
> why the first Etruscan city should bear the name "Tarchun".  If they are not
> both true, then there is only a one in seven chance that the first Etruscan
> city would just happen to bear the only name among seven that is conceivably
> relatable to /tors^/.   Thus it would appear that there is a 6 out of 7
> chance that both propositions are true.  This sort of argument is surely not
> traditional, but that is irrelevant to its validity.

        Before you going throwing traditional methodolgy, which has led to
spectacularly successful results in the usage of scholars far greater than
you will ever be, out onto your intellectual garbage heap, you might want to
consider why it developed in the first place.  (Here is a good rule:  never
break a rule until you have understood why it is a rule.)  In this case, the
problem is that is we accept things that have, say, a 90% chance of being
true as being in effect 100% true, it does not take long until any chain of
reasoning based upon such things reaches "certain" conclusions which are
probably false.  I am too lazy to do the math right now, but I think it only
takes about six or so iterations until the probability of all of them being
true (and therefore of any propostion dependent on all of them being true)
drops to below 50.  That, for your information, is why the validity of
propositions is traditionally required to approach 100 before they are
regarded as valuable.

>         It is fairly normal for aspirates to have voiceless fricatives as
> allophones, or such sound changes as we see in Greek would not get off the
> ground.  Furthermore, the variation we see in "mach" '5' versus "muvalch"
> '50' suggests an original rounded /x/ (or at least [x]), as it is a lot
> easier to motivate loss of [x] than loss of [kh].  The very common occurence
> of "chv" after sonorants, particularly /l/ and /r/, suggests a unitary
> phoneme that had to be spelled as a sequence owing to the nature of the
> spelling system.  Etruscan "Tarchun" could quite possibly go back to such
> a thing, which in some cases might have been a later development of /s^/,
> for phonetic reasons which have been given before.

        So Etruscan has a phoneme, rounded /x/, that no one has ever noticed
before?  I think the specialists can be trusted to do their jobs a little
better than that.

>         The various changes it went through rendered the original word
> (/tursik-/?) no longer recognizable as the same word as /troia/ by the time
> "the glory that was Troy" came along in a Greek guise.  So they engaged in
> a relatively straightforward re-borrowing.  Stranger things have happened.

        Vaguely as in "shirt" and "skirt", I suppose.  Possible, but you
seem awfully dependent on positing things which are merely possible, then
casually proceeeding to regard them as probable.  The same sad syndrome is
evident in your attempts to explain the long vowel of the adjective /troo-/.

Demon-David (Destroyer of Self)


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Thu Mar 22 17:23:46 2001
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 12:23:46 EST
Subject: Etruscans
Message-ID: <THU.22.MAR.2001.122346.EST.>

In a message dated 3/22/2001 3:52:39 AM, acnasvers at hotmail.com writes:
<< I don't know what bucchero-ware has to do with Asia Minor. Etruscans
certainly traded with Syria and Phoenicia, not just Greece; incorporation of
non-Greek elements into Etruscan artefacts is not surprising. Cretan motifs
probably came in early, through contacts with Mycenaeans. One should not
expect Etruscan culture to be a mere imitation of the Greek. >>

But I'm sure you see the assumption made in attributing influences to
Mycenaeans.  Arguably, there is nothing distinctly Etruscan at that point.
Whatever Etruscan culture received from Mycenaeans or Crete might have been
acquired elsewhere and may have traveled with some element of the Etruscans.
 And although "bucchero-ware" is distinctly Etruscan, the use of bucherro
clay and technique significantly pre-dates the Etruscans.  The museum at
Mytilene has a collection of "bucchero" pottery made at local workshops from
before the Classical era.  Bucchero jugs were among the finds on the Ulu
Bulun wreck suggesting early Cypriot or Phoenician usage.  There were
obviously a great many influences in Etruscan culture that came from far to
the east.  How they got to Etruria and whether language was one of them still
seems a valid question.  There is a strong case for local origin.  But when
you have so much importing, it seems hard to rule out the possibility that
Etruscan may have been a novelty that took hold sometime before 800BC among
people who were being introduced to novelties at breakneck speed.

I wrote:
<<If it came from foreign parts, it could have come with very few carriers,
but it would have had to provide indigenous people a very good economic or
social reason to adopt it.>>

acnasvers at hotmail.com replied:
<<Yes, and this "elite dominance" model advocated by Dr. White generally
requires many centuries to obliterate the indigenous languages. I'm not aware
of any evidence for native non-Etruscan speech in non-peripheral parts of
Etruria between 700 BCE and Latinization.>>

I was thinking more of a "trade language" model.  One only has to belong to a
few e-mail lists to recognize the universality of English.   Attributing that
to any kind of elite dominance is of course ludicrous.  There is a time when
adopting a foreign language becomes just plain practical and perhaps
sometimes a point when it becomes the only language that persists among a
diversity of very local languages - just for the sake of unified
communication.

The trade in both copper (e.g., for bronze) and iron in Etruria were
apparently quite valuable, judging by the gold the Greeks pumped through in
trade.  The notion that some earlier group had arrived from the eastern
Mediterranean to exploit the same resources is not out of the question.  The
fact that they did not leave their junk behind like the Greeks always did is
problematic.  Perhaps they were miners and engineers and sailors and had no
foreign potters or soldiers or aristocrats with them.  Or perhaps the fact
that the Etruscans had already converted to a mining and export economy
before the Greeks arrived might bespeak that earlier presence.  I seem to
recall that "rich guy" graves start appearing among the Villanovians before
the first sign of the Greek inundation.

<<The mechanism I favor involves the acquisition of bilingualism by those
Etruscans who dealt directly with Greek traders from Cumae and Pithecusae in
the mid-8th c. BCE; the ability to speak Greek would have had clear
advantages. During the second half of this century, many of these Etruscans
learned to write Greek also. Before 700, some of them got the idea to write
Etruscan, and during the 7th c. this idea spread through Etruria.>>

Perhaps it's the speed of this model that is troubling.  European IE
languages didn't convert to writing so quickly, even though they were
converting between related languages.  Some think Phoenician to Greek took
centuries.  It might make one suspect that an entire previously illiterate
population was not involved.  Or perhaps even that Etruscan itself might have
been spreading with the writing.

Regards,
Steve Long


From dlwhite at texas.net  Fri Mar 23 19:50:42 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 13:50:42 -0600
Subject: ".. in a sea of Greeks"
Message-ID: <FRI.23.MAR.2001.135042.0600.>

        If I a not mistaken (always a big if), the Lemno-Tyrrhenians were
not necessarily "in a sea of Greeks" from the beginning.  The northern
Aegean was not Greek until after the colonization period, and is no more
inherently Greek than is Sicily.  Likewise, the testimony of the geographers
and other considerations suggest that over time the focus of Tyrrhenian
presence in the northern Aegean had (perhaps) drifted to the south
(Thrace -> Chalcidice -> Lemnos).   (Note that in the Aeneid the Trojans on
their way to Italy (or Africa) sail from Thrace past Lemnos without a
sideward glance (I guess), as if the place had no importance to them at the
time the legends reached fixed form.)  Thus it is quite possible that their
later "in a sea of Greeks" status was a result of later developments, not
necesarily intended by any parties at the outset.

Dr. David L. White


From edsel at glo.be  Thu Mar 22 19:44:44 2001
From: edsel at glo.be (Eduard Selleslagh)
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 20:44:44 +0100
Subject: Arzawa = Razawa?
Message-ID: <THU.22.MAR.2001.204444.0100.>

----- Original Message -----
From: <philjennings at juno.com>
Sent: Wednesday, March 14, 2001 11:20 PM

[snip]

> I admit ignoring the t-r-s-k sequence.  If t-r-s-n evolved from r-s-n as I
> hypothesize (or simply wish - hypothesis is a pretty fancy name for it), then
> I'm obliged to assert that t-r-s-k had a separate evolution, or that someone
> found it meaningful to add the -k.  Kilday points out that t-r-s-k has the
> oldest attestation, and here I'm making it out to be younger and possibly
> derivative, to which I plead guilty.  With my focus on Arzawa and on dates of
> 1200 bce or before, a date of 600 bce for "Tursikina" allows for six
> centuries of change.

> Assuming an east-to-west movement of proto-Etruscan refugees, and noting that
> the t-r-s-n form is the more eastward form, my musings are at least slightly
> coherent.  Whether they correspond to reality is another story.

> I will now page among all these archives, in the suspicion that this "-k"
> issue has been dealt with at great length.

[Ed]

What I'm missing in this discussion (unless I overlooked it, in which case I
apologize) is the possibility that the t-r-s-k sequence might actually be a
t-r-s-sk sequence, with the well-known IE -sk- element for adjectives (Fales,
Faliscus). The t-r-s-n sequence might contain an -n- found in ethnonyms
etc.(Lat. -e/anus). If I'm right, we only have to consider t-r-s or t-r-r(h)
which might actually be two variants (s>r or r>s) of the same thing.

Ed. Selleslagh


From mcv at wxs.nl  Fri Mar 23 00:23:13 2001
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 01:23:13 +0100
Subject: A question about Greek or Latin
In-Reply-To: <007501c0aebd$d56cc060$0b2a073e@xpoxkjlf>
Message-ID: <FRI.23.MAR.2001.012313.0100.>

On Sat, 17 Mar 2001 08:38:42 -0000, "petegray"
<petegray at btinternet.com> wrote:

>> What would you say to the alternate alternate explanation that the
>> causative formant is merely an agglutinatated verb *[h1]ey-e-

>The suggestion that it might be causes me no problem;  the assertion that it
>is so would need proof.

>I'm happy with the idea that all suffixes began life as independent
>morphemes way back in early Ur-pre-proto-pre-PIE.  I think you mean more
>than that, so we would need to find firm evidence for:
>  (a) the existence of such a verb

<iyami> is the verb for "make, do" in Hittite (and Anatolian in
general).  Its existence outside Anatolian is doubtful (Toch. A ya- ~
ypa- "to make" probably does not belong here), but that would make
sense if the verb was grammaticalized elsewhere (PIE *-ei-e-
causative) except in Anatolian (where causatives are made with -nu-).

>  (b) the use of such a verb as a causative

It makes sense semantically.

>  (c) the acceptance of this explanation as better than any alternative.

A possibly good argument is the one I gave: the existence of causative
forms in *-p-ei-e- (with preverb *pe-?), which in Vedic occur in verbs
ending in -a:, such as dha:- "put" -> dha:paya "cause to put", jn~a:-
"to know" -> jn~apaya "cause to know", etc. and in the verbs ar-paya
"cause to go", ks.e:-paya- "cause to dwell", ja:-paya- " cause to
conquer", s'ra:-paya-, ro:-paya- "raise [cause to rise]".

>What about the "going" root Pokorny 296 *ei / *ia:  ?

Semantically difficult.  Athematic.

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


From philjennings at juno.com  Thu Mar 22 03:33:05 2001
From: philjennings at juno.com (philjennings at juno.com)
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 21:33:05 -0600
Subject: Lactose Intolerance
Message-ID: <WED.21.MAR.2001.213305.0600.>

I am a fiction writer.  People wonder where I get my plots, and volunteer plot
devices of their own, as if this were the trickiest part of writing, not the
easiest.  Likewise, I suspect that for linguists and archeologists, making
hypotheses is the easiest part of their work.  They don't need amateurs coming
up with speculations we don't know how to develop.

Nevertheless, I hope you'll bear with me.  The focus of my concern is the
Khirbet Kerak incursion from NE Asia Minor into Canaan, in the middle 3rd
millennium bce.  At this time, the fertile crescent and its environs were
technically and socially more developed than surrounding areas.  Any incursion
by a less-organized culture against the natives of the fertile crescent might
be expected to fail.  In terms of known lasting effects, the Khirbet Kerak
event was a failure.

However, other people, ie. speakers of Anatolian languages, are thought to have
dislodged the Khirbet Kerak people from their NE Asia Minor homeland, and it
remains to be explained how they succeeded in putting these indigenes to
flight.  What advantages did the Anatolians have?

Moreover, immediately after the Khirbet Kerak wave of destruction, Canaan and
the fertile crescent flowered as never before, resulting in the development of
Ebla as a great power.  Why just then?

My speculation is; that the successful Anatolian invaders made better use of
the land's resources than the indigenes, because they had learned to culture
and ferment milk into a variety of products which could be digested even by
lactose-intolerant adults. (Almost all adults were lactose-intolerant in those
times.)

In favor of this idea; the pre-Anatolian and non-Anatolian peoples of the
Levant kept cattle of impressive size, and were proud of their mastery over
such dangerous creatures, as demonstrated by their art and religious
paraphernalia.  Large cattle are beef cattle.  Less-impressive, smaller, and
tractible dairy cattle would not inspire such cults, but in the long run
produce more food per acre of grazing land.  We see a decline in "the religion
of the cow/bull" over the course of time, that might have begun with the
Anatolian invasion of Asia Minor.

If this speculation about dairy products is true, we would find no words or
symbols for "cheese," "yoghurt," or other such products in the texts we have
from before Khirbet Kerak, in any of the non-IE languages of the fertile
crescent (Sumerian only?).  Equally, if these products are an Indo-Anatolian
innovation, we might expect a diaspora of related terms for cheese, yoghurt,
etc. in a number of daughter languages.

The technology of cheese, etc., spreading quickly into the fertile crescent,
would be accompanied by terminology adopted from the Anatolian.  This would
lead to an agricultural revolution and sudden prosperity, as with Ebla.

Another linguistic possibility is two sets of words for cattle; one appropriate
to the smaller dairy breed and the other borrowed to describe the larger
animals.  Here I take it from the Anatolian point-of-view, the exchange may
have worked in reverse in the languages of Ebla, Akkad and Sumer.

A companion to this hypothesis is that the Anatolians brought with them not
just fermented milk products, but the whole idea of fermentation/leavening,
almost immediately applied to beer and later to bread.  Is there evidence for
beer in Sumer or Egypt prior to the mid-3rd millennium bce?  (Linguistic or
otherwise?)  I'm given to understand that there is, and that this companion
hypothesis fails.

My more limited "fermented milk" hypothesis has a sequel; that the later
development of horse-and-cow nomadism by the precursors of the Indo-Aryans
north of the Black Sea will have resulted in a population of completely
lactose-tolerant people, able to expand at the expense of less
protein-nourished lactose-intolerant agriculturalists to the east, west and
south.  (Eventually, as nomadism spread among Altaics, Nilotics, desert Semites
and other peoples, so did lactose-tolerance.)

I am not sure, however, that this sequel had any linguistic impact.
Linguistically, "milk" the glandular secretion that nurtures new-borns, and
"milk" the protein-rich adult drink, may never have been distinguished by
separate terms.  Archeologically, the existence of milk-buckets, churns, and so
forth, does not signify the ability to digest raw milk.


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Thu Mar 22 16:19:44 2001
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language)
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 10:19:44 -0600
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
Message-ID: <THU.22.MAR.2001.101944.0600.>

Dear Stanley and IEists:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Stanley Friesen" <sarima at friesen.net>
Sent: Saturday, March 17, 2001 8:17 AM

> At 06:36 PM 3/15/01 -0500, Rich Alderson wrote:

>> Any word in which *i or *u can be reconstructed.  That they may alternate in
>> morphophonological rules with *y and *w is irrelevant to their phonemic
>> status, though the consonantal forms may have originated in fortitions of
>> originally vocalic segments.  (For the concept of fortition processes, see
>> P. Donegan's Ohio State dissertation, still available I believe as a working
>> paper from the linguistics department there.)

> I am not sure if this is what you mean here, but I find I have a tendency
> in my speech to excrete a consonantal segment between two vowels in
> different syllables.  Thus, starting with a sequence like 'u' + 'e' I tend
> to produce the sequence 'uwe', and for sequences like 'ei' + 'e' I tend to
> produce sequences like 'eye' or 'eiye'.  Even without an original high
> vowel, I tend towards consonantal glides, thus I more readily pronounce 'e'
> + 'e' as 'eye' than as 'e?e' (using '?' for the glottal stop), and 'o' + o'
> tends towards 'owo' for me.

> As far as I can see, these sorts of processes could produce most of the 'w'
> and 'y' sounds reconstructed for PIE.

[PR]

I do not doubt that what you have described is natural for you and for speakers
of many languages in which contiguous vowels are present.

However, IE as it is normally reconstruted, did not have contiguous vowels so
the real process you describe seems to me to be irrelevant.

Furthermore, whether /i/ and /u/ derive from earlier /y/ and /w/ in avocalic
environments or not; and, if not for some instances at least, have separate
phonemic status in earliest IE (which is what Rich is suggesting), no one to my
knowledge has ever challenged the phonemic status of /y/ and /w/.

I have no axe to grind by denying IE /i/ and /u/. It is just that, where I can
find AA cognates for IE roots, a medial or final /i/ or /u/ in IE shows up as a
consonantal /y/ or /w/ in AA. I have to conclude that all IE /i/ and /u/ derive
from avocalic /y/ and /w/.

One might also want to notice the great infrequency of IE roots beginning with
/i/ and /u/. This rarity suggests to me that initial /i/ and /u/ are zero-grade
forms of earlier *Hey/w -- evidently, an uncommon occurrence.

Finally, if /i/ and /u/ had separate phonemic status in earliest IE, one might
expect them to be part of the Ablaut process; e.g. raising /e/ to /i/ for some
grammatical nuance. Or, if /i/ and /u/ are phonemic vowels, what would be the
zero-grade form of a Ci/u(C) syllable? Must we say that /i/ and /u/ are
entirely outside the system?

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit ec
at ec hecc, vindgá meiði a netr allar nío, geiri vndaþr . . . a þeim
meiþi, er mangi veit, hvers hann af rótom renn." (Hávamál 138)


From alderson+mail at panix.com  Thu Mar 22 19:45:04 2001
From: alderson+mail at panix.com (Rich Alderson)
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 14:45:04 -0500
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
In-Reply-To: <002301c0aeea$86c7df80$712363d1@texas.net> (dlwhite@texas.net)
Message-ID: <THU.22.MAR.2001.144504.0500.>

On 17 Mar 2001, David L. White wrote (quoting my previous message):

>> The analysis of the obstruents as occurring in three series, to wit, plain,
>> palatalized, and labialized, is unremarkable.

> What is another example?

There are several NW Caucasian languages for which this is the parsimonious
analysis of the obstruent system; besides Kabardian/Adyghe/Circassian, I know
of Abaza/Abkhaz and Ubykh.

>> Presumably, your confusion stems from my comments on Kuipers' re-analysis of
>> "plain":

> Practically speaking, "plain" would have to be "[a]-colored", to stay out of
> the way of consonants that were [i]-colored or [u]-colored.  Otherwise, with
> normal coarticulation, "plain" velars (to take the most obvious case) would
> develop de facto [i]-coloring near /i/.  Of course, this would not apply to a
> language without /i/, but Old Irish does have /i/.

The examples have all been drawn from languages which lack /i/ and /u/, to
support an analysis of PIE as lacking /i/ and /u/.  However, the re-analysis of
plain (that is, non-palatalized and non-labialized) obstruents as being somehow
[a]-colored, in order to allow an analysis of the vowel system as lacking any
full-specified vowel at all, quite simply violates phonological universals.
(This objection leaves aside the simple fact that the analysis missed the
contrast between /a/ and /I-/, so that reducing the "one-vowel" system in this
way was already wrong.)

I was unaware that we were discussing Old Irish--the Subject: header refers to
three-way contrasts in PIE.

> If part of the claim is that [a]-coloring does not exist, I agree, but assert
> that it would have to for the sound-system commonly posited for Old Irish to
> be viable.

I'm afraid that my Old Irish background is so weak as to be non-existent, so I
cannot evaluate this claim.  How do you come to this conclusion?

								Rich Alderson


From alderson+mail at panix.com  Thu Mar 22 20:00:13 2001
From: alderson+mail at panix.com (Rich Alderson)
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 15:00:13 -0500
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
In-Reply-To: <004501c0af05$2613c120$fbf1fea9@Ryan>
 (proto-language@email.msn.com)
Message-ID: <THU.22.MAR.2001.150013.0500.>

In the following, we are using the American practice of writing <y> for IPA <j>
and <"u> for IPA <y>.

On 17 Mar 2001, Patrick Ryan wrote:

> If an IE word with [i] could be related convincingly as a cognate with an AA
> word containing [y] in the same position, would that influence your opinion
> of the phonemic status of [i] in IE?

Not in the least.  History does not equate to synchronic phonology.

Further, any PAA or PN reconstruction that recognized *y but not *i would have
to come under very close scrutiny before I found it acceptable.

> And, I also wonder if, perhaps, we are talking past each other. I do not
> doubt that, at some point, [i] became phonemic in IE. It is just that I favor
> the idea that in earliest IE, what became [i] must have been [y]. Does that
> make any difference in your position?

I think that we may indeed be talking past each other.  The Lehmann system
calls for *phonetic* [i] at all stages, with /i/ arising at a late stage when a
distinction arose between *i and *y.  My position is that at no stage was there
only a phoneme /y/, though there *may* have been a stage with a phoneme /i/ and
no phoneme /y/.  I think that recognizing that *i and *y (mutatis mutandis, *u
and *w) fell into morphophonemic alternations without trying to reduce either
to the other allows us *more* leeway in seeking out possible external relations
(for which discussion we need to move to the Nostratic list).

								Rich Alderson


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Sat Mar 24 06:53:05 2001
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 01:53:05 EST
Subject: Minoan is an IE language?/Sound Equivalence
Message-ID: <SAT.24.MAR.2001.015305.EST.>

In a message dated 3/23/01 11:27:27 PM Mountain Standard Time,
X99Lynx at aol.com writes:

> If the situation in English can be attributed in any way to imported words,

-- it's not the imported words, it's the changing sounds.

First, one-to-one correspondences between sound and symbol have collapsed as
the language changed and the orthography didn't.  English has undergone an
extremely brusque series of changes over the past 500 years. (Second, English
now has a much greater stock of synonyms than it used to.)

In Caxton's time, "through" didn't rhyme with "you", but it did rhyme with
"bough".

It's much more probable that Linear A has presented problems simply because
the language it was designed to write was an isolate -- not related to any
other we know.

That would, insofar as I understand the matter, make it inherently very
difficult or impossible to decypher, unless we were lucky enough to find a
bilingual document.

Rather as if we had a few documents in a script originally designed to write
Basque, which was then adapted (badly) to write Latin... and had no
Latin-Basque translations at all, and no mention of Basque in the Latin texts.


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sun Mar 25 21:58:24 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2001 15:58:24 -0600
Subject: Italian as a "Pure" Language
Message-ID: <SUN.25.MAR.2001.155824.0600.>

> I don't think it's quite that clear that the spelling difficulties in
> English are mostly from "native" words.

        Native words, being most common, are the ones most commonly
encountered by young learners.  Something like "psychology" is less
problematic than "night", I think.

Dr. David L. White


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sun Mar 25 21:52:58 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2001 15:52:58 -0600
Subject: Italian as a "Pure" Language
Message-ID: <SUN.25.MAR.2001.155258.0600.>

>> The main advantage Italian has, to simplify a bit, is that it did not go
>> through the Great Vowel Shift.

> That might be simplifying a bit too much

        I admit I should have mentioned dialect mixture as a major
contributor to the problem.

Dr. David L. White


From acnasvers at hotmail.com  Mon Mar 26 04:59:35 2001
From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday)
Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 04:59:35 -0000
Subject: Italian as a "Pure" Language
Message-ID: <MON.26.MAR.2001.045935.0000.>

X99Lynx at aol.com (22 Mar 2001) wrote:

>In their later confusion, they might wonder why "pizza" was not
>spelled "pete/sa," ("pete-" as in from the Aramaic "Peter") which it so
>often sounds like these days.

"Peter" is not Aramaic. It represents Greek <Petros>, lit. 'piece of rock',
given by John (1:42) as the translation of <Ke:pha:s>, the nickname bestowed
upon Simon by Jesus. This Aramaic name is cognate with Hebrew <ke:f> 'rock,
crag, cliff' found only in the plural <ke:fiym> (Jer. 4:29). This in turn is
referred to an obsolete radical *k-w-p 'to be high, crag-like' by
Davies-Mitchell, which looks dubious. I am more inclined to regard <ke:f> as
coming from pre-West Semitic substrate.

DGK


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sun Mar 25 22:11:43 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2001 16:11:43 -0600
Subject: Gothic "au"
Message-ID: <SUN.25.MAR.2001.161143.0600.>

----- Original Message -----
From: <X99Lynx at aol.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2001 11:47 AM

> In a message dated 3/21/2001 10:29:39 PM, dlwhite at texas.net writes:
> << That Gothic "au" was, among other things (probably), a spelling for
> /o/, as "ai" was for /e/, is not disputed by most observers.  The evidence,
> some of which we have just seen, is too strong. >>

> This appears to miss the point.  There are loads of words in Wright's where
> Gothic words contain an <o>.  The point is that practically every time
> indicated where Gothic borrowed a word with a Greek <o> it is transliterated
> as <au> (or rarely <u>).  This does not appear to be random or occasional.

        I am not saying it is random or occasional.  The rule (if I am
remembering correctly) is that Greek short /o/ appears as "au" (representing
short /o/), whereas Greek long /o/ appears as "o", which in Gothic is
inherently long, perhaps by influence from Greek omega.

Dr. David L. White


From hwhatting at hotmail.com  Mon Mar 26 07:23:53 2001
From: hwhatting at hotmail.com (Hans-Werner Hatting)
Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 09:23:53 +0200
Subject: Gothic "au"
Message-ID: <MON.26.MAR.2001.092353.0200.>

On Thu, 22 Mar 2001 12:47:45 EST Steve Long wrote:

>This appears to miss the point.  There are loads of words in Wright's
>where Gothic words contain an <o>.  The point is that practically every
>time indicated where Gothic borrowed a word with a Greek <o> it is
>transliterated as <au> (or rarely <u>).  This does not appear to be random
>or occasional.

>If I remember correctly, the rare exceptions are where the vowel begins the
>word or is from the Hebrew.  The significance might be at minimum that
>what could mistakenly be attributed to a Germanic ablaut would appear to be
>actually the orthographic changes that happened in borrowing.

Good idea! All this discussion had started to make me think along similar
lines already:

AFAIK, Gothic clearly keeps apart <o> and <au>. The first one corresponds to
Proto-Gmc. /o:/ (< PIE /o:/ and /a:/), the second one to Proto-Gmc. /au/ (<
PIE /ou/, /au/)- in which case it is denoted <au> in the modern editions -
*and* to Proto-Gmc. /u/ (< PIE /u/, syllabic /r/) before (as far as I
remember)/r/ and /hw/, in which case it is denoted /au'/ in the modern
editions. The distinction between the two <au> was not made in the original
manuscripts, and though there has been a heated debate on whether they are
different sounds or not, I prefer to see <au> as representing *one* sound.
The fact that one of the sources it is derived from is Proto-Gmc. /u/ makes
it probable that <au> represented a diphthong /ou/ or a closed /o:/, while
<o> represented an open /o:/. Greek /o/ seems to have been too closed to be
rendered by Gothic <o>, so <au> or <u> were chosen. On the other hand, the
sound represented by <au> seems to have been more closed than Greek <o>
(into which at that time /o/ and /o:/ already had merged), so in Greek it
was perceived as /u/ and rendered in the earliest sources by <y> (as I said
before, Ptolemy's source must come from a period when <y> still could render
/u/), later by /ou/).

The Latin sources, OTOH, perceived the sound denoted by <au> as the closed
/o/ they had from the merger of Classical Latin /u/ and /o:/, and rendered
it by <o>.

So we do not have ablaut variants, we just have different renderings of
Gothic <au> by Greek and Roman sources. In this case, the "-ones" suffix
might be either an attachement by Greek and Roman sources, or it might be an
individualising n-stem formation in Gmc. (*Gauto:n-), which
would not pose any problems, as we don't have an ablaut change.

Steve Long wrote on 23 Mar:
>Despite this, certain scholars still see a clean linguistic path between
>Scandinavia and the historical Goths.  One approach I've already mentioned
>has been taken by Thorsten Andersson.  My understanding is that his
>position has been that <*gaut-> is the same as the Gotlander <go:t->, and
>that the forms <gutar> and <goth> both go back to a short u.  In this, they
>are simply ablaut variants of the stem <*geut->.  Another way I've seen
>this described is that <go:tar> (in Goteland) comes from <*gautoz> which
>would have also yielded <*gutaniz> which yielded both <Goths> and <Gutar>.
>The <gutan-> form
>being particularly important due to "the Pietroassa Ring" where the word
><gutani> can be cut from within the undifferentiated runic inscription.  (I
>have not mentioned the ring in my previous posts because it is dated from
>the 4th or just as likely the 5th century AD and although it was found in
>Romania, neither its context nor its provenance are known.)

If my idea holds, all these contortions are not necessary any more. Whether
the Pietroassa ring has a bearing on this question at all, remains to be
seen. The question of the dialectal sub-division of Gmc. ist still debated,
and you have to look at the periodisation. IMHO, the proposed similarities
between Western Gmc. and Nordic are due to later contacts, in whicht the
Eastern Gmc. dialects simply could not participate because they were extinct
or - Crimean Gothic - isolated in a farway place.

>It starts, as I mentioned, with sticking to a Germanic etymology.  I have
>no problem with that being a possibility or even a probability.  But it is
>a little startling that no other possible path has been entertained in the
>serious literature.  Especially when all this talk of ablaut is used to
>explain the variances in the different forms of the Goth name.  It doesn't
>take much to suspect that all the significant variables may be attributable
>not only to Germanic, especially when the historical name hardly ever even
>appears in Germanic until centuries later.  Before 600AD, 99% of the time
>the name shows up, it seems to be in a non-German language.

This is an argument ex silentio, and not a very convincing one, as the only
Gmc. sources before 600 AD I know of are some short runic inscriptions,
mostly of none-Gothic provenance, and the Gothic texts, from which,
according to their nature, we would not expect a mention of the Goths
(AFAIK, they do not figure prominently in the New Testament :)).

>A basic question becomes why the ablaut, once established, doesn't stay in
>one place.  Why did the name, mainly appearing in the nominative or
>genitive, need to undergo the kind of ablaut changes being suggested.  If
>these changes were the kind found in names or nouns, like OE *goz/*gez
>(goose/geese), their Germanic nature would be a little easier to
>understand.

The last type of change is late, becoming of phonological relevance only
after the period discussed here. The ablaut changes were always meant to be
seen as some sort of archaism. They make sense only if the name of the Goths
was originally derived from a consonant stem, combining different suffixes
with different ablaut grades. But, as I showed above, maybe we can drop the
different ablaut grades altogether.

>Another problem with sticking with Germanic is that the total variances
>seem far greater than either ablaut or "western German" languages can
>account for.  Attested are <Gothti>, <Goththi>, <Gouththa>, <Gouthththa>,
><Gythones>, <Gutones> in less than a hundred year period in Greek alone,
>where western German and the subtleties of ablaut do not appear to be at
>issue.

See my above discussion of these variants. The variants in the rendering of
Gothic /t/ show just the Greeks (or the intermediaries they heard the name
from) mangling Gothic phonology. <Gothti>, <Goththi>, don't look Grek to me
- I would expect <Gotht(h)oi>. But even if they are Greek, <o> can be
explained as a Greek writers taking the word from a Latin source.

>Then there's the whole question of the initial "G".  There is a rather
>large group of names that share the time and place with the Goths that
>might even be considered as referring to the Goths if the loose orthography
>of the time were also considered.  I have a folder full of examples of "c"
>and "g" and "k" interchangeability that applies to a wide range of persons,
>peoples and things, but never it seems to the Gothic name. (Except in the
>case of Strabo, who oddly uses a "b".) Is this a presumption that a
>Germanic name would never suffer from such laxity in transcription?

Well, one cannot exclude that. The question is, do we know something about
these other groups which leads us to exlude these possibilities? Going back
to examples you quoted, we know, e.g., that the Chatti have been sitting on
the right bank of the Rhine for quite a time, and that the name of the area
of Hesse derives from their name, so we have a confirmation that the name
had to be pronounced /(c)hat-/ in Tacitus time, and that they basically
stayed there afterwards. Now, we can of course say that they are identical
with the Goths, that their name just got mangled by intermediaries, and look
for reasons why the Goths "invented" a Scandinavian origin and forgot about
their Hessian cousins. But does this get us any further?

>The problem with sticking to a purely Germanic etymology is that it seems
>to leave a good deal of evidence out that might better explain what
>actually happened.  Not that it is sure to but it seems it might and
>therefore deserves to be entertained.  If I were a judge, I think I'd have
>to let it in, conditioned upon its materiality and relevance.
>The idea that sticking to Germanic may not be the best solution to the Goth
>question may be some kind of heresy.  In which case it still can be capped,
>since as far as I know it's only been really brought up on this list.

Well, I certainly don't want to cap any idea or discussion. I just do not
see the "good deal of evidence ... that might better explain what actually
happened". I see some arguments putting under doubt the theory of a
Scandinavian origin - which, nevertheless, does *not* explain away the
existence of the Gutae / Geats, whose name would still need an explanation
-, some speculations about possible alternative etymologies from Greek (or
other IE languages), and a mix-in of other ethnonyms which might or might
not be related. I just do not see that the lines of investigation proposed
by you are more promising.

>Well, there is some evidence that the Goths called themselves other things.
>You mention "Teurings".  When Ammiamus first tells of the coming of the
>Huns, he records that escaping "Greuthungi" met with a king of the
>"Tervingi" just west of the Dniester river.  As Heather points out although
>these designations will be later reported by Jordanes to equate to
>"Ostrogoth" and "Visigoth", the divisions don't hold up at all
>historically.  BTW, "Greuthungi" is not a happy word as it seems to
>correspond to little in written Gothic, with the off-hand possible
>exception of "needy."  "Tervingi" may correspond to <<thorn>amrh-wakan>, to
>keep watch, used by Ulfila in connection with shepherds.  I believe early
>on Grimm took the <-ing->/<-ung> contrast to be indicative of two different
>dialects. And again, in reliable,
>attestable Gothic, the Goths call themselves anything but Goths.  It may
>mean something that all the variants that could correspond to Goth are
>taken up with other meanings.

As was said before, the Goths were certainly not ethnically monolithic. In a
tribal society, or a feudal society just emerging from tribalism, tribes and
sub-tribes are an important part of the identity. So it's no wonder that in
a context where inner-Gothic developments are described, reference is made
to the level of tribe, or sub-tribe. The question is: do we have any sources
where Goths are referring to themselves as "Goths"? Or as "Visigoths /
Ostrogoths"? If not, does this mean that "Goths" was an other-name, or do we
simply not have sources where we should expect such a self reference? And we
should expect such a reference only when the source talks about the nation
as a whole, in oppsition to another nation like Romans or Huns.
As for the etymologisabilty of the names of Gothic sub-tribes from *Gothic*,
we should not forget that 1. we only have a limited corpus of Gothic and 2.
that the names can be quite old and be based on words extinct in the
documented Gothic.

Phew, I hope I do not trigger a button against lengthy postings.

Best regards,
Hans-Werner Hatting


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Sat Mar 24 07:39:23 2001
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 02:39:23 EST
Subject: Scandinavian Origins of the Goths
Message-ID: <SAT.24.MAR.2001.023923.EST.>

In a message dated 3/24/01 12:27:32 AM Mountain Standard Time,
hwhatting at hotmail.com writes:

> 5. That said, I agree with Joat Simeon that the Goths were probably not

-- the pattern of early Germanic loan-words in Slavic (at the Common Slavic
stage) would strongly support this.

At least some of the area attributed to states controlled by Gothic rulers
(Hermannaric, etc.) was undoubtedly inhabited by Slavic-speakers.
Contemporary written sources put the Ostrogoths in the Ukraine in the 4th
century CE, and the survival of Gothic-speakers in the Crimea down to the
16th century certainly supports this, but this doesn't speak to the extent to
which the area was predominantly "Gothic" in linguistic terms.  It may well
have included large areas where Gothic-speakers were a ruling minority.
Volkerwanderung-era folk migrations often consisted primarily of elite
groups, after all.

The "Goths" and other East-Germanic groups such as the Vandals also included
(politically) Iranian-speakers; eg., the Alans.  If I recall correctly, the
Vandal monarchs styled themselves "Kings of the Vandals and Alans" and
Alannic tribes ended up as far from the steppe as Spain, Gaul and Tunisia.


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Sat Mar 24 07:43:05 2001
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 02:43:05 EST
Subject: Scandinavian Origins of the Goths
Message-ID: <SAT.24.MAR.2001.024305.EST.>

In a message dated 3/24/01 12:27:32 AM Mountain Standard Time,
hwhatting at hotmail.com writes:

> 4. I would take the presence of King Rodulf at Theodoric's court not as
> evidence for the invention of the Scandinavian version, but as evidence that
> at least the Gothic elite never lost the connection to their ancestral

-- I agree with this.

We should keep in mind that it really isn't that far from the Danube to the
Baltic; perhaps a month's travel on foot or horseback.  And only slightly
longer to Italy.

Migration-period graves from Scandinavia include large amounts of Roman and
East Roman coinage and artifacts, probably the result of mercenary service
and plunder as well as trade.  Scandinavia in early historic times was
usually in continuous contact with both Western Europe and the eastern
Mediterranean, and there's no reason to believe it wasn't, if on a smaller
scale, in earlier times.  The amber route from the Baltic to the Adriatic is
ancient, for example.


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Mon Mar 26 07:56:40 2001
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 02:56:40 EST
Subject: Scandinavian Origins of the Goths
Message-ID: <MON.26.MAR.2001.025640.EST.>

In a message dated 3/24/2001 2:27:32 AM, hwhatting at hotmail.com writes:
<< 2. Concerning the prestigiousness of the Scandinavian origins: It would have
been much more consistent on Cassiodorus' and Jordanes' side to stick to the
Goths = Getae - equation, as this implied that the Goths were in the area from
antiquity, and even being related by marriage to the ancestors of Alexander the
Great. This would have differentiated them satisfactorily from the other
Germanic tribes.>>

But in fact that's what exactly they did.  They apparently stuck with the
Goths = Getae - equation as far back as it could go (Homer).  That of course
still would not have answered the question as to where the Getae came from.
The Gothic genealogy in fact includes Getic kings, including some we have
never heard of.  For all we know, the Getae may also have claimed
Scandinavian origins.  But there's no dualism in Jordanes' story.  That's a
modern perception.  In Jordanes, the Goths are the Getae and they come from
Scandinavia.

<<My opinion is that they simply could not do so, as the Scandinavian origins
were too widely known among the Gothic leadership, and so they were reported
alongside with the Getae theory. >>

There isn't much folk knowledge in Jordanes. He rejects "old wives tales" and
doesn't mention Gothic leadership remembering anything.  Ironically, one of
the few instances where he does mention the content of living folk tradition
is with regard to the Getae-Dacians:

"Then when Buruista was king of the Goths, Dicineus came to Gothia at the
time when Sulla ruled the Romans. Buruista received Dicineus and gave him
almost royal power. [Burebista was of course king of the "Geto-Dacian"
confederation north of the Danube in the first century BC.]  It was by his
advice the Goths ravaged the lands of the Germans, which the Franks now
possess. (68) .... He gave the name of Pilleati to the priests he ordained, I
suppose because they offered sacrifice having their heads covered with
tiaras, which we otherwise call pillei. (72) But he bade them call the rest
of their race Capillati. This name the Goths accepted and prized highly, and
they retain it to this day in their songs."

This is not saying that Jordanes has this quite right.  But up until modern
times, no one seemed to argue with the Goth-Getae connection.  And, from all
indications, Gothic leadership found it quite logical.  It appears that the
Getae name disappears just before the Goths show up in reference to anything
else but the Goths.  So the conclusion that one was the other made simple,
straightforward sense at the time.

In all this, there is a completely different aspect that is hardly ever
mentioned.  The Goths were apparently not the first Germanic speakers to
appear just north of the Danube, in the Ukraine or along the Black Sea.  They
may not have been the first with a tradition of coming from Scandinavia.
They may not have been the first to have such a tradition in their songs.
And so if the Gothic leadership or the Gothic singers were remembering a
journey from Scandinavia, they may have been remembering when that journey
would have happened in a much more direct way at an earlier time.  Possibly
around 200BC.

Regards,
Steve Long


From acnasvers at hotmail.com  Mon Mar 26 07:37:44 2001
From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday)
Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 07:37:44 -0000
Subject: Soap
Message-ID: <MON.26.MAR.2001.073744.0000.>

X99Lynx at aol.com (28 Feb 2001) wrote:

>There is something in all this however that must have to do with the
>phonotactics of these languages or something like that.  Clearly there are
>a good many forms in Greek, some relatively early, that show some serious
>commonality.

><dusapaleiptos> means hard to wipe out in Sophocles.

This is transparently dus-ap-aleiptos and has nothing to do with *sap-. If
memory serves, Hesychius referred <aleipho:> to Pelasgian, but the verb has
IE ablaut with zero-grade 2nd perf. and 2nd aor. pass. forms.

><anapsao:> is cited early for wipe up, clean out.

><psao:> crumble away, vanish, disappear (L&S write that "psao:, psaio:,
>psauo:, psairo:, pse:cho:, pso:cho:, and perh. psio:, pso:mos, seem to be
>different enlargements of ps-")

[snip]

><pse:phos> Doric <psaphos>, Aeol. <psaphax>, a worn stone or pebble, precious
>stone, polished gem. (Doric has a tendency to look like the Germanic from
>time to time.)

Could you explain how "Doric looks like Germanic"?

[snip]

><psapharos> powdery, crumbling, of loose texture, thin, watery

>(All the above definitions are from Lewis & Short)

>I would not even pretend to understand how <psa-> might
>travel to <sap->.

As a working hypothesis I take <psao:> and some of the other Greek words
with initial "psi" as based on Pelasgian stems. For "psi" representing a
Psg. sound (affricate?) cf. <apsinthos> 'wormwood'. OTOH we have IE ablaut
in <psego:> 'I blame' ~ <psogos> 'blame', so not all of these words are from
substrate. Watkins has rather lame etymologies for some of the words in
terms of metathesis, others as extended zero-grade forms from PIE *bhes-. It
is very odd that Greek would preserve no forms in *phes- or *phos- connected
with these.

If my view on <psao:> is correct, some of the words referring to 'rubbing,
crumbling, erosion' etc. might illustrate processes of Pelasgian
word-formation, not merely Greek processes.

I see no connection between <psa-> and <sap->, but it is very tempting to
relate Gk. <psa:r> 'starling' to OE <st&r>, OHG <stara>, Lat. <sturnus>
(from PIE *stor-). Other than this I have no plausible comparanda for words
with initial "psi".

DGK


From acnasvers at hotmail.com  Sun Mar 25 10:26:43 2001
From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday)
Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2001 10:26:43 -0000
Subject: Etruscans
Message-ID: <SUN.25.MAR.2001.102643.0000.>

David L. White (15 Mar 2001) wrote:

>Geography is becoming confused.  I believe Hamp's original words (it
>was 10-15 years ago) were something like "mountains of central Italy".  The
>Alps have nothing to do with anything.  I would gues the phenomenon must be
>the same thing recently pointed out as existing in Tuscan, though if it is
>truly general to Tuscan we must wonder why it did not become established in
>standard Italian.  My point was that aspiration is known from that general
>area, and might one way or another explain the evident /th/ of "Thouskoi".

In your earlier posting, you must have intended "Apennine" instead of
"Pennine". I don't know whether the modern aspiration goes all the way back
to Pelasgian substrate (to whose influence I have tentatively ascribed
<Thouskoi>), but I doubt it. I am inclined to regard the modern aspiration
as a post-ancient result of heavy recessive stress-accent in these dialects,
itself the legacy of Etruscan substrate or adstrate.

(Those with elephantine memories may recall that I once said "Etruscan does
not qualify as a substrate". In that posting I was dealing with the
situation circa 700-450 BCE, not with later Latin or Italian dialects.)

>But I could have sworn I saw "Thoursk-" cited (as Umbrian) at one
>point.  What is this?

It's nothing _I_ cited; the Umbrian example is <Turskum numem> 'the Etruscan
nation' = Lat. <Tuscum nomen>. I won't point fingers, but _someone_ appears
to have conflated Umbr. Tursk- with Late Gk. Thousk-.

>I would say _originally_ a small elite.  People can easily shift
>their ethnic identity.  The genetic evidence shows that this clearly
>happened in Turkey, where people who now think of themselves as Turks had
>ancestors who thought of themseves as Greeks (who in turn probably had
>ancestors who thought of themselves as Phrygians, etc... )  I note that
>class divisions in Etruscan society seem to have been unusually rigid, with
>no true middle class.  This might be because class divisions went back to
>earlier ethnic divisions re-analyzed, there being great efforts to keep the
>conquered in their place by erecting uncrossable class barriers.  Otherwise
>the failure of Etruscan society to develop a middle class comparable to
>what existed among the Greeks and Romans is somewhat strange.

Onomastic evidence indicates that class-barriers could be overcome. "Lethe"
was a name sometimes bestowed on freedmen, and there are examples (such as
the famous Larth Felsnas of Tarquinii) showing that sons of "Lethe" were
considered free citizens with their own "nomina gentilicia". Furthermore,
the very common occurrence of Etruscanized Italic gentilicia and cognomina,
ranging from Early Archaic (7th cent.) up to Late Etruscan (1st cent.) shows
that ethnic background was no bar to acquiring wealth and status.

There had to be a considerable middle class in Etruria. You can't expect
slaves or serfs to function as the artisans, merchants, and clerks required
by this type of society. To our knowledge, the Etruscan middle class never
acquired the political clout of its counterparts in Athens or Rome, but that
is not strange. It takes centuries of experimentation with riots,
assassinations, banishment of plutocrats, plebeian secessions, and the like
for any middle class to achieve significant political power, and to forge
the uneasy power-sharing arrangement with the upper class that some of us
take for granted. As you know, once Rome became powerful, its leaders did
whatever they could to maintain the upper-class political monopoly in the
Etruscan city-states, squelching whatever experimentation was taking place.
Likewise, in the good old USA, we (I don't mean "you" and "me") spend a good
chunk of disposable GDP pulling strings in other parts of the world, usually
attempting to preserve the "status quo".

>> I don't see any compensatory lengthening in Epic genitives like
>> <megaroio>, where we have /oyo/ < */ohyo/ < */osyo/.

>Nor in the ancestor of /naio/, from /nasyo/.  With dentals followed
>by /y/ it appears (to me) that what happend was (in effect) metathesis, as
>in /melaina/ from /melanya/, followed, where applicable, by /s/-loss:
>/nasyo/ -> /naiso/ -> /naio/.  In such a sequence compensatory lengthening
>would not be expected, as the /s/, by the time it is lost, has ceased to be
>moraic.
>         The process I posit would have to be later than the change of
>original /sy/.  But as the word for Troy was clearly not part of the IE
>inheritance, I see no great problem with that, not counting ad-hocness.
>But for foreign borrowings to have unique sequences, regarded as at least
>awkward, is not unheard of.  There would have been a second loss of /sy/
>phonologically parallel with the loss of /sw/, which _did_ involve
>compensatory lengthening, probably because it did not involve (de facto)
>metathesis.  I admit that this probably did not happen, preferring option
>#2 below, but I do think there is nothing _fatally_ wrong with it.

Your proposal was /trosy-/ > /trohy-/ > /trooy-/ with later loss of /y/ when
not re-analyzable as suffixal. The first form, being foreign, evaded your
postulated metathesis, so no /troys-/. Now if memory serves, Archaic
Corinthian preserves <hw> (i.e. heth + waw) for earlier */sw/, so I'm not
about to disagree with your general treatment of lengthening. I just don't
like the necessity of invoking foreignness in order to evade one
sound-change, then insisting on "naturalization" in order to obey subsequent
changes.

>In sum, for Etruscan /o-u/ to have sounded like short /u/ to some Greeks (or
>other people) of one period and dialect and like long /o/ to other Greeks (or
>other people) of another period and dialect would be not at all suprising.

Different-sounding _quality_ wouldn't surprise me. Different-sounding
_quantity_ would surprise me a lot. We're talking about languages in which
long and short vowels were distinct.

DGK


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Wed Mar 28 21:19:31 2001
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 16:19:31 -0500
Subject: Etruscans
In-Reply-To: <000901c0b2ed$c1e864c0$b02863d1@texas.net>
Message-ID: <WED.28.MAR.2001.161931.0500.>

[ moderator edited ]

>        Hydronyms are more reliable than other "nyms", but even hydronyms
>can point in the wrong direction.  For example, most of the river names of
>Texas, for example Trinity, Brazos, Colorado, Pedernales, Llano, San Marcos,
>Blanco, Guadalupe, and San Antonio (not sure about Sabine, Neches, and
>Nueces), are Spanish.  What does this tell us, that the original inhabitants
>of Texas were Spanish speaking, as opposed to the rest of North America,
>where Amerindian names are more usual?  Not really.  The Spanish were just
>more willing to give new (often religious) names to rivers.  It's up to the
>people in charge, and they can do as they please, regardless of our
>retrospective need for solid principles and firm expectations.

>Dr. David L. White

	Sabine is probably from Mexican Spanish sabino "type of pine
tree/conifer" but possibly from French sapin "fir, spruce (or the like)"
--it's in the heart of the piney woods. Sabino also exists as a first name
among Mexicans, so it could be from that.
	Nueces is "nuts". If you walk down Nueces St. in Austin in the
Fall, you'll notice peopling gathering pecans from all the trees planted in
honor of the name
	Neches does not seem to be Spanish AFAIK--although in Tejano slang
it means "nothing, no way!" e.g. Tejano <<No truje neches.>> for standard
Spanish <<No traje absolutamente nada.>>

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


From acnasvers at hotmail.com  Wed Mar 28 12:20:01 2001
From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday)
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 12:20:01 -0000
Subject: Arzawa = Razawa?
Message-ID: <WED.28.MAR.2001.122001.0000.>

Eduard Selleslagh (22 Mar 2001) wrote:

>What I'm missing in this discussion (unless I overlooked it, in which case I
>apologize) is the possibility that the t-r-s-k sequence might actually be a
>t-r-s-sk sequence, with the well-known IE -sk- element for adjectives (Fales,
>Faliscus). The t-r-s-n sequence might contain an -n- found in ethnonyms
>etc.(Lat. -e/anus). If I'm right, we only have to consider t-r-s or t-r-r(h)
>which might actually be two variants (s>r or r>s) of the same thing.

I don't consider the matter settled, but what little evidence there is
points to infixed /k/, not /sk/. The Iguvian Tables contain the passage
(I.b:16-7; Etruscan letters) <enumek etur'stamu tuta tar'inate trifu
tar'inate turskum naharkum numem iapuzkum numem> 'then drive from (our)
borders the civitas Tadinas (i.e. the Tadinates, inhabitants of the Picene
city of Tadinae), the tribus Tadinas (i.e. the whole "tribe" living around
Tadinae), the (nomen) Tuscum (i.e. Etruscan nation), the nomen Narcum (i.e.
dwellers in the Nar valley, prob. Sabines), (and) the nomen Iabuscum (i.e.
Messapian nation)'. This is partially reprised (VI.b:58-9; Latin letters)
<totam tarsinatem trifo tarsinatem tuscom naharcom iabuscom nome>.

The older Umbrian passage contains three 2nd-decl. ethnic adjectives.
<Naharkum> contains a hydronym and -kum, that is infixed /k/ plus the
2nd-decl. neut. sg. acc. suffix. <Iapuzkum> has before -kum an assibilated
form of Iapud-, variant of Iapug-, used to denote Messapians (Strabo
VI.277). It is thus reasonable to divide Turs-kum, with Turs- the same
ethnic stem as is found in Gk. <Turse:noi>. Alternative divisions Turs-skum
and Tursk-kum can't be rigorously excluded, but IMHO are much less likely.

The younger passage suggests that Latin <Tuscus> was borrowed from Late
Umbrian, in which original /r/ has been absorbed before /s/, while the
presumed trilled fricative /r'/ resulting from assibilated /d/ has proceeded
into a new /rs/.

The older Umbrian text does not antedate 400 BCE. The golden fibula of
Clusium (ca. 600 BCE) has an Etruscan text which in Heurgon's recension is
<mi arathia velaves'nas' zamathi mamurke mulvenike tursikina> 'I am the
golden (object) of Arath Velavesna; Mamurke Tursikina dedicated (me)'. The
native suffix -na is the most common formant in Etruscan gentilicia. The
structure of Tursikina, however, strongly suggests modification of an
Umbrian gentilicium *Tursikis. A parallel Etr. gent. of Caere, Vestiricina
(ca. 550 BCE), is known to be derived from the Oscan gent. Vestirikis.
Clusium and the ager Clusinus had both Etruscan and Umbrian communities.
Mamurke Tursikina probably lived among the Umbrians (hence his Italic
praenomen) but had Etruscan ancestry, so his gentilicium meant 'Etruscan'.
If the infix /sk/ had been used in the presumed Umbrian form, it is highly
unlikely that Etruscan would split the cluster. Other Archaic Etruscan
gentilicia, such as the well-known Feluske, contain it.

I didn't make clear in earlier postings that <Trsk> refers to a separate
text, not a mere sequence of consonants. An amphora from Milan reads
<trskmetr LXXVI s>, obviously a metrologic inscription: the vessel holds 76
units of liquid measure. <Trskmetr> presumably stands for *Turskna metru
'Etruscan measure'; <metru> from Gk. <metron> is otherwise attested. <S>
probably abbreviates <sun>, a unit roughly equal to a pint. A smaller
amphora reads <sun X>. Probably the Etruscan and Ligurian standards of
measure were different. In the good old pre-metric days we had containers
marked "5 U.S. gallons" so that Canadians would know they weren't getting 5
full Imperial gallons.

The alternative favored by Buffa is that the <sun> 'pint' was fixed, and
<metr> stands for <metreta>, from Gk. <metre:te:s>, a large unit of liquid
measure. The Ligurian metreta had 80 pints, and Buffa figured the Etruscan
had only 76, with the inscription meaning 'Etruscan metreta, 76 pints'. I
can't fathom why anyone would define a large unit as 76 small units, and
specifying both units would be redundant. It seems more likely that this
vessel just turned out to contain 76 Etruscan pints.

I don't have a date for this amphora, but it probably postdates 400 BCE.
These examples don't necessarily tell us what the Etruscans called
themselves. Whether Turs- was originally a self-name or an other-name
remains an open question.

DGK


From dlwhite at texas.net  Mon Mar 26 15:34:28 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 09:34:28 -0600
Subject: "Guadalupe"
Message-ID: <MON.26.MAR.2001.093428.0600.>

        It appears, on further examination, that "Guadalupe" should be added
to my maybe list of Spanish river names in Texas.  Perhaps "Frio" and
"Medina" (go figure) can take its place.

Dr. David L. White


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sun Mar 25 22:03:19 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2001 16:03:19 -0600
Subject: Munda in Early NW India
Message-ID: <SUN.25.MAR.2001.160319.0600.>

> As a non-IEist, I have some difficulty evaluating statements of
> this sort about substratum languages.  Why would this be any
> stronger a proposal than the idea that Germanic developed its
> stress shift, two-term tense system and periphrastic tenses
> through contact with early Finnic speakers in the Baltic region?
> Both strike me as convenient but pretty much lacking in evidence.

> Herb Stahlke

        Lacking in _direct_ evidence, which it is virtually inconceivable
that we would have anyway.  But when related descendants are around, guesses
about what characteristics an earlier relative probably had are not so wild,
unless all IE-ists are wasting their time.
But I was not making a proposal.  I do not know enough about Munda to do
that.  I was suggesting a possibility.

Dr. David L. White


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Mon Mar 26 19:13:36 2001
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 14:13:36 EST
Subject: [linguist@linguistlist.org: 12.660, Qs: IE Substratum?]
Message-ID: <MON.26.MAR.2001.141336.EST.>

In a message dated 3/16/2001 8:35:23 PM, alderson+mail at panix.com writes:

[ Moderator's note:
  Actually, Dr. DeCaen wrote this; I simply forwarded it.
  --rma ]

<< i would be ever so grateful for direction on the **non**IE substratum of
ancient Greek, and especially Hittite. the only thing i've been able to
find is an old dissertation on nonIE in Greek. i'm looking for phonology,
and typological information.
Dr Vincent DeCaen     <decaen at chass.utoronto.ca> >>

This reply comes courtesy of Tom Palaima on Aegeanet.  Thought the list my be
interested also.

<<Start, very warily, with:
Colin Renfrew, "Word of Minos," Cambridge Archaeological Journal 8:2 (1998)
239-264.  (very full bibliography of worthwhile further readings;
provocative ideas; assessing material evidence and evidence of
reconstructed languages; please note in bibliography my first initial
should be T. not P.)

Then go immediately to:
D.A. Hester,  "Recent developments in Mediterranean <<Substrate>> Studies,"
Minos 9:2 (1968) 219-235.
         "'Pelasgian': A New Indo-European Language?"  Lingua 13 (1965)
335-384
         "Methods of Identifying Loan-Word Strata in Greek," Lingua 18
(1967) 168-178.

Then try M. Lejeune, "Linguistique Prehellenique," Revue des Etudes
Anciennes 49 (1947) 25-37.

That all should give you a good and sensible idea of the problems and enable
you to plunge into further readings with some real foundation.
TGP>>


From sarima at friesen.net  Sat Mar 24 14:32:28 2001
From: sarima at friesen.net (Stanley Friesen)
Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 06:32:28 -0800
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
In-Reply-To: <003c01c0b2eb$ea36ea20$fbf1fea9@Ryan>
Message-ID: <SAT.24.MAR.2001.063228.0800.>

At 10:19 AM 3/22/01 -0600, proto-language wrote:

>I do not doubt that what you have described is natural for you and for
>speakers of many languages in which contiguous vowels are present.

>However, IE as it is normally reconstruted, did not have contiguous vowels so
>the real process you describe seems to me to be irrelevant.

That is not strictly so.  Look at one form of the genitive of u-stems:
*-uos.  Since the /u/ is clearly a vowel in the other case forms, this
almost certainly was a vowel-vowel contact in the pre-proto stage at least.

>Furthermore, whether /i/ and /u/ derive from earlier /y/ and /w/ in avocalic
>environments or not; and, if not for some instances at least, have separate
>phonemic status in earliest IE (which is what Rich is suggesting), no one
>to my knowledge has ever challenged the phonemic status of /y/ and /w/.

I suppose I would not either, though I see few independent occurrences of
these sounds - where they do not seem derived from older vocalic /u/ and
/i/.  I can think of *yeug.  (Still that one alone is probably enough to
establish at least /y/ as a phoneme rather than an allophone of /i/).

>I have no axe to grind by denying IE /i/ and /u/. It is just that, where I can
>find AA cognates for IE roots, a medial or final /i/ or /u/ in IE shows up as
>a consonantal /y/ or /w/ in AA. I have to conclude that all IE /i/ and /u/
>derive from avocalic /y/ and /w/.

Does proto-AA as currently reconstructed have vocalic /i/ and /u/?  If not,
I would suspect that the same error has been made here as in traditional
PIE reconstructions.  Given the 'triliteral root' tradition in the Semitic
languages, I would think there would be a considerable bias in this direction.

>Finally, if /i/ and /u/ had separate phonemic status in earliest IE, one might
>expect them to be part of the Ablaut process; e.g. raising /e/ to /i/ for some
>grammatical nuance. Or, if /i/ and /u/ are phonemic vowels, what would be the
>zero-grade form of a Ci/u(C) syllable?

The same as the zero grade of a CeC syllable - CC.

>Must we say that /i/ and /u/ are entirely outside the system?

No, but e/o ablaut is rather odd and special, so there is no reason to
suppose it would have applied to /i/ and /u/.  And other than that the
earliest layer really only shows full and zero grade.

--------------
May the peace of God be with you.         sarima at friesen.net


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sun Mar 25 22:35:39 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2001 16:35:39 -0600
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
Message-ID: <SUN.25.MAR.2001.163539.0600.>

> On 17 Mar 2001, David L. White wrote (quoting my previous message):

>>> The analysis of the obstruents as occurring in three series, to wit, plain,
>>> palatalized, and labialized, is unremarkable.

>> What is another example?

> There are several NW Caucasian languages for which this is the parsimonious
> analysis of the obstruent system; besides Kabardian/Adyghe/Circassian, I know
> of Abaza/Abkhaz and Ubykh.

        I will have to investigate.  Abstract parsimony can sometimes lead
to less than real "solutions".

>>> Presumably, your confusion stems from my comments on Kuipers' re-analysis
>>> of "plain":

>> Practically speaking, "plain" would have to be "[a]-colored", to stay out of
>> the way of consonants that were [i]-colored or [u]-colored.  Otherwise, with
>> normal coarticulation, "plain" velars (to take the most obvious case) would
>> develop de facto [i]-coloring near /i/.  Of course, this would not apply to
>> a language without /i/, but Old Irish does have /i/.

> The examples have all been drawn from languages which lack /i/ and /u/, to
> support an analysis of PIE as lacking /i/ and /u/.  However, the re-analysis
> of plain (that is, non-palatalized and non-labialized) obstruents as being
> somehow [a]-colored, in order to allow an analysis of the vowel system as
> lacking any full-specified vowel at all, quite simply violates phonological
> universals.

        It's the "in order to" part that is the problem.  I agree that
analyzing a language as having no vowels (in part by leaping from "one
vowel" to "no vowel") is seriously problematic.

> (This objection leaves aside the simple fact that the analysis missed the
> contrast between /a/ and /I-/, so that reducing the "one-vowel" system in
> this way was already wrong.)

> I was unaware that we were discussing Old Irish--the Subject: header
> refers to three-way contrasts in PIE.

        Whether Old Irish had a three-way contrast is an issue.  Some say it
did not, and I have always wondered whether they were right.
My point is that to speak of "plain" consonants existing in such a system is
in a sense non-sensical, because "plain" in effect means "as in a language
without secondary articulations", which in turn means "as in a language with
ordinary co-articulation", but a language with secondary articulations could
not possibly have ordinary coarticulations, since overriding ordinary
coarticlation for phonemic effect is what languages with secondary
articulations do.
Such languages can, for example, produce back velars before front vowels,
and front velars before back vowels.  The very term "plain", as applied to
velars, woud in effect mean "tending to be backed before back vowels and
fronted before front vowels".  In a language with secondary articulations,
this really could not happen.  So where one velar series was "[i]-colored",
and another was "[u]- colored", a third would almost have to be something
like "[yeri]-colored" or "[y]-colored" (IPA value) or (in terms of F2)
"[a]-colored",  in order to stay out of the way of the other two.  But such
colorations are not, to my knowledge, known.  So I think regardless of other
errors, Kuiper's instinct that a 3rd quality would have to be "[a]-colored"
rather than "plain" was fundamentally correct.   I hope all that makes
sense.

>> If part of the claim is that [a]-coloring does not exist, I agree, but
>> assert that it would have to for the sound-system commonly posited for Old
>> Irish to be viable.

> I'm afraid that my Old Irish background is so weak as to be non-existent,
> so I cannot evaluate this claim.  How do you come to this conclusion?

        As above.  What is "plain" /k/ in a sequence /ki/ supposed to have
been that would be different from palatalized /k/ in the same sequence?
Likewise what is "plain" /k/ supposed to have been in the sequence /ku/ that
would be different from labio-velarized /k/ in the same sequence? I suppose
we could say that the palatalized and labio-velarized versions would come
out more like [kyi] and [kwu] respectively, but according to my
understanding secondary articulations are not ordinarily so strong, and to
regard them as equivalent to following [y] or [w], though it may be a
convenient first approximation for learners, is a mistake.  I suppose it's
possible though, and if I have to "stand corrected" I will, not for the
first (or last) time.  But I am distressed at how casually "plain"
consonants are posited for such a system.  The phonetics would not be that
un-problematic.

Dr. David L. White


From jrader at Merriam-Webster.com  Mon Mar 26 17:59:10 2001
From: jrader at Merriam-Webster.com (Jim Rader)
Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 12:59:10 -0500
Subject: "neirt" versus "nert"
In-Reply-To: <002d01c0aeeb$79d4a320$712363d1@texas.net>
Message-ID: <MON.26.MAR.2001.125910.0500.>

[ moderator edited ]

>> Wouldn't <nert> and <neirt> both be palatalized?

>         No.  /e/ is traditionally held to have palatalized preceding
> consonants, leaving following consonanats as they were.  Confusion of
> spelling between the two types ("nert" for "neirt"), which occasionally
> occurs (if I am remembering correctly), probably indicates the difficulty of
> pronouncing palatalized /r/, which is mostly (or entirely?) gone from modern
> Irish.

> Dr. David L. White

What??

All dialects of Modern Irish and Scottish Gaelic preserve a
distinction between palatalized and unpalatalized <r>
(conventionally /r/ and /r'/) in all but initial position.  The modern
genitive of <neart>, "strength," is <neairt>, with both [r] and [t]
palatalized.  Certainly in Connemara Irish, with which I am most
familiar aurally, the difference between <pa/ipe/ar>, "(news)paper"
(nom. sg.), and <pa/ipe/ir>, "paper" (gen. sg. and nom. pl.) ["/"
represents the acute accent marking vowel length] is quite clearly
audible.  The /r/ is a flap with some retroflexion, while /r'/ is a
strongly palatalized fricative made by brief contact between the
tongue tip and the alveolar ridge, which tends to devoice finally and
before voiceless consonants (as is <neairt>).  For detailed phonetic
observations see the various volumes on Irish dialects, all bound in
blue, published by the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies since
the `40's and many times reprinted.  As mentioned, initial [r']
unprotected by a consonant was lost in all dialects (I believe),
though the spelling does not usually indicate this, and very
sporadically with a consonant, i.e., Old Irish <cride>, "heart,"
Modern Irish <croidhe> [traditional spelling], a change old enough
to show up in the very conservative Irish orthographical system.

What has been lost on a more widespread basis was the contrast
between unlenited /R/ and /R'/ vs. lenited /r/ and /r'/.  All
descendants of Old Irish have to some degree collapsed and/or lost
the four historical distinctions among the resonants <r>, <l>, and
<n>, with Munster dialects having the most loss and Scottish
Gaelic dialects the most preservation.  In Scottish Gaelic /R/ and
/R'/ have fallen together as /R/, typically, I believe, an alveolar trill
with the vocal tract configured to give it a peculiar dark sound
(how's that for precise description?), while /r/ is an alveolar flap.
That leaves /r'/, which has very diverse outcomes in Scottish
Gaelic dialects.  In the Hebridean Scottish Gaelic that I've heard, it
actually sounds like an interdental fricative.

"Difficult to pronounce" for non-native speakers, maybe....

Jim Rader


From jrader at Merriam-Webster.com  Wed Mar 28 14:57:57 2001
From: jrader at Merriam-Webster.com (Jim Rader)
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 09:57:57 -0500
Subject: "neirt" vs. "nert"
Message-ID: <WED.28.MAR.2001.095757.0500.>

A correction to my post of March 26 on Irish and Scottish Gaelic
palatalized <r>:  I gave the genitive singular of Modern Irish <neart>
as <neairt>.  This form is given in Mi/chea/l O/ Siadhail's textbook
_Learning Irish_, and presumably is valid for the Irish of Cois
Fhairrge in County Galway on which O/ Siadhail's book is based.
But the "standard" Irish genitive of <neart> is <nirt>; this is the
form given in O/ Do/naill's government-sponsored dictionary
_Foclo/ir Gaeilge-Be/arla_.

Jim Rader


From sarima at friesen.net  Sat Mar 24 14:19:12 2001
From: sarima at friesen.net (Stanley Friesen)
Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 06:19:12 -0800
Subject: Lactose Intolerance
In-Reply-To: <20010321.213305.-451481.0.PhilJennings@juno.com>
Message-ID: <SAT.24.MAR.2001.061912.0800.>

At 09:33 PM 3/21/01 -0600, philjennings at juno.com wrote:
>A companion to this hypothesis is that the Anatolians brought with them not
>just fermented milk products, but the whole idea of fermentation/leavening,
>almost immediately applied to beer and later to bread.  Is there evidence for
>beer in Sumer or Egypt prior to the mid-3rd millennium bce?  (Linguistic or
>otherwise?)  I'm given to understand that there is, and that this companion
>hypothesis fails.

Absolutely.  Beer is a staple food as far back as there is writing in both
Mesopotamia and Egypt.  In fact beer is one of the main foods of the poorer
classes - it was often used as payment for laborers prior to the invention
of money.  (This results in it, or its precursors such as malted grain,
being common in inventory lists).

--------------
May the peace of God be with you.         sarima at friesen.net


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Sat Mar 24 15:49:19 2001
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language)
Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 09:49:19 -0600
Subject: Lactose Intolerance
Message-ID: <SAT.24.MAR.2001.094919.0600.>

Dear Phil and IEists:

 ----- Original Message -----
From: <philjennings at juno.com>
Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2001 9:33 PM

> I am a fiction writer.  People wonder where I get my plots, and volunteer
> plot devices of their own, as if this were the trickiest part of writing, not
> the easiest.  Likewise, I suspect that for linguists and archeologists,
> making hypotheses is the easiest part of their work.  They don't need
> amateurs coming up with speculations we don't know how to develop.

<snip>

> A companion to this hypothesis is that the Anatolians brought with them not
> just fermented milk products, but the whole idea of fermentation/leavening,
> almost immediately applied to beer and later to bread.  Is there evidence for
> beer in Sumer or Egypt prior to the mid-3rd millennium bce?  (Linguistic or
> otherwise?)  I'm given to understand that there is, and that this companion
> hypothesis fails.

<snip>

[PR]

For what it may be worth in this context, I am convinced that the Egyptian word
for 'beer', Hnq.t, came to life as a cognate of IE *k{e}n6kó-, and designated
'mead' originally.

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit ec
at ec hecc, vindgá meiði a netr allar nío, geiri vndaþr . . . a þeim
meiþi, er mangi veit, hvers hann af rótom renn." (Hávamál 138)


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Tue Mar 27 05:05:05 2001
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 00:05:05 EST
Subject: Lactose Intolerance
Message-ID: <TUE.27.MAR.2001.000505.EST.>

In a message dated 3/24/2001 6:26:51 AM, philjennings at juno.com writes:
<< If this speculation about dairy products is true, we would find no wordsor
symbols for "cheese," "yoghurt," or other such products in the texts we have
from before Khirbet Kerak, in any of the non-IE languages of the fertile
crescent (Sumerian only?).  Equally, if these products are an Indo-Anatolian
innovation, we might expect a diaspora of related terms for cheese, yoghurt,
etc. in a number of daughter languages. >>

I think you only need to do a search on the web listing "cheese" and
"Sumerian" to find a good deal that contradicts this.  One of the most
interesting stated "Remnants of a material identified as cheese have been
found in a Sumerian tomb dating to 3000 BC." Wonder if anyone was tempted to
take a bite. There are a slew of Sumerian Glossaries that list a cheese word.

There's another problem.  And that is it isn't clear that bovines were the
first or primary source of cheese in many cases.  I have citation if you like
from I think a Swedish Journal where evidence is reported of goat-milking in
the Sudan circa 7000BC.  And it appears that domesticated goats preceed cows
practically everywhere.  Also, there have been studies that indicate a
genetic casein pattern of domestic goats across southern Europe that favors
cheese-making quality and a reduction in lactose (e.g., A. Kouvatsi's work on
Greek goats) that is apparently not found in dairy cattle, perhaps suggesting
that goat's cheese was breed early on to be more digestible than cow cheese.
It should be remembered too that cattle - oxen - were domesticated to some
degree as work animals.  I don't know what the distribution of bones are in
NE Anatolia or the plateau, but my bet would be a lot more caprine than
bovine.  If I'm not mistaken, bovine bones are relatively rare at the early
levels at Troy.  But I think red deer and goat was rather plentiful.

(Interestingly, Homer's and the usual word for cheese in Greek, <turos>,
might suggest a whole new angle for the etymology of Troy or a confusion in
urban-dwelling Greeks about which gender of cattle cheese came from - just
kidding.)

Isn't there something not-right about Anatolian cowboys out on a beef cattle
drive developing a smaller cow so that they could become dairy farmers and
finally begin eating cheese.  It makes sense that larger herds - the kind
indicated quite early in the Levant  - were not kept for beef.

Cheese, like so many other early forms of processing, allows for both
preservation and digestion.  I don't know the history of chordizo sausage
technology, but I would think that cheese would always have the advantage of
being less perishable than meat and more likely to be valuable in trade or
just to store.  Hunting would seem to be a more efficient way to put meat on
the table until better preservative methods come along.  In Europe,
mesolithic types seem to eat more animal protein than bronze and iron age
types.

<<A companion to this hypothesis is that the Anatolians brought with them not
just fermented milk products, but the whole idea of fermentation/leavening,
almost immediately applied to beer and later to bread.  Is there evidence for
beer in Sumer or Egypt prior to the mid-3rd millennium bce?  (Linguistic or
otherwise?)  I'm given to understand that there is, and that this companion
hypothesis fails.>>

See Andrew Sheratt's (the author of the "secondary-products revolution"
construct very relevant to your subject) change of opinion regarding the LBK
vats (c. 4500BC).  He once thought they were holding milk, but now he thinks
they were for holding malt.  Remember that beer is also a way to perserve
grain and a good way to make questionable water drinkable.  Among other
things.

<<My more limited "fermented milk" hypothesis has a sequel; that the later
development of horse-and-cow nomadism by the precursors of the Indo-Aryans
north of the Black Sea will have resulted in a population of completely
lactose-tolerant people, able to expand at the expense of less
protein-nourished lactose-intolerant agriculturalists...>>

I should point out that communities that develop ways around lactose
intolerance, like cheese, don't really need to develop lactose tolerance.
The amount of dairy consumed by the French per capita is much larger than the
amount consumed by Swedes, despite a rather higher rate of intolerance.  It
is of course consumed in the form of cheese.

And that European agriculturalists introduced cows and had cows very early
on, in many cases plenty more cows than are found on the steppes.
Domesticated cattle are among the first signs of the coming of
neolithization.  I see here a report that milk curdling vessels dating from
5,000 B.C. have been found on the shore of Lake Neufchâtel in Switzerland.
If anyone had cow cheese, it was the agriculturalists.

And if we go by ordinary statistical epicenters as origin points based on
today's distribution of lactose tolerance, your precursors of Indo-Aryans
started in Sweden and Finland and spread to some lesser extant to Spain and
to an even lesser extent to Hungary and the Ukraine, having however
established isolated strongholds in Saudi Arabia and among the Tussi in Afri
ca.  Actually, they sound like they might be vikings to me.

<<Linguistically, "milk" the glandular secretion that nurtures new-borns, and
"milk" the protein-rich adult drink, may never have been distinguished by
separate terms.>>

I have this note from a Thai scholar:
"The word for breast and milk in many Southeast Asian languages are often
related etymologically. For example, in Thai nom(32) is breast, and
nam(45)nom(32) 'water breast' is milk...  In Rgyalthang, another variety of
Khams Tibetan spoken in Yunnan (PRC), the word for milk is nei (231), which
obviously came from nei(231)po(51) 'breast'.

However, Rgyalthang also distinguishes between nei(231) 'breast milk' and
wui(231) 'cow milk'...."

Regards,
Steve Long


From bamba at centras.lt  Wed Mar 28 23:30:57 2001
From: bamba at centras.lt (Jurgis)
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 01:30:57 +0200
Subject: Morphological remodelling
Message-ID: <THU.29.MAR.2001.013057.0200.>

> Can anyone on the list think of examples of morphological remodelling
> within a verbal paradigm based on a single ending? The only secure example

There're cases in Lithuanian dialects when fragments of former athematic
endings have been reinterpreted as parts of the present stem.

In the case of Lithuanian verb miegoti "to sleep", there two remodellings of
this kind attested.

1) -m- was introduced from 1st sg. miegmu ("I'm sleeping") after it had been
remodelled from 1st sg. miegmi (cf. dirbu "I'm working"):
1 sg. miegmu
2 sg. miegmi
1 pl.  miegmam
2 pl. miegmat
3 sg./pl. miegma

2) -t- was introduced from 3rd sg./pl. athematic form miegti ("sleeps"). The
paradigm itself got i-stem endings probably because 3rd sg./pl. athematic
miegti reminds of an i-stem form (cf. 3rd sg./pl. tiki "believes"):
1 sg. miegciu (c = ch; miegciu < *miegtju, cf. tikiu "i believe")
2 sg. miegti (stress on the 2nd syllable, cf. tiki "you believe")
1 pl. miegtim (cf. tikim(e) "we believe")
2 pl. miegtit (cf. tikit(e) "you believe")
3 sg./pl. miegti

Source of the forms: Z. Zinkevicius, Lietuviu dialektologija, Vilnius:
Mintis, 1966, p. 349.

Larry Trask mentions:

>Watkins draws attention to such remodelings in Celtic, Polish and Persian,
>at least, all based upon the third-singular forms.  The observation that
>such remodelings are typically based upon third-singular forms has been
>dubbed 'Watkins's Law'.

Could anyone provide data / reference on how typical / frequent remodelling
based on 1st sg. is?

Regards,
Jurgis Pakerys
Vilnius University


From gordonbr at microsoft.com  Thu Mar 29 17:13:39 2001
From: gordonbr at microsoft.com (Gordon Brown)
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 09:13:39 -0800
Subject: Peter (WAS: Italian as a "Pure" Language)
Message-ID: <THU.29.MAR.2001.091339.0800.>

DGK's posting reminds me of a question I've had for quite a while.  In
an article about Bede (Baeda), I saw a bibliographic reference that
implied that the name Baeda might be somehow related to the name Peter.
Is this possible?  In any case, does Baeda equate to any modern name?

> ----------
> From: 	Douglas G Kilday[SMTP:acnasvers at hotmail.com]
> Sent: 	Sunday, March 25, 2001 8:59 PM

> "Peter" is not Aramaic. It represents Greek <Petros>, lit. 'piece of
> rock', given by John (1:42) as the translation of <Ke:pha:s>, the
> nickname bestowed upon Simon by Jesus. This Aramaic name is cognate
> with Hebrew <ke:f> 'rock, crag, cliff' found only in the plural
> <ke:fiym> (Jer. 4:29). This in turn is referred to an obsolete radical
> *k-w-p 'to be high, crag-like' by Davies-Mitchell, which looks
> dubious. I am more inclined to regard <ke:f> as coming from pre-West
> Semitic substrate.


From hwhatting at hotmail.com  Thu Mar 29 09:15:09 2001
From: hwhatting at hotmail.com (Hans-Werner Hatting)
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 11:15:09 +0200
Subject: Scandinavian Origins of the Goths
Message-ID: <THU.29.MAR.2001.111509.0200.>

Steve Long wrote:
>But in fact that's what exactly they did.  They apparently stuck with the
>Goths = Getae - equation as far back as it could go (Homer).  That of
>course
>still would not have answered the question as to where the Getae came from.
>The Gothic genealogy in fact includes Getic kings, including some we have
>never heard of.  For all we know, the Getae may also have claimed
>Scandinavian origins.  But there's no dualism in Jordanes' story.  That's a
>modern perception.  In Jordanes, the Goths are the Getae and they come from
>Scandinavia.

Well, if one wants to make sense of this, and the other facts you mention,
it seems that the Goths, after their time in the Ukraine, came to the
Balkans, and either got mixed up with the Getae, or actually incorporated
their remains. When Jordanes wrote his history, he used written texts - as
it was obligatory for historians of his time - and he probably found a lot
more available on the Getae (as ancient neighbours of the Greeks) than on
the Goths, who were newcomers. The coming of the Goths to that area gets
moved back in time, to provide the kings with a long pedigree. But the fact
that Jordanes had to incorporate the Scandinavian origin shows that this was
a tradition which was too strong to be ignored.

>There isn't much folk knowledge in Jordanes. He rejects "old wives tales"
>and doesn't mention Gothic leadership remembering anything.

If he got an information not from ancient authors, but from informers, it
was perhaps the best thing not to mention that.

I think it would be an interestin endeavour to disentangle what of Jordanes
writing is actually pertaining to the Goths, and what to the Getae.

Best regards,

Hans-Werner Hatting


From dlwhite at texas.net  Thu Mar 29 18:58:18 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 12:58:18 -0600
Subject: Gothic "au"
Message-ID: <THU.29.MAR.2001.125818.0600.>

> On Thu, 22 Mar 2001 12:47:45 EST Steve Long wrote:

>> This appears to miss the point.  There are loads of words in Wright's
>> where Gothic words contain an <o>.  The point is that practically every
>> time indicated where Gothic borrowed a word with a Greek <o> it is
>> transliterated as <au> (or rarely <u>).  This does not appear to be
>> random or occasional.

>> If I remember correctly, the rare exceptions are where the vowel begins
>> the word or is from the Hebrew.  The significance might be at minimum that
>> what could mistakenly be attributed to a Germanic ablaut would appear to
>> be actually the orthographic changes that happened in borrowing.

> Good idea!

[respondent snip, to put it mildly]

        I am not too sure this is such a good idea.  The Greek/Hebrew names
in Wright show that the basic rule is what I said it was (what a
coincidence!):  long /oo/ comes across as "o", short /o/  as "au".
        Anyway, I have a prospective article on the subject of Gothic "au"
and "ai", which would be much too long to post.  (And which is much too
unscholarly as is to be publishable.  Feel free to offer assistance, anyone.
I could use it.)  The conclusion is that "au" (mostly) represents (Gothic)
short /o/, and that "o" represents long /oo/.  (Likewise for "ai" and "e".)
The one exception is that "au" before vowels, as in "stauida" (if I am
remembering correctly:  if this does not exist, parallel words do)
represents long /oo/, in part because "oi" in such cases would have wrongly
seemed to represent a monosyllabic diphthong.  (From the Greek point of
view.   But then spelling what was apparently /ng/ as "gg" suggests that a
Greek point of view was there.).  For similar reasons "ei" would not have
been a good idea.  I also suggest that the "aw" of things like "tawida"
represents short /o/, because "au" would have meant long /oo/.  If this is
true, then one of the major alternations Gothic is supposed to have had,
/oo/ vs. /au/, and /o/ vs. /aw/, is only a spelling rule, and the vowel in
such forms did not vary.  I suppose I can dredge up the Damned Thing and
send to anyone who may be interested.
        For propriety's sake, it should be noted that some "au" (cases
before vowels) is actually from long /oo/.

Dr. David L. White


From dlwhite at texas.net  Thu Mar 29 19:30:43 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 13:30:43 -0600
Subject: Getae as Goths
Message-ID: <THU.29.MAR.2001.133043.0600.>

        Here is a somewhat wild, and probably worthless (or at least wrong)
possibility:  could the name of the Getae be from umlaut of /got-thiuda/ or
something of the sort?  Probably not:  all Germanic umlaut is supposed to be
a lot more recent than that, and the original Getae were pretty clearly
Iranians, according to what I just read in "The Oxford Illustrated
Prehistroy of Europe".  But perhaps the process of umlaut cannot in fact be
so finely dated.  It has been suggested with considerable plausibility that
Saxon had umlaut that it did not mark in writing, and there must have been a
pre-phonemic stage, where fronted former back-round vowels existed as (for
lack of a better word) allophones, and thus would have been thought of by
Goths as /o/, etc.  Nonetheless, if sufficiently fronted, they might have
been heard as more like /e/ than /o/, though I suppose for Greek "/y/" would
have to be our best guess about how such a thing would have been heard.  But
there could have been an intermediary language or two.
        By the way, how did the umlaut in "Goeteborg" (or is that "-burg")
and "-goetland" get there?  Does it suggest an earlier form (at least in the
north) with following /i/?
        As for getting rid of ablaut variation in our explanations, that
would also involve getting rid of the Geats, which I would suggest is not
advisable.  If we have to use abluat to explain the Geats (as something
other than an extraordinary coincidence) we might as well use it generally.

Dr. David L. White


From sarima at friesen.net  Thu Mar 29 15:09:36 2001
From: sarima at friesen.net (Stanley Friesen)
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 07:09:36 -0800
Subject: Etruscans
In-Reply-To: <F129ZCHusMjQHtMFauk0000ac77@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <THU.29.MAR.2001.070936.0800.>

At 10:26 AM 3/25/01 +0000, Douglas G Kilday wrote:

>Your proposal was /trosy-/ > /trohy-/ > /trooy-/ with later loss of /y/ when
>not re-analyzable as suffixal. The first form, being foreign, evaded your
>postulated metathesis, so no /troys-/. Now if memory serves, Archaic
>Corinthian preserves <hw> (i.e. heth + waw) for earlier */sw/, so I'm not
>about to disagree with your general treatment of lengthening. I just don't
>like the necessity of invoking foreignness in order to evade one
>sound-change, then insisting on "naturalization" in order to obey subsequent
>changes.

Why, as far as I can see this happens all the time.  A borrowed word ceases
to be perceived as foreign after a few generations, after which time it is
subject to any *subsequent* (or even concurrent) sound changes in the
borrowing language.  Consider for instance ME 'chief', borrowed from
Medieval Norman French and then subjected to the Great Vowel Shift just
like a native English word.

--------------
May the peace of God be with you.         sarima at friesen.net


From dlwhite at texas.net  Thu Mar 29 17:52:30 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 11:52:30 -0600
Subject: Etruscans
Message-ID: <THU.29.MAR.2001.115230.0600.>

> In your earlier posting, you must have intended "Apennine" instead of
> "Pennine".

        Yes, sadly.

>  I don't know whether the modern aspiration goes all the way back
> to Pelasgian substrate (to whose influence I have tentatively ascribed
> <Thouskoi>), but I doubt it. I am inclined to regard the modern aspiration
> as a post-ancient result of heavy recessive stress-accent in these dialects,
> itself the legacy of Etruscan substrate or adstrate.

        Maybe, but if it occurs in the same area, then it could well be a
constant, so to speak.

>> But I could have sworn I saw "Thoursk-" cited (as Umbrian) at one
>> point.  What is this?

> It's nothing _I_ cited; the Umbrian example is <Turskum numem> 'the Etruscan
> nation' = Lat. <Tuscum nomen>. I won't point fingers, but _someone_ appears
> to have conflated Umbr. Tursk- with Late Gk. Thousk-.

        Well, if you won't point fingers (or will you?) I will:  must have
been me.

>> I would say _originally_ a small elite.  People can easily shift
>> their ethnic identity.  The genetic evidence shows that this clearly
>> happened in Turkey, where people who now think of themselves as Turks had
>> ancestors who thought of themseves as Greeks (who in turn probably had
>> ancestors who thought of themselves as Phrygians, etc... )  I note that
>> class divisions in Etruscan society seem to have been unusually rigid,
>> with no true middle class.  This might be because class divisions went back
>> to earlier ethnic divisions re-analyzed, there being great efforts to keep
>> the conquered in their place by erecting uncrossable class barriers.
>> Otherwise the failure of Etruscan society to develop a middle class
>> comparable to what existed among the Greeks and Romans is somewhat strange.

> Onomastic evidence indicates that class-barriers could be overcome.  "Lethe"
> was a name sometimes bestowed on freedmen, and there are examples (such as
> the famous Larth Felsnas of Tarquinii) showing that sons of "Lethe" were
> considered free citizens with their own "nomina gentilicia". Furthermore,
> the very common occurrence of Etruscanized Italic gentilicia and cognomina,
> ranging from Early Archaic (7th cent.) up to Late Etruscan (1st cent.) shows
> that ethnic background was no bar to acquiring wealth and status.

> There had to be a considerable middle class in Etruria. You can't expect
> slaves or serfs to function as the artisans, merchants, and clerks required
> by this type of society.

        It is fairly normal for slaves to be artisans, and clerks.

>To our knowledge, the Etruscan middle class never
> acquired the political clout of its counterparts in Athens or Rome, but that
> is not strange. It takes centuries of experimentation with riots,
> assassinations, banishment of plutocrats, plebeian secessions, and the like
> for any middle class to achieve significant political power, and to forge
> the uneasy power-sharing arrangement with the upper class that some of us
> take for granted. As you know, once Rome became powerful, its leaders did
> whatever they could to maintain the upper-class political monopoly in the
> Etruscan city-states, squelching whatever experimentation was taking place.

        I think there was a difference (in development of a middle class),
and that the explanation I have suggested works.

> Now if memory serves, Archaic
> Corinthian preserves <hw> (i.e. heth + waw) for earlier */sw/, so I'm not
> about to disagree with your general treatment of lengthening. I just don't
> like the necessity of invoking foreignness in order to evade one
> sound-change, then insisting on "naturalization" in order to obey subsequent
> changes.

        Well, the word can hardly have been part of the IE inheritance, so
"invoking foreignness" would seem to be not much of an issue.  The question
then becomes what would happen to a somewhat anomalous (or even unique) /sy/
as /sw/ was lost.  If the development was parallel, then compensatory
lengthening would occur.

> Different-sounding _quality_ wouldn't surprise me. Different-sounding
> _quantity_ would surprise me a lot. We're talking about languages in which
> long and short vowels were distinct.

        Yes, but long vowels are often no more than 50% longer than
corresponding shorts, and in languages that do not have any such
distinction, vowels that are short (in the sense of being mono-moraic, as
far as we can tell) can be long enough to qualify as long by the standards
of some languages.  (I am thinking of English /ae/.)
        At some point when the older generation of Latin speakers was
speaking a language where, in their minds, short and long vowels were
distinct, the younger generation coming up managed (in much of the Empire)
to hear long mids and short highs as the same, indicating that they must
have sounded much the same.  (I recently came across the same phenomenon in
Gothic, though I forget the example.  I suppose I can dig it up if
challenged.)  If the same sort of thing was characteristic at one point
(which as I have repeatedly noted must have been before the development of
the new longs written "ou" and "ei"), then there could have been some
disagreement about what a foreign sound qualified as:  long /o/ or short
/u/.  A sound intermediate between /o/ and /u/, which Etruscan is likely to
have had, would be especially likely to provoke that sort of difference of
opinion.
        To place this all back in its original rhetorical context, the
original allegation, which I am attempting to refute, was more or less "in
Greek the vowel was originally long, so it cannot be from an (Anatolian)
Etruscan simple, i.e. short, vowel."  The two possibilities I have suggested
are meant to show two (entirely independent) ways that it could have been
from Etruscan.  Either the lengthening could have been a later development
from the elimination of /sy/ in parallel with /sw/, or Etruscan /o-u/ could
have fallen within the range of Greek long /o/ for some speakers at some
time.

Dr. David L. White


From acnasvers at hotmail.com  Fri Mar 30 10:54:54 2001
From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday)
Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 10:54:54 -0000
Subject: Etruscans
Message-ID: <FRI.30.MAR.2001.105454.0000.>

David L. White (22 Mar 2001) wrote:

>It is fairly common for "language death" or "shift", which is after
>all what we are talking about here, to occur over two generations:  first
>generation monolingual in substrate, second generation bilingual, and third
>generation monolingual in superstrate.  (Yes, three minus one is two.)  On
>the other hand the death of Greek in Anatolia took nearly a thousand years,
>which clearly implies stable bilingualism, a situation well-known from
>various parts of the world.  There are no valid generalizations, but
>abandonment of a language, once it becomes seen as "the thing to do", can
>be quite rapid.

Agreed. But we do have one thing to go on here, in contemplating the
presumed replacement of pre-Etruscan, and that is the replacement of
Etruscan itself by Latin in Etruria. If we reckon from the Roman conquest of
Veii to the latest inscriptions at Volaterrae (ca. 50 CE) it took about 450
years for this to happen. As Grant has pointed out, Etruria is not a
"refuge" for residual peoples. Its fertility has certainly supported a
substantial population since the Neolithic arrived, several millennia before
history. If Etruscans came from someplace else and Etruscanized the natives,
one would expect several centuries to be required, and that is assuming a
continuous influx of Etruscans analogous to the influx of Latin-speakers
during Latinization. A few shiploads of refugees from Troy or its allies,
arriving over a decade or two, simply don't cut the mustard in this picture,
no matter how dazzling their High Culture might have been. As for mysterious
North Aegeans, where exactly was their homeland? The island of Chryse, east
of Lemnos, which sank into the sea according to Pausanias (VIII.33.4)?
(Migrationist doctrine, rigorously pursued, eventually leads us either
_down_ to Atlantis and similar sunken lands or _up_ to von Daeniken's
ancient astronauts.)

>For funerary inscriptions to be
>in a suitably "lofty" language that the unfortunate deceased would not have
>understood is hardly unknown.  ("Hic iacet")

Most Etruscan funerary inscriptions (alas!) consist only of names, but the
language is clearly Etruscan, with genitives of parents and possessives of
spouses commonly found. Lower-class "monuments" in some cases are crudely
marked ceramic tiles. The language is still Etruscan. Tiles and other
markers are there to identify the deceased to the living, and there is no
reason whatsoever to convert the deceased's actual name into a form
unrecognized by the living.

>And of these the Latins (at least) in time linguistically converted
>the original populations of their hinterlands, unless we are all now
>supposed to believe that the original population of Etruria (not to mention
>the rest of the Roman Empire) was exterminated by Roman colonists cruelly
>scattering their seed corn to the winds (which surely would have come as a
>nasty shock to the hopeful Etruscan aristocrats; but it is a Fantasy
>Scenario anyway.)

No, the violent scenario would have obliterated the names as well as the
people, and some of the names are still around. The family Ceicna of
Velathri became the family Caecina of Volaterrae, and is now the family
Cecina of Volterra. It's too bad the language itself wasn't as resilient as
some of the aristocrats were.

Speaking of hinterlands, I've seen speculation that Etruscan might have
persisted as a spoken language around Mt. Amiata (the most "remote" part of
Etruria) for several centuries after its extinction in the cities. But since
hillbillies seldom concern themselves with permanent written records, we'll
probably never know.

>Hydronyms are more reliable than other "nyms", but even hydronyms
>can point in the wrong direction.  For example, most of the river names of
>Texas, for example Trinity, Brazos, Colorado, Pedernales, Llano, San Marcos,
>Blanco, Guadalupe, and San Antonio (not sure about Sabine, Neches, and
>Nueces), are Spanish.  What does this tell us, that the original inhabitants
>of Texas were Spanish speaking, as opposed to the rest of North America,
>where Amerindian names are more usual?  Not really.  The Spanish were just
>more willing to give new (often religious) names to rivers.  It's up to the
>people in charge, and they can do as they please, regardless of our
>retrospective need for solid principles and firm expectations.

I concede this point. Retention of toponyms is a complex matter. I can't
pretend to have a handle on any of the factors at work in prehistoric
Etruria.

I note in passing that casual surveys may undercount the old toponyms due to
popular assimilation or "folk etymology". If "Nueces" isn't shortened from
"Rio de las Nueces", might it represent a modified substratal name? Or was
an early explorer so tired of fording rivers that he exclaimed "Nuts,
another river!" and the name stuck? (Stranger things have happened in Texas,
I'm sure...)

DGK


From jordan at chuma.cas.usf.edu  Fri Mar 30 14:32:34 2001
From: jordan at chuma.cas.usf.edu (Greg Jordan)
Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 09:32:34 -0500
Subject: Etruscans: Summary
In-Reply-To: <l03130318b6e803ace02b@[209.147.211.21]>
Message-ID: <FRI.30.MAR.2001.093234.0500.>

This has been an interesting debate on Etruscan, could someone please
indicate where to go for further information? I.e., what are the
key/seminal articles/books/reports on the subject? Thanks

Greg Jordan
University of South Florida
jordan at chuma.cas.usf.edu


From philjennings at juno.com  Fri Mar 30 23:08:37 2001
From: philjennings at juno.com (philjennings at juno.com)
Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 17:08:37 -0600
Subject: Etruscans
Message-ID: <FRI.30.MAR.2001.170837.0600.>

I refer to Ian Russell Lowell's translation of the Annals of Mursilis II,
and especially to the events of the third year.  Here is the background:
Mursilis II's father died of disease during an excursion away from the
Hittite homeland, and the next in line to the throne hardly took
possession before he also succumbed to disease.  Mursilis II was young,
the Hittites were troubled by strife during times of succession, and the
satellite polities of the Hittite Empire were quick to take advantage of
this interregnum and throw off the yoke.  The Hittites had enemies anyhow.
The treachery of conquered "friends" merely added to the young Mursilis's
problems.

Year by year with great vigor, Mursilis undertook campaigns to restore and
extend the Hittite claims.  He was concerned in Year 3 with fallen-away
subjects who had gone for protection to Uhhazitis, King of Arzawa.
Quote:
"These men of mine _ the troops Attarimma, the troops of Huwarsanassa, the
troops of Suruda _ have come over to you: give them back to me!"  This is
the only time he refers to these groups as troops, later he uses terms
translated as 'subjects,' 'deportees' and 'displaced persons.'

Due to illness/injury, King Uhhazitis of Arzawa failed to confront
Mursilis II in battle.  (Remarkably, some people theorize he was struck by
a meteor as the Hittites advanced.  Mursilis calls it a thunderbolt.  Talk
about bad omens!)  There was a battle, the Arzawans lost, and remnant
Arzawans, and particularly the Hu(wa)rsanassan, Suduran and Attarimman
'displaced persons,' were obliged to take refuge in one of three places.
The first, with the King himself, was on an island, the second, on Mt.
Arinnandas, a peninsula with access to the sea, and the third, a
landlocked city called Purandas.

In describing this situation, The Annals of Mursilis II mention the
Ahhiyawans (Achaeans) whose King was associated with Milawanda (Miletos),
and who were apparently responsible for supporting the enfeebled King of
Arzawa in his island retreat.  Mursilis II was able to beseige and reduce
Mt. Arinnandas in the first year of battle, and took Purandas in what
reads like a second year campaign.  In neither of these cases did he need
or use a navy.  People who have studied this era deny that the Hittites
could have fielded a naval force, especially in Achaean waters.
Nevertheless, there is this confusing passage: "(...). (...). (...) he was
in the sea/on an island. (...). Piyama-Kurundas (logogram:
mSUM--ma-dKAL-as), the son of Uhhazitis (...). And he came out of the sea
and he (...) and he came in with the King of Ahhiyawa. My Sun(-god) sent
(man's name) by ship (...). (...). And they brought him out. With him
(were) deportees whom they also brought out. And they, with the deportees
of (city name) and with the deportees of Lipa altogether were x0,x00
deportees."

This seems to refer to another defeated attack on the mainland by diehard
Arzawan resisters, and does not imply that Mursilis II dealt with the
island retreat as well as the two others, in subduing the Kingdom of
Arzawa to vassalage.  He simply could not have done so.  King Uhhazitis's
island was out of reach.

As regards all these deportees, the Annals consistently report twofold
statistics: "I alone brought 15,500 deportees to my house, but it is
impossible to number the deportees whom the Hittite troops,
horse(-troop)s, and sarikuwas-troops brought."  In this case I theorize
that the 15,500 were military-age men capable of fighting, ie, troops,
while the larger number included women, children, the aged, and almost
always sheep and cattle thrown in.   Given anything like a reasonable
ratio, an army of 15,500 implies a total population of 60,000 or more,
perhaps much more.  To quote again from a summary of the whole campaign:
"As I conquered the whole of the land of Arzawa, the deportees whom My Sun
brought to the palace they were in total (Hit.: anda 1-etta) 66,000; the
deportees, cattle and sheep which the Hittite lords, troops and
horse(-troop)s brought it is impossible to number."  Here we see a captive
population of perhaps 200,000 people, not going home to whatever satellite
polities they'd occupied before these wars began, but rather being taken
to the capital, where they can expect nothing good to happen.

We can only speculate regarding the work that the Hursanassans, the
Surudans, and the Attarimmans were made to do in captivity, but all these
200,000 people must have been aware that some fraction of their number
were still free on an Aegean island or islands.  Whether the vaunted
freedom of this remnant galled the Hittites or not, there was nothing they
could do about it.  Even when they forged occasional alliances with the
Achaeans over the next 150 years (before the fall of Troy), the Achaeans
lost nothing by maintaining their island relationship.  This is probably
more true as they had not discommoded themselves in the first place by
giving King Uhhazitis one of their own islands, but rather settled the
Arzawan refugees on a Pelasgian island, such as Lemnos.  (The Pelasgians
were too weak to protest at being forced to share.)

In the situation outlined here, it seems probable that a continous small
flux of escapees from Hittite rule, would have sought refuge on the island
in question, until the problem of new arrivals became troubling, and new
settlements had to be provided.  As the Mycenaeans were a power in the
region and an ally, these settlements had to be located to complement and
not compete with Greek-dominant enterprises.   At this time, one of the
Mycenaean trade routes led up the Adriatic, and so refugee settlements
along the shores of the Italian Adriatic might have seemed a reasonable
proposition.

As these refugees arrived by a constant trickle, and not a flood, their
memories of the homeland were memories of hunger and mistreatment
stretched out over decades, not the more dramatic memories of defeat and
shame in war.  By Herodotus's time, the names of the principal figures
involved in battle from so long ago meant nothing and connected to
nothing.

It needs to be pointed out that in a period of general illiteracy there
were no emigrant letters home, and the flow of refugees would have
diminished after the first or second decade, if not for a conscious effort
of nation re-building on someone's part, leading to the commissioning of
troublemakers willing to enter the Hittite realm and pass words of
encouragement.  Anyone reading the Annals will see that the ardor was
there.  A passion to fight until Arzawa was utterly defeated, might well
be converted into a passion to found a daughter nation beyond reach of
the Hittites.

A mixed group of refugees; Hursanassans, Surudans, Attarimmans, Arzawan
royals, et cetera, living on part of an island like Lemnos, would not
necessarily have imposed a group-name on themselves; but the Pelasgians,
their neighbors, would have done so, ignoring precise distinctions.
Pelasgians spoke an "Anatolian" language.  They would have recognized
"-assos" as a geopolitical suffix, and dropped its inappropriate use,
therefore the Hursanassans would have become Hursana(pl) or 'Rsana(pl).
If the dominant language among the refugees was distinctive and
incomprehensible, as it surely was, those who spoke as the Hursana did
might have been called the "ta-'rsana(pl)."  The Greeks also needed a
group name for these people, and might have turned "ta-'rsana(pl)" into
"Tyrsennoi."  With time, the refugees themselves would have acceded to the
need for a single name, minus the Pelasgian prefix: and pronounced their
own way: eventually Ras'na.

Against this whole "Etruscan origins" story and all its props and
gimmicks, lies the fact that no proto-Etruscan-like language has been
preserved in the extensive Hittite archives, which generously cite
diplomatic and liturgical passages in Hattic, Palaic, Luwian, Akkadian,
and Hurrian.  However, as far as I know, the Hittites also ignored Achaean
Greek, Minoan, and the Northwest Semite language of Canaan, and even Egyptian.

The period 1330bce - 1180bce for the gradual settlement of a proto-Etruria
near the classical Etruria is so far not ruled out by archeological
evidence.  Anything much later than 1180 bce seems to be discouraged.
Anything much earlier than 1330 strains credulity as regards the long
endurance of the small Lemnos enclave, and the long memories of the
eventual Etruscans, unsupported by written records until 700bce.

In this view, the Etruscan pioneers were succoured by people with a
national consciousness and would have retained concepts of civic duty,
offices to be performed, et cetera.  This would have put them immediately
at a higher level than the natives of central-northern Italy.


From acnasvers at hotmail.com  Sat Mar 31 11:27:39 2001
From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday)
Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2001 11:27:39 -0000
Subject: Etruscans
Message-ID: <SAT.31.MAR.2001.112739.0000.>

X99Lynx at aol.com (22 Mar 2001) wrote:

>There were obviously a great many influences in Etruscan culture that came
>from far to the east.  How they got to Etruria and whether language was one of
>them still seems a valid question.  There is a strong case for local origin.
>But when you have so much importing, it seems hard to rule out the possibility
>that Etruscan may have been a novelty that took hold sometime before 800BC
>among people who were being introduced to novelties at breakneck speed.

Even Dr. White requires two generations for his jackrabbit model of
linguistic shift, and that's an extreme case. Acquiring a new language takes
vastly more effort and incentive than mastering a hula-hoop.

>I [Lynx] wrote:
><<If it came from foreign parts, it could have come with very few carriers,
>but it would have had to provide indigenous people a very good economic or
>social reason to adopt it.>>

>I was thinking more of a "trade language" model.  One only has to belong to a
>few e-mail lists to recognize the universality of English.  Attributing that
>to any kind of elite dominance is of course ludicrous.  There is a time when
>adopting a foreign language becomes just plain practical and perhaps sometimes
>a point when it becomes the only language that persists among a diversity of
>very local languages - just for the sake of unified communication.

Fine, a trade language doesn't require elite dominators to bully the natives
with superior military technology. But as you point out yourself, it
requires a considerable socioeconomic incentive for the natives to give up
their own languages. The trademasters must be able to construct an
infrastructure which will clearly increase the wealth of the natives (not
just their leading class, or the commoners would have no reason to change
their speech). The trademasters must already have their own profitable
infrastructure in place. Since reactionary demagogues will likely appear
among the natives, the trademasters must have access to military might, and
along with the commercial infrastructure will come garrisons and military
roads. This model doesn't differ greatly from standard elite dominance.
Generally speaking, trade goes hand-in-hand with "gunboat diplomacy", and it
is introduced by what we usually call "colonial powers".

In the scenario you suggest, Etruria was commercialized by Etruscan-speakers
from outside who were wealthy and powerful enough to establish trade
throughout the land. But where is the evidence for this great non-Italian
Etruscan commercial empire? What plague or genocide wiped out all
Etruscan-speakers in the presumed homeland?

>Or perhaps the fact that the Etruscans had already converted to a mining and
>export economy before the Greeks arrived might bespeak that earlier presence.
>I seem to recall that "rich guy" graves start appearing among the Villanovians
>before the first sign of the Greek inundation.

This is a good point. What happened in Etruria is in stark contrast to the
colonization of Magna Graecia. With its wealth of metals and agricultural
fecundity, Etruria would have been a tempting target for Greek colonization.
Something blocked this from taking place. Somehow the Villanovans acquired
the centralized social organization necessary for them to stand up to the
Greeks and demand that whatever the Greeks took out of the land be paid for.
A by-product of social organization is social stratification; hence the
"rich guy" graves.

The question now is whether the Villanovans had native leaders who just
happened to be more astute than their counterparts in southern Italy, or
they had outside help in preparing themselves for the Greek inundation. It
would make perfect sense for the Phoenicians to practice this sort of
intervention, as they stood to lose a great deal if Etruria fell into Greek
hands. Either way, I don't see the Etruscan language coming into Etruria at
that time; it was already established. If Phoenician or other foreign
"advisors" came in to organize the "resistance", they would have had little
impact on the native speech.

>Perhaps it's the speed of this model [for acquiring writing] that is
>troubling.  European IE languages didn't convert to writing so quickly, even
>though they were converting between related languages.  Some think Phoenician
>to Greek took centuries.  It might make one suspect that an entire previously
>illiterate population was not involved.  Or perhaps even that Etruscan itself
>might have been spreading with the writing.

It didn't take long for you to slam the brakes on the breakneck speed you
claimed for the introduction of novelties: your model has culture and
language barreling into Etruria like a Montana Freeman heading for a gun
show, while literacy must plod along like an ice truck making deliveries in
Chicago during so-called "rush" hour.

And what's so "quick" about a lifetime? Greek literacy is attested at
Pithecusae and Gabii circa 770. The oldest Etruscan incriptions are circa
700 at Tarquinii. It took another 70 years or so for Etruscan literacy to
reach Vetulonia and Volaterrae. The spread of literacy could easily have
obeyed a speed limit of 5 miles per year. I don't happen to know the speed
limits for European IE literacy, but Etruscan writing teachers weren't
exactly burning up the pavement.

And if Etruscan itself was spreading with literacy, why was there no
standard way of using the Archaic alphabet? We don't see anything like the
7th-cent. Etruscan diversity of writing conventions in 17th-cent. North
American English, where language actually did spread with literacy.
Caeritans were still writing left-to-right when other urban Etruscans were
going right-to-left. Even in Recent Etruscan, the discrepancy between
Northern and (reformed) Southern representation of sibilants was never
resolved. To explain this, migrationists will need to postulate that
different writing conventions were imported by literate Aegean
Paleo-Etruscans from different city-states in their mysterious homeland, and
for this there is not one iota (sorry!) of evidence.

DGK


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Thu Mar 29 14:26:27 2001
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 09:26:27 -0500
Subject: "Guadalupe"
In-Reply-To: <000901c0b60a$4ee17320$516163d1@texas.net>
Message-ID: <THU.29.MAR.2001.092627.0500.>

	Mozarabic, said to be from (seomthing like) Arabic wadi "valley" +
Mozarabic lup, lupe < Latin lupus
	Medina, of course, is Arabic for "town"
	BTW: Don't forget Austin's Colorado River
	I've also seen Spanish language maps with the Red River as "Ri/o
Rojo" but I don't know if this was the original form or just a translation
	Which begs another question:
Spanish rojo vs, colorado for "red"
	Why are some things <rojo> and other things <colorado>?
	A chile is <rojo> if it's matured to that point. But a <chile
colorado> is a specific type of chile. Which suggests that --at some
level-- rojo is for anything that happens to be "red" but colorado for
something that is "naturally red." But this isn't always the case. Any
ideas?

>        It appears, on further examination, that "Guadalupe" should be added
>to my maybe list of Spanish river names in Texas.  Perhaps "Frio" and
>"Medina" (go figure) can take its place.

>Dr. David L. White

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


From davius_sanctex at terra.es  Thu Mar 29 17:54:39 2001
From: davius_sanctex at terra.es (David Sanchez)
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 19:54:39 +0200
Subject: "Guadalupe"
Message-ID: <THU.29.MAR.2001.195439.0200.>

Origin of "guada-" in river names:

<guada->   <   **wada-    <    arabic <wadi> 'river'

In Merdional Spain almost every river was renamed in the islamic period:

Roman "Anas" > actually "Guadiana"
Roman "Betis" (?) > "Guadalquivir" (wadi al-Kbr)


From dlwhite at texas.net  Thu Mar 29 17:18:27 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 11:18:27 -0600
Subject: American River Names
Message-ID: <THU.29.MAR.2001.111827.0600.>

>>        Hydronyms are more reliable than other "nyms", but even hydronyms
>>can point in the wrong direction.  For example, most of the river names of
>> Texas, for example Trinity, Brazos, Colorado, Pedernales, Llano, San Marcos,
>> Blanco, Guadalupe, and San Antonio (not sure about Sabine, Neches, and
>> Nueces), are Spanish.

> Sabine is probably from Mexican Spanish sabino "type of pine
> tree/conifer" but possibly from French sapin "fir, spruce (or the like)"
> --it's in the heart of the piney woods. Sabino also exists as a first name
> among Mexicans, so it could be from that.
> Nueces is "nuts". If you walk down Nueces St. in Austin in the
> Fall, you'll notice peopling gathering pecans from all the trees planted in
> honor of the name
> Neches does not seem to be Spanish AFAIK--although in Tejano slang
> it means "nothing, no way!" e.g. Tejano <<No truje neches.>> for standard
> Spanish <<No traje absolutamente nada.>>

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

        Thank you; my Spanish dictionary is rather bad.
        But before someone else brings up a few points on this, I might as
well do it myself...
        The prevalence of Spanish river names might be attributed to very
low poplation density of Indians in Texas, the idea being that the Spanish
explorers and presumed namers encountered rivers more often than natives
(likely enough, actually).   This probably has something to do with it, but
in East Texas (which might as well be Alabama, in more ways than one) the
population density was, as far as I know, not any lower than in SE America
generally.  The resident Caddoes (sp?) were mound-building famers of the
usual sort.  Yet Spanish river names occur there too.  Furthermore, the
names of tribes are (almost?) all native, indicating that the Spanish were
perfectly well able to find out what the native word for some thing or group
was and apply it when appropriate.  The name "Waco" (and "Hueco"?)  for
example, is from Tonkawa, and the Tonkawas were about as marginal as tribes
got.  Yet evidently some Europeans bothered to talk to them, rather than
regarding them as non-existent.  Moving westward, my impression is that the
valley of California was rather densely populated (by Amerindian standards),
yet the same phenomenon of (largely) Spanish river names occurs there.
        So though low population density probably is a factor, I doubt that
is can be considered decisive.

Dr. David L. White


From davius_sanctex at terra.es  Thu Mar 29 17:41:40 2001
From: davius_sanctex at terra.es (David Sanchez)
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 19:41:40 +0200
Subject: Minoan is an IE language?/Sound Equivalence
Message-ID: <THU.29.MAR.2001.194140.0200.>

> It's much more probable that Linear A has presented problems simply because
> the language it was designed to write was an isolate -- not related to any
> other we know.

I think the number of "possible" isolated languge in mediterranean area is
too great. Perhaps the future would reduce such a great number of isolated L.


From sarima at friesen.net  Thu Mar 29 15:27:19 2001
From: sarima at friesen.net (Stanley Friesen)
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 07:27:19 -0800
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
In-Reply-To: <006701c0b57d$13975c40$4b2363d1@texas.net>
Message-ID: <THU.29.MAR.2001.072719.0800.>

At 04:35 PM 3/25/01 -0600, David L. White wrote:
>My point is that to speak of "plain" consonants existing in such a system is
>in a sense non-sensical, because "plain" in effect means "as in a language
>without secondary articulations",

In this context I would more likely read it as meaning "lacking overt
co-articulations".

>Such languages can, for example, produce back velars before front vowels,
>and front velars before back vowels.  The very term "plain", as applied to
>velars, woud in effect mean "tending to be backed before back vowels and
>fronted before front vowels".  In a language with secondary articulations,
>this really could not happen.  So where one velar series was "[i]-colored",
>and another was "[u]- colored", a third would almost have to be something
>like "[yeri]-colored" or "[y]-colored" (IPA value) or (in terms of F2)
>"[a]-colored",  in order to stay out of the way of the other two.

Is this the same as a backed velar? Or a non-fronted velar?
[As I would interpret "plain" in this case to be one of the above:
backed/non-fronted seems quite adequate as a contrast to palatalized to me,
amateur that I am].

>But such colorations are not, to my knowledge, known.

Backed velars do not seem all that unusual to me.

>         As above.  What is "plain" /k/ in a sequence /ki/ supposed to have
>been that would be different from palatalized /k/ in the same sequence?

Backed. Or at least not fronted/palatalized.

>Likewise what is "plain" /k/ supposed to have been in the sequence /ku/ that
>would be different from labio-velarized /k/ in the same sequence?

Lacking lip rounding during articulation.  I.e., the onset of rounding
would be delayed relative to the onset in /kwu/.  Rounding might also be
slightly stronger at onset in /kwu/ (narrower, more extreme) than in /ku/.

--------------
May the peace of God be with you.         sarima at friesen.net


From alderson+mail at panix.com  Thu Mar 29 19:46:45 2001
From: alderson+mail at panix.com (Rich Alderson)
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 14:46:45 -0500
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
In-Reply-To: <006701c0b57d$13975c40$4b2363d1@texas.net> (dlwhite@texas.net)
Message-ID: <THU.29.MAR.2001.144645.0500.>

On 25 Mar 2001, David L. White wrote:

> My point is that to speak of "plain" consonants existing in such a system is
> in a sense non-sensical, because "plain" in effect means "as in a language
> without secondary articulations", which in turn means "as in a language with
> ordinary co-articulation", but a language with secondary articulations could
> not possibly have ordinary coarticulations, since overriding ordinary
> coarticlation for phonemic effect is what languages with secondary
> articulations do.

This indicates that we have encountered a terminological whirlpool.  In the
phonological theory to which I most strongly subscribe, the term "plain" means
simply "not having secondary articulations" when used to describe a sound in a
language which has same.  It makes no reference to other languages or features
to be found therein.

> Such languages can, for example, produce back velars before front vowels,
> and front velars before back vowels.  The very term "plain", as applied to
> velars, woud in effect mean "tending to be backed before back vowels and
> fronted before front vowels".

No, it means "not possessing features which are otherwise salient in this
language."  It is perfectly natural for features to be described in the
negative.

> In a language with secondary articulations, this really could not happen.  So
> where one velar series was "[i]-colored", and another was "[u]- colored", a
> third would almost have to be something like "[yeri]-colored" or "[y]-
> colored" (IPA value) or (in terms of F2) "[a]-colored", in order to stay out
> of the way of the other two.

Why?  Why complicate your phonological life with additional entities, when the
simplest analysis is "none of the above"?  Let's leave the world of obstruents
for a moment and look at a vowel system (where <+> will be used for "barred i"
for the sake of simplicity):

	i   +   u
	e   @   o
	&   a   O

In this system, we have palatal and labial vowels, and vowels which are neither
palatal nor labial.  We do not have to describe the central vowels in terms of
a third coloration, but only as having neither coloration.

Of course, this discussion all started with, if I remember correctly, Miguel
Carrasquer Vidal's proposal of a pre-IE obstruent system in which labialization
(and palatalization?  I forget.) is a salient feature at *all* points of
articulation, as in a number of Northwest Caucasian languages.  It is much less
urgent in, for example, dentals, to worry about whether "plain" equates to an
actual coloring rather than the lack of same.

> But such colorations are not, to my knowledge, known.  So I think regardless
> of other errors, Kuiper's instinct that a 3rd quality would have to be "[a]-
> colored" rather than "plain" was fundamentally correct.  I hope all that
> makes sense.

Only if you insist on complicating your phonological theory by refusing to
allow negatives.

								Rich Alderson

P. S.  There are, of course, languages in which one or more obstruents clearly
are to be considered "[a]-coloured"; cf. the effect of proximity to a pharyngal
on short /a/ in Arabic.


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Thu Mar 29 22:25:50 2001
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language)
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 16:25:50 -0600
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
Message-ID: <THU.29.MAR.2001.162550.0600.>

Dear Stanley and IEists:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Stanley Friesen" <sarima at friesen.net>
Sent: Saturday, March 24, 2001 8:32 AM

<snip>

[PRp]
>> Or, if /i/ and /u/ are phonemic vowels, what would be the
>> zero-grade form of a Ci/u(C) syllable?

[SF]
> The same as the zero grade of a CeC syllable - CC.

<snip>

[PR]
Easily said but more difficult to illustrate with an actual credible example.

But, I am willing to learn. Do you have one?

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit ec
at ec hecc, vindgá meiði a netr allar nío, geiri vndaþr . . . a þeim
meiþi, er mangi veit, hvers hann af rótom renn." (Hávamál 138)


From dlwhite at texas.net  Thu Mar 29 16:54:24 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 10:54:24 -0600
Subject: "neirt" versus "nert"
Message-ID: <THU.29.MAR.2001.105424.0600.>

>> Confusion of spelling between the two types ("nert" for "neirt"), which
>> occasionally occurs (if I am remembering correctly), probably indicates the
>> difficulty of pronouncing palatalized /r/, which is mostly (or entirely?)
>> gone from modern Irish.

>> Dr. David L. White

> What??

> All dialects of Modern Irish and Scottish Gaelic preserve a
> distinction between palatalized and unpalatalized <r>
> (conventionally /r/ and /r'/) in all but initial position.

        I was thinking of the intitial case, and mis-remembering the rest.
        By the way, I would like to know what a lenited /n/ (or /l/ or /r/)
actually is, in terms the IPA would understand.  My guess, from various
descriptions I have seen, is that the lenited forms are neutral, the
unlenited forms palatalized or velarized, as appropriate.  (And that in the
old days when there were four sounds the unlenited forms were long.)  But it
is only a guess. Not much Irish spoken around here.

Dr. David L. White


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Thu Mar 29 23:38:59 2001
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language)
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 17:38:59 -0600
Subject: A question about Greek or Latin
Message-ID: <THU.29.MAR.2001.173859.0600.>

Dear Peter and IEists:

----- Original Message -----
From: "petegray" <petegray at btinternet.com>
Sent: Saturday, March 17, 2001 2:38 AM

>> What would you say to the alternate alternate explanation that the
>> causative formant is merely an agglutinatated verb *[h1]ey-e-

> The suggestion that it might be causes me no problem;  the assertion that it
> is so would need proof.

> I'm happy with the idea that all suffixes began life as independent
> morphemes way back in early Ur-pre-proto-pre-PIE.  I think you mean more
> than that, so we would need to find firm evidence for:
>   (a) the existence of such a verb
>   (b) the use of such a verb as a causative
>   (c) the acceptance of this explanation as better than any alternative.

> What about the "going" root Pokorny 296 *ei / *ia:  ?

[PR]

Actually, is it not pretty well-established that this formant is used in
present tenses?

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit ec
at ec hecc, vindgá meiði a netr allar nío, geiri vndaþr . . . a þeim
meiþi, er mangi veit, hvers hann af rótom renn." (Hávamál 138)


From g_sandi at hotmail.com  Fri Mar 30 07:37:10 2001
From: g_sandi at hotmail.com (Gabor Sandi)
Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 07:37:10 -0000
Subject: Munda in Early NW India
Message-ID: <FRI.30.MAR.2001.073710.0000.>

I would like to offer my support to your suggestion of a "possibility" that
a Munda substratum might have contributed to the survival of voiced
aspirates in the majority of Indian IE languages.

If you look at the non-IE languages of the Indian subcontinent, you can see
that (1) Dravidian languages lack aspirated stops altogether (unless some
have them in  Sanskrit loanwords); (2) the Tibeto-Burmese languages, if they
have aspirates at all, have only voiceless ones; and (3) in some
Austro-Asiatic (i.e. Munda) languages they have the same set of voiced and
voiceless aspirates and non-aspirates as Sanskrit and Hindi.

>From the library of Indian "tribal language" grammars I accumulated during
my stay in New Delhi, I offer the ff. concrete evidence:

Dravidian: none have aspirates. The reconstructed Proto-Dravidian phonemic
system (see T. Burrow and M. B. Emeneau (1984): "A Dravidian etymological
dictionary") lacks aspirates as well.

Tibeto-Burman: Angami, Hmar and Purki all have voiceless and voiced
unaspirated stops (b/p d/t g/k) as well as voiceless aspirates (ph th kh).
The language Mising is missing (sorry for the pun) aspirated stops.

Austro-Asiatic: Bhumij has p/b/ph/bh t/d/th/dh etc. Mundari, on the other
hand, has no aspirated stops.

So if any substratum contibuted to the continued presence of aspirates, and
in particular, of voiced aspirates, it would have to be an Austro-Asiatic
one. According to Masica (1991): "The Indo-Aryan languages", the
Austro-Asiatic languages had a much stronger presence in eastern India in
relatively recent times - during the 1st millennium AD, much of Bengal and
Orissa would still have been speaking languages belonging to this family,
for example.

The main question, however, in my opinion is the original nature of the
voiced aspirates in IE languages. When IE was introduced into the
subcontinent, it would have had to have a set of stops corresponding to the
Brugmannian set {bh dh gh gwh}, distinct from both {b d g gw} and {p t k kw}
(forgetting about the palatals {k^ etc.} for now). Some linguists do not
like to postulate this voiced aspirate set, mostly on typological grounds
(absence or rarity of the corresponding voiceless set). The question is:
what other reasonable reconstructions can we make? The main authorities on
Greek (Sturtevant and Sihler are the ones I am most familiar with) all agree
that Classical Greek phi, theta and chi represent the voiceless aspirates
/ph th kh/, so simple devoicing of voiced aspirated stops can certainly
account for them. Outside of India there is no evidence of aspiration
elsewhere, but Italic /f f h/ can certainly be derived from the changes *bh
 > *ph > *f etc. Germanic, Celtic and Balto-Slavic all show lack of
aspiration, easily explainable with the changes bh > b etc. (although
Germanic did not merge the unaspirated and aspirated voiced stops, for it
devoiced the unaspirated set first).

To resume: if there were no voiced aspirates in PIE, then what? Voiced
fricatives  (IPA beta, delta, gamma) are one possibility, but if there were
no corresponding voiceless fricatives (IPA phi, theta, chi) at the same
time, the same typological objections can be made as for {bh dh gh}. Other
suggestions, rather outlandish in my opinion, have been made, but they all
depend on postulated changes in later IE that are hard to justify (e.g. *b >
*bh). So, in the end, Occam's razor leads us to keep the PIE set {bh dh gh
gwh}.

Any comments?

Best wishes,

Gabor Sandi
g_sandi at hotmail.com

[ moderator snip ]


From epmoyer at netrax.net  Thu Mar 29 09:23:59 2001
From: epmoyer at netrax.net (Ernest P. Moyer)
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 04:23:59 -0500
Subject: Soap
Message-ID: <THU.29.MAR.2001.042359.0500.>

I have a question:

Has anyone on this list studied the works of Saul Levin, "The Indo-European and
Semitic Languages?"  And so on.

He made many astute observations.

"The phonetic and morphological resemblances of H to G(reek) or S(anskrit) make
H an aberrant Semitic language."

"Knowing all too well the fascination that pre-history holds out to us, I have
hitherto declined to draw from the correspondences between H and G and S any
genetic inferences beyond the inescapable one that such correspondences could
not have originated independently and without contact."

In speaking of the remoteness of Arabic from IE connections, he remarks:

"Arabic therefore affords little basis for a convincing comparison with the IE
languages."

And so on.

Ernest

[ moderator snip ]


From philjennings at juno.com  Fri Mar 30 22:48:56 2001
From: philjennings at juno.com (philjennings at juno.com)
Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 16:48:56 -0600
Subject: Lactose Intolerance
Message-ID: <FRI.30.MAR.2001.164856.0600.>

Thanks all for your interesting and informative responses (as my theories go
down in flames.)  The Epic of Cheese apparently goes back all the way to the
neolithic and early neolithic at that.  I will look elsewhere for reasons why
the doughty Indo-Anatolians were able to prevail against the Khirbet Kerak
folk, if indeed that's what happened.

For what it's worth I was clear and not muddled about the distinction between
total lactose tolerance, and the earlier use of milk products by the lactose
intolerant.  I did, however, naively imply that a hundred Swedes could beat up
a hundred Frenchmen, which, if they did, not everyone would attribute to
greater Swedish lactose tolerance.

Likewise, I've been careful not to claim that all the lactose-tolerant
populations of the world are related.  The great IE glory ride, if ever such it
was, was hardly all-compassing.  Renfrew parsed it into a series of smaller
glory rides, and explained some of them as due to the discovery of the nomad
life-style.  As he located the Anatolians in situ in Anatolia, he had no need
to explain their expansion.  I was trying to do so in my prior email, without
getting into theories of mere natural superiority over the Khirbet Kerak
.people.  But whatever I'm looking for, lies elsewhere.


From anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK  Thu Mar  1 14:29:55 2001
From: anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK (anthony.appleyard@umist.ac.uk)
Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2001 09:29:55 -0500
Subject: Minoan is an IE language?
Message-ID: <THU.1.MAR.2001.092955.0500.>

On Tue, 20 Feb 2001 18:08:55 -0800, Stanley Friesen <sarima at friesen.net>
wrote:

> From at least two places I have recently heard it suggested that the
> Minoan language (as written in Linear A) is an IE language, perhaps even
> related to the Anatolian branch (especially Luwian). ...

Could some of the Linear A inscriptions be different languages? Homer said
that in Crete there were many languages. It could be that for a time
some or all of pre-IE speakers, non-IE descendants of the Sea Peoples
migrants, Anatolian speakers. Semitic Phoenicians who had sailed in, and
Greeks, lived there together. Communication in much of Crete was difficult
(ignoring the modern motor roads), and the biggest possible freight load was
what can be carried by the biggest possible mule; Crete for superhighways
merely had "kalderimia", which are paved mule tracks, very liable on steep
ground to turn into flights of steps, impassible to wheels. Linear B records
go into chariots at great length, but what were they used for? Not likely
for routine war and travel within Crete. And even if I did manage to
mule-pack the chariots and lead their horses to a flat battleground such as
the Lassithi Plain, I would find it full of strongly built stone field walls
and no use for chariots. And the people in the next valley could speak
another language and hold onto it due to lack of long-range communication.


From anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK  Thu Mar  1 13:57:25 2001
From: anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK (anthony.appleyard@umist.ac.uk)
Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2001 08:57:25 -0500
Subject: Non-Indic sustrate vocabulary
Message-ID: <THU.1.MAR.2001.085725.0500.>

On Thu, 22 Feb 2001 19:35:06 -0500, Ed Sugrue <indoeuropeanling at lycos.com>
wrote:
> A quick query... does anyone know whether anyone has ever compiled a
> database, or even just a plain old list, of possible NON Indo-European
> lexical items in Sanskrit? My thought was that they could be examined with
> an eye to their possible value to efforts to decode the Indus Valley
> script. Does anyone know of anything like what I'm describing?

I found a book called "The Sanskrit Language", and it contains a long list
of Dravidian words that got into Sanskrit over time. It said that the flow
stopped at the Andhra period, as if it was not until then that Indo-Aryan
suppressed Dravidian in North India. Likely the upper castes spoke
Indo-Aryan and the lower castes spoke Dravidian for a long time.

I read once that someone found two Indus Valley Civilization gambling dices,
and on their 6 faces were pictures of objects whose names resembled the
numbers 1 2 3 4 5 6 in Dravidian.

Some Indian languags have a word "mlech" = "outcaste", from Sanskrit
"mleccha'" = "lower-class". I read that the word might originally have meant
the pre-IE people of north India. It would have been pushed down the social
scale along with the natives that it referred to, after the Sanskrit
speakers came. Compare the Mesopotamian name Meluhha, which was a realm
somewhere away to the east that may have been the Indus Valley Civilization.


From anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK  Thu Mar  1 14:14:28 2001
From: anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK (anthony.appleyard@umist.ac.uk)
Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2001 09:14:28 -0500
Subject: Non-Indic sustrate vocabulary
Message-ID: <THU.1.MAR.2001.091428.0500.>

PS: What is current belief about the Dravidian outliers Brahui and Kurukh
and Malto?
(1) Some say they are genuine surivivals.
(2) Some say that the Brahui are descended from soldiers recruited in south
India and dumped in Baluchistan, and that the Kurukh and Malto immigrated
from south India.
But is (2) derived from a proper chronicled account? Or is it derived from
tales invented by a wandering storyteller who noticed the resemblance in
language and made long stories out of it?


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Fri Mar  2 04:12:39 2001
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2001 23:12:39 EST
Subject: Goths, Naming and Ablaut
Message-ID: <THU.1.MAR.2001.231239.EST.>

In a message dated 2/24/2001 4:35:59 AM, hwhatting at hotmail.com writes:
<< I think we simply should not separate the name of the _Geats_, G?tland,
etc., which occur in the area the Goths claimed as their ancestral homelands,
from the other attested forms.>>

To address this in a little more detail:
It should be remembered that the evidence that the Goths looked to
Scandinavia as their homeland appears after Ulfila and is connected with
Roman historians writing for neo-Gothic rulers who were well aware of classic
histories and conscious of a need to find their place in them.  Theodoric
honors the Roman Cassiodorus, upon whose lost work Jordanes' was based, for
establishing the genealogy of his family and write letters to and chides the
'Aesti' (Baltic Prus?) for not knowing Tacitus.  There is even a Scandinavia
king in exile at Theodoric's court who might have encouraged the idea of a
common heritage for his own reasons - this has occurred to commentators.  And
if we were to buy Jordanes whole cloth, we would also buy the fact that the
Goths were the Getae of classic traditions and the Huns were the result of
inter-species cross-breeding.

The original evidence of a Scandinavian in archaeology came with Kossina who
identified six elements that he called Goth-Gepidic and traced to
Scandinavia.  Since that time, it appears pretty clearly that five of the six
are clearly continental in origin.  (Peter Heather in "The Goths" describes
this in detail, though he does not mention that a number of the practices are
associated with LaTene and are strongly Danubian. Heather relies on the
Wielbark - Chernyakhov connection which appears to show a cultural spread
from Poland into the Ukraine.  The relationship between these events are
however complex and not necessarily supportive of the origin theory.  Polish
archaeologist have found a portion of Wielbark burials that appears to be
Scandinavian in the one element that remains from Kossina - stone rings.  But
there might be a catch here too, because stone rings have also been
identified with the Bastarnae, possibly Germanic speaking tribes who appear
just north of the Danube by 200BC.  Even if Wielbark - Chernyakhov represent
a Gothic migration rather than a spread of belief and technology, the
archaeological evidence of a Scandinavian origin is not really there.)

<<the _Geats_, G?tland, etc., which occur in the area the Goths claimed as
their ancestral homelands, from the other attested forms.  Here we have
*Gauta- (don't remember if this form is attested), while in other sources we
have _Guto:n-_.>>

And the question is whether the connection is folk etymology or more
specifically noble etymology.   (With regard for example to the city,
Gothenburg, it was named in the 17th Century, Go:teborg, in Swedish, for the
"Go:ta alv", the river.  Not the Goths.)  With regard to the <Gothi> who
appear on the Danube at the beginning of the 3d century AD, one question is
whether there is any evidence that might suggest that the connection was made
as a political afterthought.

<<To add to the confusion, the Polish place names _Gdan'sk_, _Gdynia_ (on the
shore of the Baltic sea) are normally etymologised as containing an element
*gud- referring to the Goths. (The /d/ might be due to an assimilation of /t/
to the initial /g/ after the dropping of the back yer < /u/ - but the Slavic
languages normally prefer regressive asimilation.)>>

It appears this has been recently discussed on the cybalist, the archives are
on the web.  There one finds an incredible list of <gud-> place names, along
with some fair indications that the form may be indigenous to either Slavic
or Lithuanian (with meanings like marsh, meadow, thicket - all meaning that
the basic <cheo:> form in Greek for example can easily be extrapolated to
take depending on context.  (e.g., a marsh is flooded, a meadow can be
periodically.)

The problem with Gdansk and Gdynia were also addressed in those archives.  As
you also point out, <regressive assimilation of obstruents is the norm. We
would expect *g(=U)t- to yield *kt-.>  The problem presented by these place
names has not been fully appreciated as yet I think.  Here are potentially a
large number of place names of apparently non-Germanic origin that are
located in the best "homeland" that archaeology can find for the prehistoric
<Gothi>.  Complicated even more by the existence of a people in the first
historical works in the east called the Chuds, who do not even appear to be
IE speakers.

<<Normally, in Gmc. concretising n-stem Substantives to o-stem adjectives are
formed without change of ablaut degree. So we may have an irregular formation
here, or maybe both the adjective *gauta- and the ethnonym *Guto:n- go back
to an ablauting root noun. All of this is speculative, and doesn't tell us
anything on the meaning of the name _Goth_. >>

But the other possibility is that the relationship between these forms is not
from a common ablauting root noun, but a reflection instead of borrowing
between IE languages where the variation is due to the sound shifts reflected
in those different languages.  And although we may not pinpoint the meaning
of the name, we may be able to entertain new possibilities that give us a
very different pictures of historically what may have happened.  And perhaps
a deeper understanding of the words themselves in context.

Regards,
Steve Long


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sat Mar  3 02:41:54 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2001 20:41:54 -0600
Subject: Goths, Naming and Ablaut
Message-ID: <FRI.2.MAR.2001.204154.0600.>

> Yes, my copy of Wright's (O. L. Sayce, ed., OUP 1954) says that Gothic
> <giutan> is a "class 5" strong verb

        ?!?  It is a class II strong verb.  See section 302, p. 142.

> With regard to OE, you write, "_gutans_ , which would correspond to the OE
> form."  I have for OE, <ge:otan (inf), ge:at (p sing), guton (p plu), goten
> (pp)>.  (And for OHG, <gioz:an>.)  If we have the ablaut set PIE *eu-ou-u

> Gothic iu-au-u, then it is at least possible that the name Goth never took
> the form <Gutan>.

        I do not follow.

> Perhaps it was a name given by other Germanic speakers and therefore had the
> -o- from the start -- e.g., OE, <Gotan> 'Goth', <goten> pp 'poured'.

        Nothing in Germanic has /o/ "from the start".  The distinction
between /o/ and /a/ was lost in the development of early Germanic and was
only recreated with the development of /aa/ from /anx/, if I am remembering
correctly.  /o/ in later past participles is the result of
vowel-harmony--like lowering before a following low vowel.  The OE word is
almost certainly from Latin.

> Once again we have no good reason to be sure Goth was first a
> self-name (cf., "Germans", "Apaches", "Basques").

        I agree.  There are, as I see it, three theoretically possible
sources of the difference between Latin /o/ and Greek /u/.

1)  The Vulgar Latin change of short /u/ to /o/.
2)  A possible Gothic change of /au/ to /o/.
3)  Latin borrowing from other Germanic with /o/, Greek borrowing
from Gothic, with /u/ for other Germanic /o/.

The evidence of attestation may well exclude one or more of these from
serious consideration.

Dr. David L. White


From hwhatting at hotmail.com  Mon Mar  5 09:36:41 2001
From: hwhatting at hotmail.com (Hans-Werner Hatting)
Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2001 10:36:41 +0100
Subject: Goths, Naming and Ablaut
Message-ID: <MON.5.MAR.2001.103641.0100.>

On Sun, 25 Feb 2001 02:26:26 EST Steve Long wrote:

>Actually, I believe these late inscriptions are from the Visigoths in Spain
>and are cited by Peter Heather as examples of Goths referring to themselves
>because the inscriptions also contain other Germanic names and words and were
>apparently authored or "voiced" by Visigothic leaders.  I will find out and
>let you know.

Thank you, this will be very interesting. What I wanted to say is that, if
these are Latin inscriptions, the (Visi)goths might have used the name used
for them in Latin, regardless of whether they themselves use this name for
themselves.
BTW, what about the attestation of the names Visigoths and Ostrogoths? They
certainly contain the same element -goth-, and maybe their attestation might
shed some light on the question discussed?

>Yes, my copy of Wright's (O. L. Sayce, ed., OUP 1954) says that Gothic
><giutan> is a "class 5" strong verb but plainly it is an -iu- form, whatever
>class 5 might mean.  It seems as you say pp <gutans> would be expected from
><giutan>.

Yes, exactly.

>With regard to OE, you write, "_gutans_ , which would correspond to the OE
>form."  I have for OE, <ge:otan (inf), ge:at (p sing), guton (p plu), goten
>(pp)>.  (And for OHG, <gioz:an>.)  If we have the ablaut set PIE *eu-ou-u >
>Gothic iu-au-u, then it is at least possible that the name Goth never took the
>form <Gutan>.  Perhaps it was a name given by other Germanic speakers and
>therefore had the -o- from the start -- e.g., OE, <Gotan> 'Goth', <goten> pp
>'poured'.

But see my recent posting and David White's comments to it for another
source of the /o/ in _Gothi_. And we have /u/ attested, as shown by the
quotes in your "timeline" post (to which I'll answer separately).

>Once again we have no good reason to be sure Goth was first a
>self-name (cf., "Germans", "Apaches", "Basques").  And I believe we have no
>record of the Goths ever using the form "Gut-".   (With the possible
>exception of <gudekunds> which apparently meant high-born and could have
>originally referred to Gothic aristocracy.)

Where is that form attested? The stem vowel /e/ in _gude-_ looks very
strange to me, I would expect /a/, /i/, or /u/.

>That points I think to another question.  If "Goth" had an original meaning in
>an IE language, why would that word be used exclusively to refer to the Goths?
>Weren't there other places where water, river or people "poured" forth, where
>toponym or fecundity could lend its name to other people or places?  And even
>if 'Goth' did not derive from something like the name of a river or such, why
>would we expect that its occurrence would only refer to a particular people
>and nothing else?  And even if "Goth" represents some form of non-IE Germanic,
>wouldn't we expect that its use would not be limited to one particular sense
>and that being a particular tribe of people?

Normally, names are given to *distinguish* people (or, for that matter,
ethnic groups). So one would not expect various ethnic groups to be given
the same name, except if
(1) they are indistiguishable to the name-giver (as, e.g., the Romans used
to mix up the Germanic people with the Celts for quite a long time);
(2) they inherit the area where the other group earlier lived (as in German
the term "Welsch", which comes from the Celtic ethnonym "Volcae", became
later to denote the Romance people which replaced the Celts as the western
and southern neighbours of the Germans);
(3) They are adopted by another group for various reasons (as the Byzantine
Greeks used to refer to themselves as "Rhomaioi = Romans";
(4) Coincidence, as with the various people called "Iberi" in antiquity (no,
no discussion please on that one! :-) ).

As the Geats were living in the area where the Goths are supposed to come
from, they might be descendants of those Goths who did not cross the Baltic,
or they might be (case 2) Northern Germanic tribes having inherited the name
together with the area, or (if this is an other-name) they might be another
Gmc. tribe having lived alongside the Goths who received the same name (1).
In any case, the names must be connected - I don't see coincidence as an
option here.

>Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote earlier I think that the Goths should be
>distinguished from the Scandinavian Gauts and the Getae of the Classic
>Greeks.  But can the name itself be separated from any and all words that
>have a similar form?  Isn't there something or someone else that derived a
>name from the same original source word?

>The examples I gave in past posts from Greek of very similar words (all of
>them seemingly coming from the same "pour" or "poured" concept) might suggest
>that various forms of "Goth" might have been a common thing for various
>peoples back then to call themselves or be called by others.  At least some
>(e.g., <chuton>) might suggest that "Goth" could even have started as a Greek
>word.

I think the only connection is that some of the Greek words cited by you go
back to the same PIE root. But as long as we don't have a good etymology for
"Goth", all bets are on.

Best regards,
Hans-Werner Hatting


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Fri Mar  2 23:51:17 2001
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2001 18:51:17 EST
Subject: "Gothi" (timeline)
Message-ID: <FRI.2.MAR.2001.185117.EST.>

In a message dated 3/2/01 4:39:42 PM Mountain Standard Time, X99Lynx at aol.com
writes:

> Throughout this time, <Gothi> and <Getae> are often taken by contemporaries
> to be alternative versions of the same name for the same people, although
> Getae is a much older form used by Herodotus, Strabo and others to refer to
> peoples north of the eastern Danube taken to be Thracian or Dacian or even
> Scythian at different times.  The Goths themselves are also often referred
> to as Scythians, according to Heather.

-- you have to take into account the difference between writers with actual
knowledge of the transfrontier peoples, and those working 'from the book', to
whom the older source invariably takes precedence over the newer, common
sense be damned.

And the incredible unwillingness of intellectuals in Late Antiquity to admit
that anything had changed since the Classical period, plus their equally
incredible taste for florid anachronism in rhetoric.  Digging out and using,
however inappropriately, ancient terminology was a main way of 'scoring
points' off rivals.

The general assumption of writers writing for other scholars in those times
was that obscurity was a mark of high style, and that stylistic flourishes
were almost infinitely more important than factual accuracy.  The whole
emphasis of their educational system encouraged this outlook.

There's a revealing story about Marcus Aurelius and his staff, in the middle
of a campaign against the Allemanni, taking time off to argue over the form
of an obscure verb in Homer... and the writer thought this was an entirely
praiseworthy episode, worthy of recording for posterity.

And that was before the attitude got completely out of control, in the 4th
and 5th centuries.


From hwhatting at hotmail.com  Mon Mar  5 10:39:40 2001
From: hwhatting at hotmail.com (Hans-Werner Hatting)
Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2001 11:39:40 +0100
Subject: "Gothi" (timeline)
Message-ID: <MON.5.MAR.2001.113940.0100.>

On Sat, 24 Feb 2001 03:03:43 EST steve Long posted a concise recapitulation
of the attestation of the "Goth" name. Here some comments:

>The word <Gothi>, with that spelling, does not appear in Latin until after
>Tacitus, who uses <Gotones> if in fact he was referring to the same word that
>later emerges.  Ptolemy uses <Gythones> to refer to a "minor" tribe located
>east of the Vistula in the 2d century AD.

So we have both /u/ and /o/ attested in the root part of the n-stem. With
Tacitus, the /o/ instead of a presumed Gothic /u/ may be due to his sources
(probably West Gmc.).

>Inscriptions from the very early 3d century AD from a legion post in Arabia,
>written in Greek, use <<gouththa>> and in the late 3 century AD, a Sassinid
>Greek inscription used <<gouththton>> ("...tes romaion arches gouththton te
>kai germanon ethnon.")

While "Gothi" can go back to *Gauta-, it is hard to argue the same for
"gouththa" and "gouththon ... ethnon". Either we have conflation of *guto:n-
and *gauta-, or Greek and Latin "Goth-" must go back to *gut-, so we have a
third element.

BTW, what is "gouththa" supposed to be? Acc. Sg. of a Consonant stem? Nom.
or Acc. pl. of a neuter o-stem?

>Throughout this time, <Gothi> and <Getae> are often taken by contemporaries
>to be alternative versions of the same name for the same people, although
>Getae is a much older form used by Herodotus, Strabo and others to refer to
>peoples north of the eastern Danube taken to be Thracian or Dacian or even
>Scythian at different times.  The Goths themselves are also often referred
>to as Scythians, according to Heather.

The latter is a good case for summary nameing - "Scythian" was a default
name for every ethnic group to the North-East of the Mediterranean, as
"Celt" was for everybody in the North-West. The case with "Getae" is a
little different - the Goths suddenly popped up in the area where the Getae
were living, had a similar - sounding name, so people mixed them up. This
use of "Getae" for the Goths must have been quite far-spread and popular, as
Iordanes - AFAIK, himself a Goth - uses this designation for his own people
in his "Historia Getarum".

Another point - it seems that the variant with the n-stem
("gu/oton-")belongs to the older sources, when the Goths were just a faraway
tribe, known only from indirect (other Gmc?) sources. Later, when the
contact becomes close (and violent), we find the stem "guta- / gauta-" >
"Gothi". So maybe this indicates that "Goth" (in the form "guta- / gauta-")
was a self-name, and "gu/oton-" was the form used by other Gmc. tribes?

Best regards,
Hans-Werner Hatting


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Fri Mar  2 07:05:12 2001
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2001 02:05:12 EST
Subject: Goths and Religious Practices
Message-ID: <FRI.2.MAR.2001.020512.EST.>

In a message dated 2/24/2001 4:35:59 AM, hwhatting at hotmail.com writes:
<< So might it be possible that Gmc. */au/ had already become /o:/ in
Ulfila's time, and that Latin _Gothi_ represents *_Gauta- _? >>

I gave some examples earlier of how we might be able to see some "Goth"-type
words in Greek, that might match the meanings sometimes conjectured for the
origin of the Goth name.  The rich variations in Greek can suggest a number
of fairly plausible connections with the early Goths as we understand them.
But Greek is not the only source to look to.

For example, the idea that perhaps "Goth" might refer to a religious practice
(e.g., Baptist) doesn't only jive with a Greek word like <choe:> (n.,
libation) but also with such examples as Sanskrit, <juho:ti>, pour
sacrificial libations, which has been given as cognate with Gothic <giotan>.
I have not looked into Celtic or IIr, and perhaps there are possibility there.

What is interesting however in Greek is that it does supply the -o- / -u-
combination itself across all the variations ranging from <choe:> to passive
forms of the verb <cheo:> that include <chuto> (amphi de hoi thanatos chuto-
The Iliad 13.544).

There is not much to tell us that the Goths were libation-pourers.  But the
pour concept is so broad in Greek that it can be connected with other
practices that also can be fairly associated with the Goths.

For example, <chutos>, poured, also refers to an early practice associated
with "Gothic" remains, the piling on of dirt or large stone in burials.  In
Homer, <chute gaia> is a mound of earth, "especially a sepulchral mound."
Substantively, <chutos> may often mean a mound, bank or dyke.  The inhumation
burial mound (versus cremation) distinguishes apparent early Gothic sites
from other Germanic and certain other cultures in the area. (Cf. Lewis &
Short citing <gounte:> (Lydian word) and <goutarion> as "tomb".)

In any case, this is an important other meaning for the pour word in either
language that may have been overlooked. ("thanonti chut?n epi gaian echeuan",
the Odyssey, 3.258.)

Strikingly, the burning of sacrifices yields words that share the /au/ of
*Gaut-.  E.g., Gr,  <kautos>or <kaustos> burnt-offering for the dead ("so
kauton", Hsch.); whole burnt-offering, to be burnt as a sacrifice;
<hiero-kaute?>, sacrifice as a burnt-offering.  Could the "Goth" name have
referred to the retained practice of sacrificing animals, somewhat abandoned
by Greeks and others in the area before 200AD.  Cf., Gothic, <sa:uths>,
sacrifice, burnt-offering - perhaps borrowed from satemizing co-religious in
the Ukraine.

Also, something that distinguishes burials that are thought to be Gothic from
others near the Danube is the large amount of metalworks, especially the
fibulae.  Dobhanov mentions "plenty of iron" as distinguishing "Gothic"
burials.  (Large numbers of "Gothic" graves have been found, settlements are
relatively rare.)

There are several variations of the "pour" words in Greek that refer to
metal-working, including such forms as <chutos>, cast, melted, fused, welded;
and <kausis>, smelting.  But that is for another post.

Regards,
Steve Long


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Fri Mar  2 15:59:01 2001
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2001 10:59:01 EST
Subject: Gothic Holy Men
Message-ID: <FRI.2.MAR.2001.105901.EST.>

In a message dated 2/24/2001 4:10:43 AM, dlwhite at texas.net writes:
<< No, it would be /gutan-/, from earlier /gotan-/, before the
characteristically Gothic change of /o/ to /u/. >>

There is another variation of the "pour" concept in Greek that yields
something that might be related.  Although the story below from Jordanes is
apparently considered a mere association with the Getae, it may be relevant
that this tradition of wailing holy men facing an army is also associated
with other Germans and Celts (e.g., Agricola faces such a similar
demonstration on the isle of Mona [Anglsey].)  (Also, a son of a later
Macedonian Phillip will deal with the Bastarnae, who may have been a
Germanic-speaking people from just north of the Danube.  He may have taken a
Bastarnae wife and did make an alliance with them (with an eye to invading
Rome) and had expansionist tendencies.)

Jordanes writes:
"Then Philip, the father of Alexander the Great, made alliance with the Goths
and took to wife Medopa, the daughter of King Gudila, so that he might render
the kingdom of Macedon more secure by the help of this marriage. It was at
this time, as the historian Dio relates, that Philip, suffering from need of
money, determined to lead out his forces and sack Odessus, a city of Moesia,
which was then subject to the Goths by reason of the neighboring city of Tomi.

"Thereupon those priests of the Goths that are called the Holy Men suddenly
opened the gates of Odessus and came forth to meet them. They bore harps and
were clad in snowy robes, and chanted in suppliant strains to the gods of
their fathers that they might be propitious and repel the Macedonians. When
the Macedonians saw them coming with such confidence to meet them, they were
astonished and, so to speak, the armed were terrified by the unarmed."

Whenever we meet the Goths outside of battle, there are always strong
religious overtones and issues, even down to Arianism and the burial rites
attributed to them.  The broader Germanic tradition of priest as
battle-chanters and rune-writers and Odin as magician may also come to mind.

In this connection there is a string of possible "pour" words (in the sense
of sound pouring out) in Greek that are unique in their meaning:

<goe:s, goe:tos>, sorcerer, wizard,. juggler ("magos kai goe:tos")

<goe:te:s, goe:tou>, wailer

<goos>, weeping, wailing

<goe:teuo:>, bewitch, beguile (in Plato)

<goe:tikos> skilled in witchcraft, juggling

<goe:tis> bewitching, AP12.192 (Strat.). ("goe:tos (sic) is prob.f.l.for
foreg.in PHib.52.18 (iii B. C.) - L&S)

<goe:teia>, witchcraft, jugglery, (in a milder sense) finesse, the magic [of
Nature]

<goe:teuma>, spell, charm

<goe:teusis>, sorcery

<goe:teutikos> = <goe:tikos>

<goe:teutria>, sorceress; (pass), fascinate; (abs), play the wizard

Cf., Gr., <ko:kutos>, shrieking, wailing; <mageutikos>, magic (Plato); of
persons, addicted to magic

Cf., Gothic: <ga:uno:thus> mourning, lamentation; <gudja> priest; (Old
Norse), <godr>

Regards,
Steve Long


From philjennings at juno.com  Mon Mar  5 22:20:54 2001
From: philjennings at juno.com (philjennings at juno.com)
Date: Mon, 5 Mar 2001 16:20:54 -0600
Subject: Arzawa = Razawa?
Message-ID: <MON.5.MAR.2001.162054.0600.>

My Hittite glossary lists no words beginning in the letter R.  This could
be because

Hittite has no words beginning in R.
Hittite scribes used the AR-cuneiform syllable in an ad hoc way, to
signify AR and RA.
Hittites used initial R as a vowel.  Their ears did not distinguish AR
from RA.

Why this matters is, that the nation/confederation of ARzawa, defeated by
the Hittites a few generations before the fall of Troy, might be RAzawa,
parsed as Raza-wa, homeland of Raza.

The Etruscan name for themselves was Rasna or earlier Rasenna, parsed
Rase-na or Rasen-na.

The simple step of identifying Raza with Rase gives the Etruscans a
"Lydian" homeland.

Note that the Hittite defeat of Razawa/Arzawa could have set refugees in
motion well before the fall of Troy.

The Razawa hypothesis becomes less edifying if the Etruscans entered
pre-history with an initial-T version of their name, which was later
truncated.  For this reason, I hope this isn't the case.  I propose that
knowledge of the Etruscans was mediated to the greater world through a
non-Etruscan group of languages that used a Ta, Ter, or Ty prefix to
indicate "those who speak."  The Indo-Anatolian languages have "ta" as
"talk" or "speech."  Early Anatolians may have habitually referred to
those who spoke strange dialects as "Ta-Rasenna-(pl)", "Ter-Mil-(pl)",
"Tar-Iusa-(pl)", and so forth.  "Ta-Rasenna-(pl)" then became "Tyrsennoi"
in Greek.

Comments?


From dlwhite at texas.net  Fri Mar  2 22:04:09 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2001 16:04:09 -0600
Subject: *gwh in Gmc.
Message-ID: <FRI.2.MAR.2001.160409.0600.>

> Is there labialisation of the nasal in French words like moi?  I seem to
> hear it there sometimes - but not in Italian pur.   Or am I off-beam?

        As far as I know, there is no reason not to take "moi" as /mwa/,
just as "roi" is /rwa/.   That is not labialization.
        According to my understanding, phonetic labialization of labials
also occurs as the realization of phonemic velarization.  Thus in both Irish
and Russian velarized /m/ at the beginning of the word for 'we' can strike
English ears as having /mw/.  This just happens to be a convenient way of
making the sort of noise required, if the lips are already in about the
right place, and is not phonemic labialization of labials, contrasting with
phonemic velarization.

Dr. David L. White


From petegray at btinternet.com  Sat Mar  3 16:33:18 2001
From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray)
Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2001 16:33:18 -0000
Subject: *gwh in Gmc.
Message-ID: <SAT.3.MAR.2001.163318.0000.>

>but not in Italian pur.

When that strange word left my machine it was the common Italian word
puo-grave accent.  I had expected it to survive the ethers but it didn't -
sorry.

Peter

[ Moderator's comment:
  Accented characters are not part of 7-bit ASCII, which this system enforces.
  --rma ]


From mcv at wxs.nl  Tue Mar  6 00:00:12 2001
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2001 01:00:12 +0100
Subject: *gwh in Gmc.
In-Reply-To: <009801c09f0c$eab183e0$27fa7ad5@xpoxkjlf>
Message-ID: <TUE.6.MAR.2001.010012.0100.>

On Sun, 25 Feb 2001 09:07:23 -0000, "petegray"
<petegray at btinternet.com> wrote:

>>labialization of .. consonants, ..whose primary place of articulation is
>> labial.

>Is there labialisation of the nasal in French words like moi?  I seem to
>hear it there sometimes - but not in Italian pur.   Or am I off-beam?

French labializes (and palatalizes!) a lot more than Italian or
Spanish do (but [esp. Brazilian] Portuguese is like French in this
respect).  But not at the phonological level.

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


From dlwhite at texas.net  Fri Mar  2 22:55:20 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2001 16:55:20 -0600
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
Message-ID: <FRI.2.MAR.2001.165520.0600.>

> Campbell's "Compendium of the World's Languages" (a far from perfect
> book, but it's what I have here at hand), gives palatalized *and*
> labialized consonants for the very first language decribed in it:
> Abkhazian.  Labialization together with palatalization occurs in
> North-West-Caucasian in general, together with a very poor vowel
> inventory (/@/ vs. /a/).  Here too, *i and *u yielded *y@ and *w@,
> while *a > *@ (and presumably *i: > *ya, *u: > *wa, *a: > *a).
> Something similar is assumed for Proto-(North-)Afro-Asiatic.

        Fair enough, but what we need is a THREE-way contrast of
palatalization, labio-velarization, and whatever "[a]-quality" would be
called, probably "uvularization", a problem being that no such thing as
uvularization (as far as I know) occurs.  Velarization alone produces
something that would more accurately be called "[o]-quality" (perceptually),
and not surprisingly is more than a little difficult to keep distinct from
"[u]-quality", given the very brief window allowed before any vocalic sounds
would begin to be perceived as moraic "true" vowels, or as semi-vowels.
        Given the predictability (if my understanding of my source is
correct) of [u]-quality spellings in Old Irish, their value for establishing
contrast is limited, predictability and contrast being two things that do
not go well together.  But though suspicious, I am (I hope) open-minded:  is
there any unequivocally good evidence for a three way contrast of secondary
articulations in Old Irish, or Tocharian?  Predictable spellings don't
(necessarily) cut it.

Dr. David L. White


From dlwhite at texas.net  Fri Mar  2 23:42:05 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2001 17:42:05 -0600
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
Message-ID: <FRI.2.MAR.2001.174205.0600.>

> A way to reformulate what I've said about a three-way contrast in
> pre-PIE consonants that does not involve secondary articulations,
> multiplication of the consonant inventory, or typological objections,
> would be to focus on what became of the vowels.  So, instead of
> reconstructing, say, three nasals **n (>*n, *-r), **n^ (>*n ~ *i) and
> **nw (> *n ~ *m ~ *u), one would simply reconstruct **na, **ni and
> **nu.  When the vowels disappeared (when unstressed), or merged (when
> stressed), there may well have been a brief and unstable period where
> the three-way contrast was transferred, in the shape of secondary
> articulations, to the consonants, leading to a separate labio-velar
> series in PIE, and to certain transformations of or variations in the
> other consonants (e.g. *n ~ *i, *n ~ *m, *l ~ *i, *t ~ s, *t ~ *i, *p
> ~ *kw, *m ~ *u).

        Well, getting that off the ground would take a lot of work.
        But it should be noted that labialized velars are dramatically more
common than labialized non-velars, in languages of the world generally.  All
this seems to be a lot of trouble to go to just to 1) wind up with a
garden-variety labio-velar series, and 2) avoid having to posit some dialect
mixture in Balto-Slavic.  Labio-velars and dialect mixture are fairly
well-known things after all.
        But granted that the existence of three series of velars in PIE has
supposedly recently been proven on the evidence of some things (which I
forget) in (non-Hittite) Anatolian, are the facts of Balto-Slavic such a
problem after all?  Is it true that even with three series (palatal, velar,
and labio-velar) we must still posit a troubling degree of dialect mixture?

Dr. David L. White


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Sat Mar  3 00:41:47 2001
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language)
Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2001 18:41:47 -0600
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
Message-ID: <FRI.2.MAR.2001.184147.0600.>

Dear Miguel and IEists:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Miguel Carrasquer Vidal" <mcv at wxs.nl>
Sent: Saturday, February 24, 2001 6:38 AM

> On Tue, 20 Feb 2001 22:44:14 -0600, "David L. White"
> <dlwhite at texas.net> wrote:

>> I don't know about Tocharian (the only source available to me here
>> speaks of a two-way contrast), but for Old Irish the idea that there was a
>> three-way contrast has certainly been disputed, notably by Green.  Green
>> notes that such a system is not attested (as far as I know this is true)
>> among living languages

> Campbell's "Compendium of the World's Languages" (a far from perfect
> book, but it's what I have here at hand), gives palatalized *and*
> labialized consonants for the very first language decribed in it:
> Abkhazian.  Labialization together with palatalization occurs in
> North-West-Caucasian in general, together with a very poor vowel
> inventory (/@/ vs. /a/).  Here too, *i and *u yielded *y@ and *w@,
> while *a > *@ (and presumably *i: > *ya, *u: > *wa, *a: > *a).
> Something similar is assumed for Proto-(North-)Afro-Asiatic.

[PR]
Some may want to look at:

Kuipers,Aert H. 1960. Phoneme and Morpheme in Kabardian (Eastern Adyghe). Janua
Linguarum. Studiae Nicolai van Wijk Dedicata. Nr. VIII., ed. by Cornelis H. van
Schooneveld.  's-Gravenhage: Mouton & Co.

He maintained that Kabardian had only one vowel, for which he was severely
criticized.

Also, John Colarusso's comments may be of interest:

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/comment-KabardianMonovocalism.htm

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit ec
at ec hecc, vindg? mei?i a netr allar n?o, geiri vnda?r . . . a ?eim
mei?i, er mangi veit, hvers hann af r?tom renn." (H?vam?l 138)


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Sat Mar  3 00:45:59 2001
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2001 19:45:59 EST
Subject: Minoan is an IE language?
Message-ID: <FRI.2.MAR.2001.194559.EST.>

In a message dated 3/2/01 5:40:22 PM Mountain Standard Time,
anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK writes:

> . Linear B records go into chariots at great length, but what were they used
> for? Not likely for routine war and travel within Crete.

-- actually, they're very clearly military in purpose; they're associated
with lists of spears, bows, armor, etc.

And horses/chariots were _very expensive_ in terms of Bronze Age economies;
it's exceedingly unlikely that that many were kept around just for show.
Horses were for war.

You can't use a chariot in steep, mountainous country; but then, steep
mountainous country is generally very thinly populated.  Even more so then,
before the widespread deforestation of upland Greece and the development of
advanced transhumant pasture systems.

Classical-era hoplite heavy infantry are also pretty well useless in
broken, uneven country, but remained the dominant military arm for
centuries.

That's because they were extremely useful in the areas most people lived --
on the small percentage of the landscape that was flat, open, arable land.
Control of such land was what war was _about_; the mountains were just
obstacles between the important, flat, places.


From davius_sanctex at terra.es  Sat Mar  3 01:12:07 2001
From: davius_sanctex at terra.es (David Sanchez)
Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2001 02:12:07 +0100
Subject: Minoan is an IE language?
Message-ID: <SAT.3.MAR.2001.021207.0100.>

> Could some of the Linear A inscriptions be different languages?

A mathematical simple proof can answe the question.
If one wish to know if two text are written in teh same language
only it is necessary count the number of symbols in each text and
make a simple statistical chi-2 test to obtain the answer!!!
( All, all text in a concrete languages present a very similar phonemic
ocurrences. The same is true for non phonemic inscriptions).

david sanchez molina
(Universitat Polithcnica de Catalunya)
david.sanchez-molina at upc.es


From epmoyer at netrax.net  Sat Mar  3 08:06:20 2001
From: epmoyer at netrax.net (Ernest P. Moyer)
Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2001 03:06:20 -0500
Subject: Minoan is an IE language?
Message-ID: <SAT.3.MAR.2001.030620.0500.>

Anthony:

Thanks for your comments.

Now we are making some sense of this linguistic muddle in the Mediterranean.

I have a neighbor who came from Crete as a young man.  Several years ago he
returned to visit his relatives, and was impressed by the very difficult task
of reaching them in the mountainous terrain.  He forgot what it was like.

We tend to rigidly classify languages, when the rigidity is only in our minds.

Ernest

"anthony.appleyard at umist.ac.uk" wrote:

[ moderator snip ]

> Could some of the Linear A inscriptions be different languages? Homer said
> that in Crete there were many languages. It could be that for a time
> some or all of pre-IE speakers, non-IE descendants of the Sea Peoples
> migrants, Anatolian speakers. Semitic Phoenicians who had sailed in, and
> Greeks, lived there together. Communication in much of Crete was difficult
> (ignoring the modern motor roads), and the biggest possible freight load was
> what can be carried by the biggest possible mule; Crete for superhighways
> merely had "kalderimia", which are paved mule tracks, very liable on steep
> ground to turn into flights of steps, impassible to wheels. Linear B records
> go into chariots at great length, but what were they used for? Not likely
> for routine war and travel within Crete. And even if I did manage to
> mule-pack the chariots and lead their horses to a flat battleground such as
> the Lassithi Plain, I would find it full of strongly built stone field walls
> and no use for chariots. And the people in the next valley could speak
> another language and hold onto it due to lack of long-range communication.


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Sat Mar  3 01:43:28 2001
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language)
Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2001 19:43:28 -0600
Subject: A question about Greek or Latin
Message-ID: <FRI.2.MAR.2001.194328.0600.>

Dear Xavier and IEists:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Xavier Delamarre" <xavier.delamarre at free.fr>
Sent: Saturday, February 24, 2001 11:30 AM

<snip>

The verbal causative-iterative suffixe has in PIE the form -?yo-/-e,
added to the root in the o grade (giving a: in Sanskrit after Lex
Bartholomae) : *w?rto: / *wort?yo: ; *men(o:) / *mon?yo: ; *sed(o:) /
*sod?yo: etc.

[PR]

What would you say to the alternate explanation that the causative formant is
*-ye, and that its addition shifted the stress-accent one syllable to the
right, preserving (or re-instating) an otherwise lost final vowel of the root?

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit ec
at ec hecc, vindg? mei?i a netr allar n?o, geiri vnda?r . . . a ?eim
mei?i, er mangi veit, hvers hann af r?tom renn." (H?vam?l 138)


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Sat Mar  3 06:25:21 2001
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2001 01:25:21 EST
Subject: Non-Indic sustrate vocabulary
Message-ID: <SAT.3.MAR.2001.012521.EST.>

The basic problem is that we just don't have enough writing in the Indus
Valley script to be able to being to understand it.  Probably because most of
their writing was on some perishable material -- ink on palm leaves, at a
guess.  Until and unless someone comes up with a store of fortuitously
preserved material, equivalent to the Vindolandia wooden tablets, it's all
wheel-spinning.

It's a pity they didn't use clay, like the Mesopotamians.


From connolly at memphis.edu  Sat Mar  3 07:07:30 2001
From: connolly at memphis.edu (Leo A. Connolly)
Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2001 01:07:30 -0600
Subject: "whose"
Message-ID: <SAT.3.MAR.2001.010730.0600.>

"David L. White" wrote:

>> Not that it matters here, but wasn't the OE genitive form _hw?s_
>> (_hwaes_, if your machine can't handle the digraph), which points to PIE
>> _o_ rather than _e_?

>> Leo Connolly

>         Yes, the OE form is "hwaes", but I was (over-)generalizing to the
> rest of Germanic, where /e/ seems to have been the rule.  The usual view is
> that OE /ae/ got there simply by a difference of opinion about whether to
> use /o/ or /e/ in IE.

Certainly possible, since other genitives show both vowels.

> Another possibility that occurs to me is that there
> might have been a change of unstressed /e/ after /w/ (voiced or voiceless)
> to /ae/, but I do not know if this checks.

I don't think so.  Why would it have been unstressed in an interrogative
like that?


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Sat Mar  3 15:41:49 2001
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2001 10:41:49 -0500
Subject: la leche
In-Reply-To: <jpaf9t824f7qvv4curpk4t65e8lgjdhlv6@4ax.com>
Message-ID: <SAT.3.MAR.2001.104149.0500.>

>But Arabic /s/ is dorso-alveolar, whereas Spanish /s/ is
>apico-alveolar (sounding slightly hushing to a foreign ear).

	This is true
but Arabic has emphatic /S/
which seems to be a better match for apico-dorsal /s/
than /s^/ is
but I admit I studied Arabic many years ago and was only exposed to
Levantine Saudi varieties

	The other qualm I have about /k/ > /s^/ in charco is that /s^/
normally evolved to /x, h/, so we would expect *jarco /xarko, harko/
	It's true that Portuguese loanwords borrowed after the 1500s
beginning in /s^, z^/ are often Hispanicized as /c^/
	but Corominas 1980 [where he says the word is pre-Romance] claims
that it first appeared 1335
	I'm not trying to be polemical, I'm just trying to figure out this
puzzle

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


From jozo.kapovic at zg.tel.hr  Sat Mar  3 20:31:52 2001
From: jozo.kapovic at zg.tel.hr (=?windows-1250?Q?Mate_Kapovi=E6?=)
Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2001 21:31:52 +0100
Subject: sieve : sipiti
Message-ID: <SAT.3.MAR.2001.213152.0100.>

----Original Message-----
From: Hans-Werner Hatting <hwhatting at hotmail.com>
Date: 2001. o?ujak 03 11:15

>On Fri, 23 Feb 2001 02:20:20 +0100 Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote:

>>Pokorny gives mainly Germanic and Tocharian forms (but also Serbian
>>sipiti "drizzle"

>I do not think, pace Pokorny, that _sipiti_ belongs here. I would put it with
>the Slavic family _sypiti/sypati "pour", which must go back to a PIE *suHp-
>(Don't have any etymological dictionary here to check on the exact root form
>reconstructed). A parallel use is Russian _dozhd sypitsya_ ?rain is
>pouring down?. There are no phonological problems, as Common Slavic /i/ and
>/y/ have been merged in Southern Slavic.

>Best regards,
>Hans-Werner Hatting

I think you're wrong here. Although Middle South Slavic (i.e.
Croatian/Bosnian/Serbian...) sipiti would fit fonologically (except -i-/-a-
difference) at the first glance with Russian sypat' it doesn't really
beacause the form that Pokorny is quoting has an accent on -i- which
couldn't have come from all-Slavic *y (more on that later).

Firstly, in MSS there are two verbs of sometimes similar meaning: sipati "to
pour smth (like flour) > metaphorically: to snow heavily (rare usage)" and
sipiti "to fall slightly and quietly (e. g. rain)". The first verb means
"heavily falling" (in the rare, metaphorical sense), the second is oposit.

1) Sipati ~ OCS sypati, Mac. sipa, Slovene s?pati (the first syllable has a
long rising accent ?), Czech sypati, Russ. s?pat' etc.
The verb in MSS has a short falling accent which has to come from old Slavic
primary acute which was regularly shortened. This agrees with Slovene long
rising accent, because there ProtoSlavic acute remained long. There should
be a long syllable in Czech too, I'm not sure what to make of the Czech form
I quoted.

So, the all-Slavic form was *s?pati (y with acute). This could have come
from PIE *suHp- (as was said). The larynegeal would have regularly inflicted
the BaltoSlavic acute.

2) S?piti (? on the first syllable - long rising accent, different from
ProtoSlavic and Slovene acute). As far as I'm aware this verb is attested only
in MSS. The difference in accent says it's not the same word as sipati <
*s?pati. The protoform of this verb (if there was one) would be *sip?ti or
*sip??ti (acute on second syll., the second V in 2. reconstruction is jat).
The long rising accent in MSS comes from retraction of the shortened acute
which was on second syll. Because of retraction the accent becomes rising, and
it's long because -i- in the first syll. is originally long.

This is either of onomatopoeic origin or from PIE *seip-.

Therefore, we're drawn to the conclusion that Middle South Slavic sipiti has
no connection with the Slavic sypati - forms.


From acnasvers at hotmail.com  Sun Mar  4 07:14:09 2001
From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday)
Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2001 07:14:09 -0000
Subject: R: Suffixal -sk-
Message-ID: <SUN.4.MAR.2001.071409.0000.>

Alberto Lombardo (9 Feb 2001) wrote:

>>> I'd like just add that the suffix -asko is the more typical
>>> locative Ligurian suffix; it seems to have had IE links.
>>> The meaning must have been "high, elevated place".

[JER]

>> Could you elaborate on the semantic assessment? If it is the suffix of
>> Italian bergamasco "from Bergamo", I find it hard to see that the
>> adjective is any higher or more elevated than the base-word
>> itself.

[AL]

>There's a big difference between the ligurian and the italian suffix. The
>first one is attested in the name of many locations in the big ancient
>ligurian area, and it also still exists in many names of mountains and
>elevated countryside villages, like Carasco, Amborzasco, Borzonasca and so
>on. The italian suffix, like in "bergamasco", must have had a more recent
>source, and many different meanings too. It sounds as the general adjective
>for the substantive "Bergamo". It means "from Bergamo", "of Bergamo" and
>also "the area around Bergamo" (in this case it's obviously a subst.)

[DGK]

As someone has already pointed out, the _Ligurian_ suffix was also used to
form hydronyms (Neviasca, Vinelasca, Veraglasca, Tulelasca in the Sententia
Minuciorum, CIL I{2}.584) which are not "high" or "elevated". The apparent
association of the suffix with high places is best explained by selective
preservation. Invaders usually take charge of the lowlands first, and their
more intensive agriculture allows a higher population density there. Hence
it is not surprising that altitude favors survival for substratal toponyms.

The hydronym Tulelasca is particularly interesting because the first element
appears to be the substratal word for 'boundary', occurring in Umbrian as
<tuder> and in Etruscan as <tular>, as well as in other toponyms. The
meaning is thus 'belonging to the boundary', and the suffix is purely
generic, used to form substantives from simple nouns. This harmonizes with
proposed etymologies of <carrasco/a> in terms of a root meaning 'stone',
'stony ground', 'barren place', or the like.

Ligurian -asca seems to be the counterpart of Pelasgian -ssos, in that the
latter was also used to form toponyms, hydronyms, and phytonyms (Parnassos,
Ilissos, kuparissos, etc.).


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Wed Mar  7 02:47:01 2001
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language)
Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2001 20:47:01 -0600
Subject: Pre-IE Lexicon
Message-ID: <TUE.6.MAR.2001.204701.0600.>

Dear IEists:

Florent Dieterlen contacted me through my website, and wrote this email.

"
> Sir,
> I looked on a browser for the word " pre-indo-european " and felt on your
> name.
> I started in 1994 a Phd thesis on pre-IE lexicon and phonetics in France,
> Italy and Spain. I have collected about 700 pre- IE words, and drown maps of
> the pre-IE presence in those countries, comparing them with the maps of
> celtic words. I have also maps of the basque-related words ( a large part of
> the 700 words) for the same countries.
> Are you interested ? What is your interest in the field ?
> Best regards,
> Florent Dieterlen
"

I am reasonably sure that some list-members will be interested in pursuing this
new source of information.

Mr. Dieterlen can be contacted at:

fdieterlen at perso.ch

Pat
PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com
(501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA
WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE: http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/
and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html

"Veit ec at ec hecc, vindg? mei?i a netr allar n?o,
geiri vnda?r . . . a ?eim mei?i, er mangi veit,
hvers hann af r?tom renn." (H?vam?l 138)


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Sat Mar  3 08:47:38 2001
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language)
Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2001 02:47:38 -0600
Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele
Message-ID: <SAT.3.MAR.2001.024738.0600.>

Dear Anton and IEists:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Anton Sherwood" <bronto at pobox.com>
Sent: Saturday, February 24, 2001 7:11 PM

> Ernest Moyer wrote

>>> I find Y'hawa in the Hebrew Pi'el verb table under Hawa = Form or
>>> Mold.  Literally, Y'hawa = "He shall Mold."  Future tense. Some
>>> people believe this is the origin of the Hebrew name for God.

> and Pat Ryan responded in part

>> Then they are rather misguided. The name, avocalicly, is y-h-w-h
>> NOT y-h-w. We do not just drop 'atches' to suit a hypothesis.

> So you reject the obvious assumption that the final `h' is
> merely a mater lectionis?  No comment on the other objections.

[PR]

No, I am not. I was objecting to dropping it in that particular context.

Actually, I am rather inclined to view the final -h in the short form of the
name (yh-) as a mater lectionis for a long /a:/.

Frankly, it looks to me as if the Hebrews brought Ea/Ia with them from Akkad.
After, al la egyptienne, they started playing with the name to find greater
truths, it got expanded to y-h-w-h, which might have been actually pronounced
/ja:wa:/ but looked like a Hiph'il of h-w-h, thus making a bogus theological
point.

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit ec
at ec hecc, vindg? mei?i a netr allar n?o, geiri vnda?r . . . a ?eim
mei?i, er mangi veit, hvers hann af r?tom renn." (H?vam?l 138)


From petegray at btinternet.com  Sat Mar  3 16:51:34 2001
From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray)
Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2001 16:51:34 -0000
Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele
Message-ID: <SAT.3.MAR.2001.165134.0000.>

>>  y-h-w-h  ... NOT y-h-w.

> So you reject the obvious assumption that the final `h' is
> merely a mater lectionis?

That idea is vary far from obvious!   In most cases where a mater lectionis
is used, there are spellings with and without the letter, but y-h-w is never
found for the name of God.

Peter


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sun Mar  4 03:31:48 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2001 21:31:48 -0600
Subject: Etruscans
Message-ID: <SAT.3.MAR.2001.213148.0600.>

        Well, I am getting impatient waiting for DGK to massacre me
(Remember the good old days when I was just DLW?  They are gone), so I guess
I'll just have to do it myself.  If you want a job done right ...

Demon-David, Destroyer of Self:
        Your grip on Greek historical phonology leaves somewhat to be
desired.  /s/ was never lost after /r/ and /l/.  All the rigamarole you go
through over /rs/ versus /rrh/ is therefore a complete waste of time for all
concerned.  In the future, please, spare us.
        The reason that we find not /tursk-/ but /turs-/ as the Greek form
is, fairly obviously, that /turs-/ was the native form.  (Or one of them.
Your argument that /trusk/ and /etrusk/ are variants of the same word is
admittedly difficult to reject, though I insist that it should not be
regarded as proven.)  The /k/-suffix, like the /i/-suffix, is Umbrian, not
Etruscan.
        The word "thoursk" was cited as Umbrian, and you should be a little
more cautious before you declare it a "fact" that the word is Greek, merely
because it looks Greek.   [Intrusion from Real David:  Now what is this
word?  Umbrian does not have /th/, so how can it really be Umbrian?  It
looks as if a Greek rendering was taken straight into Umbrian without any
modification.]
        It looks like everything in sight is now becoming a "/turs^-/ word"
in your deluded imagination.  Your argument that /tarkwini-/ (which is
Latin, not Etruscan, please be more careful) is highly strained, not least
by the fact that Etruscan "ch" represents /kh/, not /x/.  Furthermore, if
the /turs^-/ word had survived as /tarkhw-/ in Etruscan, what reason would
they have to re-borrow it from Greek as /truia/?
        Overall, your desparate and semi-informed notions have little if
anything to recommned them.

D-D, DoS

        Real David's response to all this will be sent after a decent
interval.


From acnasvers at hotmail.com  Sun Mar  4 04:43:27 2001
From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday)
Date: Sun, 4 Mar 2001 04:43:27 -0000
Subject: Etruscans
Message-ID: <SUN.4.MAR.2001.044327.0000.>

David L. White (21 Feb 2001) wrote:

>Yes (or maybe), but it seems we are converging on the opinion that
>the Lemnians had probably come from the mainland.  The basic rule is that
>people can maintain their identity, ethnic or linguistic, if they feel like
>it, and we are not much in a position to judge at this remove.

True, and butting heads over medieval or modern examples won't accomplish
much. But unless they fell onto the island like Hephaistos, the Lemnians had
to come from _some_ mainland, plausibly Chalcidice. I must admit, however,
that arguments against Thracian or Anatolian derivation are "ex silentio"
and not particularly compelling.

>Upon further reflection, I think the Semitic intermediary, if there
>was one, was probably Carthaginian or Phonecian, since these folk are known
>to have had markets in the area.  That the version with "ty", as opposed to
>"thou" passed through some non-Greek intermediary is indicated by the lack
>of aspiration.  Note also that it must be earlier.

The aspiration in <Thouskoi> is difficult to explain. The term is not
attested as early as <Tursenoi>, and its signification is apparently
geographic 'residents of Etruria', not ethnic. Had <Thouskoi> been borrowed
directly from Lat. <Tusci>, one would not expect aspiration. The Etruscan
forms <Tursikina>, <Trsk> argue against original aspiration. Perhaps
<Thouskoi> comes through Pelasgian, and the aspiration is a hypercorrection
of the p-Italic form of the name, since we have Sabine <teba> 'hill', Oscan
<tifa> id. < Psg. *the:ba.

Greek <Thumbris> 'Tiber' similarly suggests third-party deformation. The
name is possibly from an Archaic Etr. compound *thihvar 'watercourse'; the
river was earlier called <Albula> (Liv. I.3.5). Pelasgians might have
assimilated the new name to <thumbra> 'pungent herb, satureia, savory'.

>Whether the Umbrians would have borrowed a term for their neighbors from
>Greek depends to some extent on how the neighbors got there.  If they arose
>indigenously, not likely, but if they just happened to have barely beaten
>the Greeks getting out to prime colonization real-estate, and the Umbrians
>were in contact with the Greeks, such a borrowing does not seem unlikely.

I can't argue against that, since I have no direct evidence for the date of
arrival of the Etruscans in central Italy. Helmut Rix once advocated a late
date (late 8th c. BCE) on the grounds of the lack of separation of dialects
in Archaic Etruscan. IMHO such evidence from dialects is extremely difficult
to assess, since we have so very few Archaic texts longer than the
stereotyped phrases of funerary, dedicatory, and possessive inscriptions. I
think it very likely that the Umbrians were in central Italy before the
Etruscans, but that leaves a window of several centuries for the arrival of
the latter.

>I am not merely contradicting (I'm having a argument?).  Where people can
>flow, influences can flow, and where we see Etruscan influence on Lemnos, we
>can't tell which it was.

True. However, if Lemnos or its vicinity were the Etruscan homeland, one
would expect to find a great deal more bearing the Etruscan stamp than one
stele and some potsherds. (Ex silentio again, which is my default form of
argument in these matters.)

Again, if Lemnos were the "mother polity" of the whole sweep of Etruscan
civilization from Campania to the Alto Adige, with its own colonies in
Corsica, Languedoc, and Tunisia, one would expect some general
acknowledgement of this by the classical authors.

>I am grateful for these examples, especially the last one.  All I
>had been able to come up with was "Herecele".

Strictly speaking, <Herecele> for the usual <Hercle> is an example of
anaptyche, like <Cluthumustha> and <Chaluchasu>. It is not parallel to the
epenthesis (or apocope) postulated for *Etrs-/*Turs-.

>Not counting the Lydians and the Aeneid.  /truia/ occurs in Etruscan, where I
>would imagine it must be taken as a Greek borrowing.  But since Greek has what
>might be called "invisible /s/" in some circumstances, /truia/ might have been
>/trusia/.  That is not very far from either /trus-/ or /turs-/.  No, I am not
>saying "it is proven", but we have a very suspicious coincidence here,
>especially once the Turshas are thrown into the mix.

One problem here is that many of the forms involving 'Troy' have the long
vowel /o:/, apparently belonging to the root: thus <Tro:s>, gen. <Tro:os>
'Trojan' (subst.); <Tro:ios>, <Tro:ikos> 'Trojan' (adj.). Forms with short
/o/, diphthongized or not, are evidently later. Hence even if the original
root had /s/, it must also have had a _long_ vowel or a diphthong preceding:
*Tro:s-, *Trows-, or the like. This makes it even more difficult IMHO to
connect 'Troy' with Turs-.

DGK


From mcv at wxs.nl  Tue Mar  6 00:06:27 2001
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2001 01:06:27 +0100
Subject: Etruscans (was: minimal pairs)
In-Reply-To: <F288EVHp0yupsIEXAby00018dec@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <TUE.6.MAR.2001.010627.0100.>

On Mon, 26 Feb 2001 08:59:41 -0000, "Douglas G Kilday"
<acnasvers at hotmail.com> wrote:

[B&vdM:]

>>An _ablative_ was formed by adding the gen. -s to the genitive. With
>>the l-gen. this gave -l-s, archaic -las (so the gen. -l is probably
>>from *-la).  This is the so-called double genitive.  With the gen. in
>>-s, that probably came from *-si, this gave *-si-s; syncope gave -s
>>with umlaut, e.g. -uis; -ais became -es.

>The ablative is *not* the so-called double genitive. This is a factual error
>on the part of B&vdM.

Yes, this is wrongly put.  It is *a* double genitive, but not *the*
double genitive, which is as you say (-s'la, etc.)

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


From acnasvers at hotmail.com  Wed Mar  7 11:38:28 2001
From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday)
Date: Wed, 7 Mar 2001 11:38:28 -0000
Subject: Etruscans (was: minimal pairs)
Message-ID: <WED.7.MAR.2001.113828.0000.>

Miguel Carrasquer Vidal (15 Feb 2001) wrote:

><Histo:r> itself may be interpreted as "knower" (it means "expert" in
>Attic), but also as "seer" (another Homeric meaning, besides "judge,
>referee" is "witness").  "One who sees/discerns well" may not be an
>inappropriate title for a judge or "overseer".  From the context on
>the stele, it seems clear to me that some kind of function/
>magistrature is meant (as I thought even before thinking of Greek
>(eu-)histo:r): it occurs as <seronaith evistho> and <evistho
>seronaith>, together with a PN in the locative: "judge [vel simile] in
>Seruna".  One doesn't expect an epithet in that context.

>But there's really nothing to be concluded as long as there's no
>confirmation of *eu-histo:r as the name of a magistrature, for
>instance in Phocaea or in Chalcidice.

I must admit the juxtaposition of a locative with <evistho> supports its
interpretation as an official title. We have from Musarna

[al]ethnas : arnth : larisal : zilath : tarchnalthi : amce (TLE 174)

and there is no dispute about the reading 'Arnth Alethnas, (son) of Laris,
(who) was the zilath in Tarquinii'. Similarly from Rubiera

... zilath misalalati amake (ET Pa 1.2)

'... was the zilath in Misalala'. At Tarquinii the expression

... zilc . thufi . tenthas . marunuch . pachanati ... (TLE 137)

uses the locative apparently to modify a magistratural adjective: '...
having filled the sole(?) maronic zilacate in Bacchan capacity ...' =
'having been the Bacchan maro' which is <maru pachathuras> 'maro of the
sons/followers of Bacchus' at Tuscania (TLE 190). Likewise there are several
instances of <zilct(h)i> 'in the zilacate'. Hence if Lemnian <evistho> does
refer to a magistrate, the locative <s'eronaith> could refer either to an
actual locality or (less likely IMHO) to the capacity in which the
magistrature was held.

As for my earlier objection to a title containing "good" or "well", and the
lack of attestation of *eu-histo:r as a Greek title, it is conceivable that
the Lemnians borrowed a Greek word which they understood as 'wise man' and
applied it to one of their own offices. Most Lemnians probably lacked
detailed knowledge of Greek and would have considered <evistho> to be
monomorphemic.

DGK


From miskec4096 at hotmail.com  Thu Mar  8 01:27:53 2001
From: miskec4096 at hotmail.com (Kreso Megyeral)
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 02:27:53 +0100
Subject: Etruscans (was: minimal pairs) Ref Hercle, Zimite
Message-ID: <THU.8.MAR.2001.022753.0100.>

Chester Graham wrote:
>  Is there any known language which has intervocalic syllabic continuants?

In Croatian or Serbian (or, rather, Central Southern Slavonic, considering
the newly being created languages of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro) the
vocalic "r" can remain vocalic in front of the "o" which is derived from "l"
at the end of the syllable. Thus, if you have "grlo" - throat, and make a
deminutive form it will be "grlce". Since it has two syllables (grl-ce) the
"l" is at the end of the first one and it becomes "o", following the sound
law which says that every "l" at the end of a syllable becomes "o". So, we
have "groce", but the word has now three syllables, since "r" remains
vocalic (gr-o-ce), and it even holds the accent! Quite atypical feature, but
it's possible. However, there isn't any such example of vocalic sonant
remaining between two vowels.


From dlwhite at texas.net  Fri Mar  2 23:42:05 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2001 17:42:05 -0600
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
Message-ID: <FRI.2.MAR.2001.174205.0600.>

[ Moderator's note:
  The following may be a duplication for some readers.  I apologize for the
  inconvenience.  A note by Pat Ryan was apparently sent twice in place of
  this posting.
  --rma

> A way to reformulate what I've said about a three-way contrast in
> pre-PIE consonants that does not involve secondary articulations,
> multiplication of the consonant inventory, or typological objections,
> would be to focus on what became of the vowels.  So, instead of
> reconstructing, say, three nasals **n (>*n, *-r), **n^ (>*n ~ *i) and
> **nw (> *n ~ *m ~ *u), one would simply reconstruct **na, **ni and
> **nu.  When the vowels disappeared (when unstressed), or merged (when
> stressed), there may well have been a brief and unstable period where
> the three-way contrast was transferred, in the shape of secondary
> articulations, to the consonants, leading to a separate labio-velar
> series in PIE, and to certain transformations of or variations in the
> other consonants (e.g. *n ~ *i, *n ~ *m, *l ~ *i, *t ~ s, *t ~ *i, *p
> ~ *kw, *m ~ *u).

        Well, getting that off the ground would take a lot of work.
        But it should be noted that labialized velars are dramatically more
common than labialized non-velars, in languages of the world generally.  All
this seems to be a lot of trouble to go to just to 1) wind up with a
garden-variety labio-velar series, and 2) avoid having to posit some dialect
mixture in Balto-Slavic.  Labio-velars and dialect mixture are fairly
well-known things after all.
        But granted that the existence of three series of velars in PIE has
supposedly recently been proven on the evidence of some things (which I
forget) in (non-Hittite) Anatolian, are the facts of Balto-Slavic such a
problem after all?  Is it true that even with three series (palatal, velar,
and labio-velar) we must still posit a troubling degree of dialect mixture?

Dr. David L. White


From lmfosse at online.no  Thu Mar  8 13:58:26 2001
From: lmfosse at online.no (Lars Martin Fosse)
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 14:58:26 +0100
Subject: SV: Minoan is an IE language?
Message-ID: <THU.8.MAR.2001.145826.0100.>

David Sanchez [SMTP:davius_sanctex at terra.es] skrev 3. mars 2001 02:12:

>> Could some of the Linear A inscriptions be different languages?

> A mathematical simple proof can answe the question.
> If one wish to know if two text are written in teh same language
> only it is necessary count the number of symbols in each text and
> make a simple statistical chi-2 test to obtain the answer!!!
> ( All, all text in a concrete languages present a very similar phonemic
> ocurrences. The same is true for non phonemic inscriptions).

Wouldn't the question of sample size be relevant here? If inscriptions are
very short, say only four or five words, wouldn't this make the chi-2 test
invalid? As far as I remember, you would have to assume normalcy in order
to use it, otherwise there are other tests with bigger error margins to be
used. Could you define how big a continuous text sample must be before you
can use the chi-2 test?

Lars Martin Fosse

Dr. art. Lars Martin Fosse
Haugerudvn. 76, Leil. 114,
0674 Oslo
Norway
Phone: +47 22 32 12 19
Mobile phone: +47 90 91 91 45
Fax 1:  +47 22 32 12 19
Fax 2:  +47 85 02 12 50 (InFax)
Email: lmfosse at online.no


From gmcdavid at winternet.com  Thu Mar  8 15:46:14 2001
From: gmcdavid at winternet.com (Glenn McDavid)
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 09:46:14 -0600
Subject: Minoan is an IE language?
In-Reply-To: <008f01c0a37e$f837ff00$b41e523e@pc>
Message-ID: <THU.8.MAR.2001.094614.0600.>

On Sat, 3 Mar 2001, David Sanchez wrote:

>> Could some of the Linear A inscriptions be different languages?

> A mathematical simple proof can answe the question.
> If one wish to know if two text are written in teh same language
> only it is necessary count the number of symbols in each text and
> make a simple statistical chi-2 test to obtain the answer!!!
> ( All, all text in a concrete languages present a very similar phonemic
> ocurrences. The same is true for non phonemic inscriptions).

This assumes you can separate the texts into two or more groups before
performing the test.  That might tell you something if you were comparing
collections of tables from two different locations.  Even there you
would have to be sure they dated from about the same time (the script
or language may have changed).  You would need to allow for variations
between scribes, and between local concerns which might lead to variations
in the vocabulary actually represented in the archives.

A far more serious problem would be if you had a situation like the
Hittite archives at Hattusas.  In that case there were several different
languages all together, all written in Akkadian cuneiform.  That problem
could be dealt with because the cuneiform script had already been
deciphered.  We do not have that advantage with Linear A.

Glenn McDavid
mailto:gmcdavid at winternet.com
mailto:Glenn.McDavid at alumni.carleton.edu
http://www.winternet.com/~gmcdavid


From petegray at btinternet.com  Fri Mar  9 19:56:04 2001
From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray)
Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2001 19:56:04 -0000
Subject: Minoan is an IE language?
Message-ID: <FRI.9.MAR.2001.195604.0000.>

>chariots ... but what were they used
> for? Not likely for routine war

Chariots were never used in battle in Greek times - they were used to get
the heroes to battle.   One got off them to fight.  (Or in some cases two
got of them to fight ...)

Peter


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Thu Mar  8 14:22:53 2001
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 09:22:53 -0500
Subject: Non-Indic sustrate vocabulary
In-Reply-To: <5a.11df4ea0.27d1e851@aol.com>
Message-ID: <THU.8.MAR.2001.092253.0500.>

Is what we do have just limited to carved seals?

>The basic problem is that we just don't have enough writing in the Indus
>Valley script to be able to being to understand it.  Probably because most of
>their writing was on some perishable material -- ink on palm leaves, at a
>guess.  Until and unless someone comes up with a store of fortuitously
>preserved material, equivalent to the Vindolandia wooden tablets, it's all
>wheel-spinning.

>It's a pity they didn't use clay, like the Mesopotamians.

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


From lmfosse at online.no  Thu Mar  8 15:49:15 2001
From: lmfosse at online.no (Lars Martin Fosse)
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 16:49:15 +0100
Subject: SV: Non-Indic sustrate vocabulary
Message-ID: <THU.8.MAR.2001.164915.0100.>

JoatSimeon at aol.com [SMTP:JoatSimeon at aol.com] skrev 3. mars 2001 07:25:

> The basic problem is that we just don't have enough writing in the Indus
> Valley script to be able to being to understand it.  Probably because
> most of their writing was on some perishable material -- ink on palm leaves,
> at a guess.  Until and unless someone comes up with a store of fortuitously
> preserved material, equivalent to the Vindolandia wooden tablets, it's
> all wheel-spinning.

> It's a pity they didn't use clay, like the Mesopotamians.

How very true!

Those who are interested, might want to have a look at:

Gregory L. Possehl (1996). Indus Age. The Writing System. University of
Pennsylvania Press.

Asko Parpola (1994). Deciphering the Indus script. Cambridge University
Press.

Possehl discusses a large number of attempts to solve the puzzle. Parpola's
book represents such an attempt.

There is at present no universally acknowledged solution to the problem,
and it may be argued that the problem is unsolvable and will remain so,
just as JoatSimeon suggests.

The problem of the Indus script is, however, closely connected to
ideological struggles related to Indian nationalism ("Hindutva"), and
several attempts have been made to interpret the Indus script language as
Sanskrit. A recent attempt was deconstructed by Prof. Witzel of Harvard
University and his collaborator Steve Farmer in the Indian journal
Frontline a few months ago. Still, the assertion that the language of the
Indus (Harappan) culture was Sanskrit, is frequently met in the Indian
press and also abroad. Such assertions should be regarded with scepticism.

Lars Martin Fosse

Dr. art. Lars Martin Fosse
Haugerudvn. 76, Leil. 114,
0674 Oslo
Norway
Phone: +47 22 32 12 19
Mobile phone: +47 90 91 91 45
Fax 1:  +47 22 32 12 19
Fax 2:  +47 85 02 12 50 (InFax)
Email: lmfosse at online.no


From dlwhite at texas.net  Thu Mar  8 16:05:12 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 10:05:12 -0600
Subject: "whose"
Message-ID: <THU.8.MAR.2001.100512.0600.>

>> Yes, the OE form is "hwaes", but I was (over-)generalizing to
>> the rest of Germanic, where /e/ seems to have been the rule.  The usual view
>> is that OE /ae/ got there simply by a difference of opinion about whether
>> to use /o/ or /e/ in IE.

LC > Certainly possible, since other genitives show both vowels.

        Yes, but it is annoying, since we (or at least I) would like to
reconstruct one genitive of the interrogative for Common Germanic, not two.
But such dreams are perhaps naive.

>> Another possibility that occurs to me is that there
>> might have been a change of unstressed /e/ after /w/ (voiced or
>> voiceless) to /ae/, but I do not know if this checks.

LC > I don't think so.  Why would it have been unstressed in an interrogative
> like that?

        Because it's really from unstressed compounds with the interrogative
as second element, not from the true interrogative itself.
The Conventional Wisdom, at least as represented by Wright, derives the
vowel of the nominative from an unstressed form, so I do not see that an
unstressed genitive would be notably problematic.
        A greater problem, in my view, is that the sound change that the
Conventional Wisdom depends on applies, as far as I can see,  to only to
words:  /hwa/ -> /hwaa/, and /swa/ -> /swaa/.  This is seen as lengthening
of short vowels to long, some sort of de facto mora minimum.  But there are
two suspicious problems.  First, the fact that both words have /w/ is not
mentioned as relevant, and is therefore implicitly left as a concidence.
Maybe, but maybe not.  Second, it is not mentioned that /hwaa/ and /swaa/
quite commonly co-occur, as in the usual OE word for 'whoever', "swa hwa
swa".  Some sort of (for lack of a better term) sympathetic association
seems likely.  The sequence is vaguely reduplicative, a fact that speakers
must have been sensitive to.
        So (just when you thought there was no point) the view I would (very
tentatively) take is that 1) /hwaa/ is a plural intruding into the singular,
originally from indefinites.  Or perhaps it is from a sound change that
applied only to unstressed indefinites, but either way indefinites cannot be
avoided, and 2) that /hwaes/ is from /hwes/, with a change or reanalysis of
unstressed /hwes/ to /hwas/, due to influence from the preceding labial,
from which point /hwae/ is regular.  But perhaps there is something fatally
wrong with all this.

Dr. David L. White


From maxw at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Thu Mar  8 16:12:10 2001
From: maxw at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Max Wheeler)
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 16:12:10 +0000
Subject: charco [was: la leche]
In-Reply-To: <l03130304b6c6bddcd7e4@[209.147.211.31]>
Message-ID: <THU.8.MAR.2001.161210.0000.>

The point that Corominas is making is that charco is a Mozarabic version of
Latin circum, at least as regards the initial consonant, given that there's
substantial evidence that in Mozarabic Romance Latin /k/ before front
vowels was realized as a (pre-)palatal affricate (as it was and is in
Italian). This evidence comes a) from place-names such as Ferrutx <
ferrucium, Marchilliena < Marcilium + -ena  and b) from representation of
Mozarabic words in Arabic script where the reflex of /k/ before front
vowels is written with <jim>, or even more precisely with geminate <jim>
which is interpreted as indicating a voiceless (pre-)palatal affricate,
e.g. <djjmbr> 'December'. The pronunciation of coronal fricatives has
nothing to do with charco. He's claiming that what is 'Arabized' is the
realization of /e/ as /a/.

I've taken the examples above from A. Galm?s de Fuentes, Dialectolog?a
moz?rabe, Madrid:
Gredos, 1983.

However, Corominas's attempt at relating charco to circum in BDELC is now
of merely academic interest, since in DCECH (1980), in a 6.5 column article
on charco, Corominas & Pascual do not even mention this etymology among the
several they consider or reject, concluding 'de origen desconocido, quiz?
prerromano'.

Max

--On Saturday, March 3, 2001 10:41 -0500 Rick Mc Callister
<rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu> wrote:

>> But Arabic /s/ is dorso-alveolar, whereas Spanish /s/ is
>> apico-alveolar (sounding slightly hushing to a foreign ear).

>	 This is true
> but Arabic has emphatic /S/
> which seems to be a better match for apico-dorsal /s/
> than /s^/ is
> but I admit I studied Arabic many years ago and was only exposed to
> Levantine Saudi varieties

>	 The other qualm I have about /k/ > /s^/ in charco is that /s^/
> normally evolved to /x, h/, so we would expect *jarco /xarko, harko/
>	 It's true that Portuguese loanwords borrowed after the 1500s
> beginning in /s^, z^/ are often Hispanicized as /c^/
>	 but Corominas 1980 [where he says the word is pre-Romance] claims
> that it first appeared 1335
>	 I'm not trying to be polemical, I'm just trying to figure out this
> puzzle

____________________________________________________________
Max W. Wheeler
School of Cognitive & Computing Sciences
University of Sussex
Falmer
BRIGHTON BN1 9QH, G.B.

Tel: +44 (0)1273 678975 Fax: +44 (0)1273 671320 Email:
maxw at cogs.susx.ac.uk
____________________________________________________________


From dlwhite at texas.net  Thu Mar  8 16:20:46 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 10:20:46 -0600
Subject: Arzawa = Razawa?
Message-ID: <THU.8.MAR.2001.102046.0600.>

        It has occurred to me to connect /ras-/ with /tors^-/, but I thought
I better not, being far enough out on a limb already...
        It is possible that there was more than one name for these people
floating around.  Note that Troy itself has another name, /ilio-/, or
whatever it was, and that there is some evidence to suggest that Luwian was
spoken in Troy.  Not that this means no other language was spoken in Troy:
Homer specifically refers to the armies of Troy as many-tongued, or
something like that.   Where knowledge is limited, possibilities multiply
...

Dr. David L. White


From acnasvers at hotmail.com  Fri Mar  9 11:58:28 2001
From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday)
Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2001 11:58:28 -0000
Subject: Arzawa = Razawa?
Message-ID: <FRI.9.MAR.2001.115828.0000.>

philjennings at juno.com (5 Mar 2001) wrote:

>Why this matters is, that the nation/confederation of ARzawa, defeated by
>the Hittites a few generations before the fall of Troy, might be RAzawa,
>parsed as Raza-wa, homeland of Raza.

>The Etruscan name for themselves was Rasna or earlier Rasenna, parsed
>Rase-na or Rasen-na.

Rasenna is not "earlier". It is transcribed from the Greek spelling of
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, which has an acute on the epsilon not
corresponding to the Etruscan accent, but showing that the final alpha is
long. Extant Etruscan inscriptions, which predate Dionysius, have forms of
Rasna (or Ras'na in the North). We can deduce that Rasna was trisyllabic,
and the <n> sounded long to Dionysius, who was obliged to include epsilon in
order to produce a legible Greek word. Etruscan allows non-vocalic
continuants as syllabic nuclei, seen in words such as <cn>, <cnl>, <clthi>,
and <ps'l>.

>The simple step of identifying Raza with Rase gives the Etruscans a
>"Lydian" homeland.

One could just as easily give them an "Assyrian" homeland by identifying
Rasna with the city of Resen (Gen. 10:12), which someone else has done. In
this business "simple steps" alone don't amount to much. Unless they are
backed up by other evidence, they usually turn out to be steps in the wrong
direction.

>Note that the Hittite defeat of Razawa/Arzawa could have set refugees in
>motion well before the fall of Troy.

>The Razawa hypothesis becomes less edifying if the Etruscans entered
>pre-history with an initial-T version of their name, which was later
>truncated.  For this reason, I hope this isn't the case.

The "initial-T version" is attested earlier, as Tursikina on the fibula of
Clusium (ca. 600 BCE). Forms of Rasna belong to the 4th cent. BCE or later.
I do not believe that Rasna arose by truncation or any other process from
Turs-. I know of no example of such phonetic contortion during the
historical period of Etruscan. Ras- and Turs- should be regarded as two
distinct roots.

>  I propose that
>knowledge of the Etruscans was mediated to the greater world through a
>non-Etruscan group of languages that used a Ta, Ter, or Ty prefix to
>indicate "those who speak."  The Indo-Anatolian languages have "ta" as
>"talk" or "speech."  Early Anatolians may have habitually referred to
>those who spoke strange dialects as "Ta-Rasenna-(pl)", "Ter-Mil-(pl)",
>"Tar-Iusa-(pl)", and so forth.  "Ta-Rasenna-(pl)" then became "Tyrsennoi"
>in Greek.

>Comments?

Ingenious, but not very convincing.

DGK


From dlwhite at texas.net  Thu Mar  8 20:57:44 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 14:57:44 -0600
Subject: Etruscans
Message-ID: <THU.8.MAR.2001.145744.0600.>

> David L. White (21 Feb 2001) wrote:

>> Yes (or maybe), but it seems we are converging on the opinion that
>> the Lemnians had probably come from the mainland.  The basic rule is that
>> people can maintain their identity, ethnic or linguistic, if they feel
>> like it, and we are not much in a position to judge at this remove.

> True, and butting heads over medieval or modern examples won't accomplish
> much. But unless they fell onto the island like Hephaistos, the Lemnians had
> to come from _some_ mainland, plausibly Chalcidice. I must admit, however,
> that arguments against Thracian or Anatolian derivation are "ex silentio"
> and not particularly compelling.

        We agree.

>> Upon further reflection, I think the Semitic intermediary, if there was one,
>> was probably Carthaginian or Phonecian, since these folk are known to have
>> had markets in the area.  That the version with "ty", as opposed to "thou"
>> passed through some non-Greek intermediary is indicated by the lack of
>> aspiration.  Note also that it must be earlier.

> The aspiration in <Thouskoi> is difficult to explain. The term is not
> attested as early as <Tursenoi>, and its signification is apparently
> geographic 'residents of Etruria', not ethnic. Had <Thouskoi> been borrowed
> directly from Lat. <Tusci>, one would not expect aspiration. The Etruscan
> forms <Tursikina>, <Trsk> argue against original aspiration. Perhaps
> <Thouskoi> comes through Pelasgian, and the aspiration is a hypercorrection
> of the p-Italic form of the name, since we have Sabine <teba> 'hill', Oscan
> <tifa> id. < Psg. *the:ba.

        I have it on good authority (Eric Hamp) that English-like aspiration
occurs in some Pennine Italian dialects.  Perhaps an ancient version of this
is the source.  But what language is "Thouskoi" in?  Something similar, by
the way, appears to be going on with "Punic" versus "Phonecian", and I would
like to know what the story is there.

>> Whether the Umbrians would have borrowed a term for their neighbors from
>> Greek depends to some extent on how the neighbors got there.  If they
>> arose indigenously, not likely, but if they just happened to have barely
>> beaten the Greeks getting out to prime colonization real-estate, and the
>> Umbrians were in contact with the Greeks, such a borrowing does not seem
>> unlikely.

> I can't argue against that, since I have no direct evidence for the date
> of arrival of the Etruscans in central Italy. Helmut Rix once advocated a
> late date (late 8th c. BCE) on the grounds of the lack of separation of
> dialects in Archaic Etruscan. IMHO such evidence from dialects is extremely
> difficult to assess, since we have so very few Archaic texts longer than the
> stereotyped phrases of funerary, dedicatory, and possessive inscriptions.
> I think it very likely that the Umbrians were in central Italy before the
> Etruscans, but that leaves a window of several centuries for the arrival
> of the latter.

>> I am not merely contradicting (I'm having a argument?).  Where people can
>> flow, influences can flow, and where we see Etruscan influence on Lemnos,
>> we can't tell which it was.

> True. However, if Lemnos or its vicinity were the Etruscan homeland, one
> would expect to find a great deal more bearing the Etruscan stamp than one
> stele and some potsherds. (Ex silentio again, which is my default form of
> argument in these matters.)

> Again, if Lemnos were the "mother polity" of the whole sweep of Etruscan
> civilization from Campania to the Alto Adige, with its own colonies in
> Corsica, Languedoc, and Tunisia, one would expect some general
> acknowledgement of this by the classical authors.

        My view is that they were a small group, very open to foreign
influences, and that their later prevalence in Etruria is due to, dare I say
it, elite dominance.   I think we agree that a large group could not have
led an in effect secret existence in the Northern Aegean for several
centuries, even during the Dark Ages.  But classical authors are not in
general reliable for more than a few generations before their time, and for
what it is worth, there are some assertions (evidently accepted by the
Etruscan themselves) that they came from Anatolia.  A soujourn in
Thrace/Chalcidice/Lemnos would not cause this to be untrue.

>> I am grateful for these examples, especially the last one.  All I
>> had been able to come up with was "Herecele".

> Strictly speaking, <Herecele> for the usual <Hercle> is an example of
> anaptyche, like <Cluthumustha> and <Chaluchasu>. It is not parallel to the
> epenthesis (or apocope) postulated for *Etrs-/*Turs-.

        It is an example of an evidently unacceptable cluster being broken
up, which is all it was meant to be.  In one case breaking up is achieved
directly by inserting a vowel, in the other case indirectly by pre-posing a
vowel that creates a syllable boundary.  But the point is that we do have
evidence for some serious differences of opinion among the people of the
time and place about what was phonotactically acceptable.

>> Not counting the Lydians and the Aeneid.  /truia/ occurs in Etruscan, where
>> I would imagine it must be taken as a Greek borrowing.  But since Greek has
>> what might be called "invisible /s/" in some circumstances, /truia/ might
>> have been /trusia/.  That is not very far from either /trus-/ or /turs-/.
>> No, I am not saying "it is proven", but we have a very suspicious
>> coincidence here, especially once the Turshas are thrown into the mix.

> One problem here is that many of the forms involving 'Troy' have the long
> vowel /o:/, apparently belonging to the root: thus <Tro:s>, gen. <Tro:os>
> 'Trojan' (subst.); <Tro:ios>, <Tro:ikos> 'Trojan' (adj.). Forms with short
> /o/, diphthongized or not, are evidently later. Hence even if the original
> root had /s/, it must also have had a _long_ vowel or a diphthong preceding:
> *Tro:s-, *Trows-, or the like. This makes it even more difficult IMHO to
> connect 'Troy' with Turs-.

        Could this long vowel not be secondary, by compensatory lengthening,
/trosy-/ -> /trohy-/ -> /trooy-/, with /y/ later lost where not
re-analyzable as part of a suffix with /i/?  In any event, for there to be a
difference of opinion about whether some vowel is a short high vowel or a
long mid vowel is not unheard of, as seen in Vulgar Latin.  Length is not
necessarily that clear.  The lowering of Greek original long mids would have
to be later, but as far as I know there is no reason that this (somewhat
strange) development has to be especially early.  The lack of a distinction
between /u/ and /o/ also may well have something to do with borrowings at
different times by different peoples taking slightly different forms.

Dr. David L. White


From dlwhite at texas.net  Thu Mar  8 16:33:11 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 10:33:11 -0600
Subject: Goths, Naming and Ablaut
Message-ID: <THU.8.MAR.2001.103311.0600.>

        The case of the Geats gives us pretty good reason to believe that
the ethnonym in question existed in ablaut variants.  To be more specific,
my possibilty 2 would have the Geats and Goths coming from /au/, with the
various /gut-/ words of the Greek sphere coming from /u/.
        The Conventional Wisdom is that past particples of strong verbs come
from stressed /Vn/, whereas the ending of weak adjectives, orginally
"characterizing", somewhat like modern English "-ed" (which is also used to
from past participles), comes from unstressed /Vn/, where V is the
annoyingly variant e/o.  Perhaps a difference of opinion about which
sub-type of /Vn/ was being used, and therefore about how it should be
stressed, result in the ablaut variation seen.  The two appear to be
differently stressed versions of the same thing.
But then again, this sort of stuff is not my strong suit, so please correct
me if I am hopelesly confused ...

Dr. David L. White


From hwhatting at hotmail.com  Fri Mar  9 10:25:15 2001
From: hwhatting at hotmail.com (Hans-Werner Hatting)
Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2001 11:25:15 +0100
Subject: Goths, Naming and Ablaut
Message-ID: <FRI.9.MAR.2001.112515.0100.>

On Thu, 1 Mar 2001 23:12:39 EST Steve Long wrote:

>To address this in a little more detail:
>It should be remembered that the evidence that the Goths looked to
>Scandinavia as their homeland appears after Ulfila and is connected with
>Roman historians writing for neo-Gothic rulers who were well aware of
>classic
>histories and conscious of a need to find their place in them.
(snip)

Generally, I accept that we cannot take the writing of the classical authors
without subjecting them to critique. And you argue quite convincing that we
cannot take the Scandinavian origin of the Goths
for granted. But I'd like to make the following points:
1) I do not see any special "prestige value" for the Goths in coming from
Scandinavia. In accordance to classical criteria, we would expect them to
show that they descend from Greeks or Troians, or from some prestigious
mythical personage, or to some other people known from antiquity. The
link-up and mix-up with the Getae you describe is much more in line with
what we would expect.
2) We have the mention at Ptolemy you quoted, showing them in about the
Wielbark area, so archaeology seems at least to corroborate this part of the
migration history of the Goths. AFAIK, this is not an area which nowadays is
seen as part of the original homeland of the Germanic peoples, so the Goths
have to have got there from somewhere else. Scandinavia seems as good a
candidate for me as Northern Germany.

>And the question is whether the connection is folk etymology or more
>specifically noble etymology.   (With regard for example to the city,
>Gothenburg, it was named in the 17th Century, Go:teborg, in Swedish, for
>the "Go:ta alv", the river.  Not the Goths)

But there may be a link between the river name and the name of the Goths.

>It appears this has been recently discussed on the cybalist, the archives are
>on the web.  There one finds an incredible list of <gud-> place names, along
>with some fair indications that the form may be indigenous to either Slavic or
>Lithuanian (with meanings like marsh, meadow, thicket - all meaning that the
>basic <cheo:> form in Greek for example can easily be extrapolated to take
>depending on context.  (e.g., a marsh is flooded, a meadow can be
>periodically.)

>The problem with Gdansk and Gdynia were also addressed in those archives.  As
>you also point out, <regressive assimilation of obstruents is the norm. We
>would expect *g(=U)t- to yield *kt-.> The problem presented by these place
>names has not been fully appreciated as yet I think.

I would agree that we should not count these names as evidence for anything
"Gothic" as long as we do not have good etymologies for them.

>Here are potentially a
>large number of place names of apparently non-Germanic origin that are
>located in the best "homeland" that archaeology can find for the
>prehistoric <Gothi>.

I do not understand your point here. If we are talking about the Wielbark
area, this  normally is not assumed to be a homeland for Gmc. people. The
Goths would have been there only for some generations, not leaving many
toponyms behind.

>Complicated even more by the existence of a people in the first
>historical works in the east called the Chuds, who do not even appear to be
>IE speakers.

In later times the Chudy (with /ch/ standing for English /ch/, not for Greek
"chi") are a Finno-Ugrian people. I am not able to look it up now, but I
remember having read that the name goes back to a pre-form *tyud- (which
some have linked to West-IE *teuta). I don't see how they come in here;
AFAIK, they are mentioned first in Old Russian sources, long after the
period we are discussing now.

On Fri, 2 Mar 2001 02:05:12 EST Steve Long wrote:

>Also, something that distinguishes burials that are thought to be Gothic
>from others near the Danube is the large amount of metalworks, especially
>the fibulae.  Dobhanov mentions "plenty of iron" as distinguishing "Gothic"
>burials.  (Large numbers of "Gothic" graves have been found, settlements
>are relatively rare.)
>There are several variations of the "pour" words in Greek that refer to
>metal-working, including such forms as <chutos>, cast, melted, fused,
>welded; and <kausis>, smelting.  But that is for another post.

Just as a remark, in German "giessen" = Gothic "giutan" is the normal word
for metal casting. The verbal noun is "Guss", with the zero degree we have
in *Guto:n-.
Concerning the rest of Steve Long's proposals, they make semantical sense to
me, but none of them seems provable.
As the Gythones were mentioned by Ptolemy in the 2nd century AD in an area
quite far away from the Classical world, it seems that the Goths already
carried their name before they crossed the horizon of the Classical world.
So whatever the semantics behind the name, libations or metal casting, I
think it is a name given to them by themselves or by their Gmc. speaking
neighbours. So if we take the Greek forms given by Steve Long as examples
for the sematic range obtainable from PIE *gheu-, I can go along with that;
but I think we win nothing by assuming that the Goths got their name from
the Greeks, or from assuming multiple cross-borrowings, or inter-linguistic
contamination.

Best regards,

Hans-Werner Hatting


From mcv at wxs.nl  Fri Mar  9 01:09:09 2001
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2001 02:09:09 +0100
Subject: *gwh in Gmc.
In-Reply-To: <009701c09f0c$e9f8e240$27fa7ad5@xpoxkjlf>
Message-ID: <FRI.9.MAR.2001.020909.0100.>

On Sun, 25 Feb 2001 09:03:49 -0000, "petegray"
<petegray at btinternet.com> wrote:

>> This looks suspiciously like the Caland pattern.

>I'm both intrigued and ignorant - as normal.   Could you outline the Caland
>pattern, please?

Caland (in 1892/93) noticed that certain Indo-Iranian adjectives in
-ra- and -ma- change that ending to -i- when thay are the first part
of a compound:

Av. d at r@z-ra- "strong"  => d at r@ez-i-ratha "having a strong chariot"

The phenomenon also applies to adjectives in -u, and examples can also
be given from Greek:

Grk. ku:d-r-os "famous", ku:di-aneira "bringing fame to men"

Another thing to note is that the pattern usually also includes an
s-stem neuter (e.g. Grk. <ku:dos>).

The pattern has usually been considered a "Suffix-verband", i.e.
merely a group of suffixes that "go together", but the possibility of
a set of sound-laws behind the pattern has to my knowledge never been
proposed.

What I would suggest is that these forms are in origin athematic
adjectives in *-n (secondarily thematicized).  Besides the normal
primarily thematic pattern in *-no-, we would have:

[old abs./acc.?]  *-n(a) > *-r (> *-r-o-)
[old erg./nom.?]  *-n(u) > *-u or *-m (> *-m-o-),

with a "status constructus" [old gen.?] in *-n(i) > *-i.

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


From alderson+mail at panix.com  Fri Mar  9 02:36:44 2001
From: alderson+mail at panix.com (Rich Alderson)
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 21:36:44 -0500
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
In-Reply-To: <000901c0a36b$f1417180$0d2863d1@texas.net> (dlwhite@texas.net)
Message-ID: <THU.8.MAR.2001.213644.0500.>

In response to the presence of palatalization and labialization in NW Caucasian
languages in combination with small vowel inventories, David L. White wrote on
2 Mar 2001:

> Fair enough, but what we need is a THREE-way contrast of palatalization,
> labio-velarization, and whatever "[a]-quality" would be called, probably
> "uvularization", a problem being that no such thing as uvularization (as far
> as I know) occurs.

This sort of thing occurs in Abaza/Abkhaz, Adyghe/Kabardian, and Ubykh.  One
reasonably accessible account is Aert Kuipers' monograph on Kabardian in the
_Janua Linguarum Series Minor_, in which he first analyses three series in the
obstruent system (palatalized, labialized, and plain) which cause rounding and
fronting in the single vowel.

He then proceeds to re-analyze the plain series as having a feature "open",
which he symbolizes with a superscript <a> to match the superscript <j> and <w>
of the palatalized and labialized series respectively, and postulates that with
the addition of this feature, we need not have any phonemic vowel at all in
Kabardian.

This analysis flies in the face of everything we know about permissible phono-
logical systems and naturalness.

Later studies of the language have found that the proper analysis requires that
there be two vowels, /a/ and /I-/ ("barred i").  The major proponent of this
analysis is, as I recall, John Colarusso; see his grammar of Kabardian for more
details.

25 years ago, I used Kuipers, W. S. Allen on Abaza, and Dum'ezil on Ubykh as
the props for a completely improper analysis of the IE vowel system, as I then
saw it based on Lehmann's monovocalic analysis.  (It took me nearly 15 years to
see where Lehmann and I had got it all wrong:  *i and *u are primary, not *y
and *w.)

In my opinion, we can put this notion aside for PIE.

								Rich Alderson

"Of course, that's just my opinion--I could be wrong."  --Dennis Miller


From mcv at wxs.nl  Fri Mar  9 01:09:22 2001
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2001 02:09:22 +0100
Subject: A question about Greek or Latin
In-Reply-To: <00bc01c0a383$59158640$63444241@Ryan>
Message-ID: <FRI.9.MAR.2001.020922.0100.>

On Fri, 2 Mar 2001 19:43:28 -0600, "proto-language"
<proto-language at email.msn.com> wrote:

>From: "Xavier Delamarre" <xavier.delamarre at free.fr>
>Sent: Saturday, February 24, 2001 11:30 AM

><snip>

>The verbal causative-iterative suffixe has in PIE the form -iyo-/-e,
>added to the root in the o grade (giving a: in Sanskrit after Lex
>Bartholomae) : *wirto: / *wortiyo: ; *men(o:) / *moniyo: ; *sed(o:) /
>*sodiyo: etc.

>[PR]

>What would you say to the alternate explanation that the causative formant is
>*-ye, and that its addition shifted the stress-accent one syllable to the
>right, preserving (or re-instating) an otherwise lost final vowel of the root?

What would you say to the alternate alternate explanation that the
causative formant is merely an agglutinatated verb *[h1]ey-e- (= Hitt.
iy-a-mi etc. "I do/make")?  The Vedic causatives in -paya would
confirm this nicely, if Anatolian had had a form *piya- with pre-verb
*pe- (unfortunately, it hasn't: pai-mi (*pe-h1ei-mi) is "to go" and
pehhi/pai- (*pe-h2ai-h2[a]i) is "to give").

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


From alderson+mail at panix.com  Fri Mar  9 02:39:59 2001
From: alderson+mail at panix.com (Rich Alderson)
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 21:39:59 -0500
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
In-Reply-To: <003001c0a37a$d821b840$63444241@Ryan>
 (proto-language@email.msn.com)
Message-ID: <THU.8.MAR.2001.213959.0500.>

On the topic of Kuipers' analysis of Kabardian, Pat Ryan wrote on 2 Mar 2001:

> He maintained that Kabardian had only one vowel, for which he was severely
> criticized.

No, he was mildly to moderately criticized for that analysis.

He was severely criticized for his suggestion that Kabardian had *NO* phonemic
vowels, only a feature similar to Lehmann's "sonority peak".  Rightly so.

								Rich Alderson


From mcv at wxs.nl  Fri Mar  9 17:19:15 2001
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2001 18:19:15 +0100
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
In-Reply-To: <000901c0a36b$f1417180$0d2863d1@texas.net>
Message-ID: <FRI.9.MAR.2001.181915.0100.>

On Fri, 2 Mar 2001 16:55:20 -0600, "David L. White"
<dlwhite at texas.net> wrote:

>        Given the predictability (if my understanding of my source is
>correct) of [u]-quality spellings in Old Irish, their value for establishing
>contrast is limited, predictability and contrast being two things that do
>not go well together.  But though suspicious, I am (I hope) open-minded:  is
>there any unequivocally good evidence for a three way contrast of secondary
>articulations in Old Irish, or Tocharian?  Predictable spellings don't
>(necessarily) cut it.

The discussion in Thurneysen $156-$174 clearly shows that early Old
Irish undoubtedly had three consonant "qualities", although by the
time of the first glosses, u-quality was already giving way to neutral
quality.  U-quality in Old Irish was certainly not limited to the
dat.sg. and verbal 1st. p.  Take for instance the word <figor> ~
<fiugor> < Lat. figura (/f/ palatal, /g/ labiovelar, /r/ neutral).

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


From petegray at btinternet.com  Fri Mar  9 20:02:19 2001
From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray)
Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2001 20:02:19 -0000
Subject: A question about Greek or Latin
Message-ID: <FRI.9.MAR.2001.200219.0000.>

>What would you say to the alternate explanation that the causative formant is
>*-ye, and that its addition shifted the stress-accent one syllable to the
>right, preserving (or re-instating) an otherwise lost final vowel of the root?

I would ask which explanation were the simpler.   And alas, positing an
"otherwise lost" vowel just for causatives alone seems to me less simple
than positing a suffix -eye/o-.

I then ask which explanation is the better, and alas, I prefer the simpler.

Peter


From sarima at friesen.net  Fri Mar  9 03:13:25 2001
From: sarima at friesen.net (Stanley Friesen)
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 19:13:25 -0800
Subject: R: Suffixal -sk-
In-Reply-To: <F174i89QtpfTYSl1q4g0001a421@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <THU.8.MAR.2001.191325.0800.>

At 07:14 AM 3/4/01 +0000, Douglas G Kilday wrote:
>Ligurian -asca seems to be the counterpart of Pelasgian -ssos, in that the
>latter was also used to form toponyms, hydronyms, and phytonyms (Parnassos,
>Ilissos, kuparissos, etc.).

And maybe more than just counterpart.  Could they perhaps be cognate?  A
shift of *sk => 'ss' is not unheard of.

--------------
May the peace of God be with you.         sarima at ix.netcom.com


From hwhatting at hotmail.com  Fri Mar  9 12:08:27 2001
From: hwhatting at hotmail.com (Hans-Werner Hatting)
Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2001 13:08:27 +0100
Subject: sieve : sipiti
Message-ID: <FRI.9.MAR.2001.130827.0100.>

Dear Mr. Kapovic',
chvala lijepo for your comments. I was not aware of the existence of the
second _sipiti_, with its different accentuation. Seems Pokorny was right,
after all.
Best regards,
Hans-Werner Hatting

[ moderator snip ]


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Fri Mar  9 02:16:38 2001
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language)
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 20:16:38 -0600
Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele
Message-ID: <THU.8.MAR.2001.201638.0600.>

Dear Peter and IEists:
 ----- Original Message -----
From: "petegray" <petegray at btinternet.com>
Sent: Saturday, March 03, 2001 10:51 AM

>>>  y-h-w-h  ... NOT y-h-w.

>> So you reject the obvious assumption that the final `h' is merely a mater
>> lectionis?

> That idea is vary far from obvious!   In most cases where a mater lectionis
> is used, there are spellings with and without the letter, but y-h-w is never
> found for the name of God.

[PR]

But Ya is.

Pat


From alderson+mail at panix.com  Tue Mar 13 00:54:05 2001
From: alderson+mail at panix.com (Rich Alderson)
Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2001 19:54:05 -0500
Subject: [linguist@linguistlist.org: 12.683,
 Jobs: Indo-European Philology at Uppsala U, Sweden]
Message-ID: <MON.12.MAR.2001.195405.0500.>

Forwarded from the LINGUIST mailing list.  Note the very short time to apply
for this position.

								Rich Alderson

> Delivered-To: LINGUIST at listserv.linguistlist.org
> Approved-By:  linguist at LINGUISTLIST.ORG
> Date:         Mon, 12 Mar 2001 22:11:12 -0000
> From: The LINGUIST Network <linguist at linguistlist.org>
> Subject:      12.683, Jobs: Indo-European Philology at Uppsala U, Sweden

> Date:  26 Feb 2001 16:52:07 -0000
> From:  Gunilla Gren-Eklund <Gunilla.Gren-Eklund at afro.uu.se>
> Subject:  Indo-European Philology: Senior Lecturer at Uppsala U, Sweden

> Rank of Job: Senior lecturer
> Areas Required: Comparative Indo-European Philology
> Other Desired Areas:
> University or Organization: Uppsala University
> Department: Dept. of Asian and African Languages
> State or Province: Uppsala
> Country: Sweden
> Final Date of Application: 16 March 2001
> Contact: Gunilla Gren-Eklund Gunilla.Gren-Eklund at afro.uu.se

> Address for Applications:
> Uppsala University, Box 256
> Uppsala
> SE 751 04
> Sweden

> Applications are invited for a Position as Senior Lecturer in
> Comparative Indo-European Philology at the Department of Asian and
> African Languages, Uppsala University, Sweden

> Duties: Instruction, supervision in graduate and undergraduate
> education as well as research in Sanskrit and Comparative
> Indo-European Philology.

> To be eligible for this post as senior lecturer the applicants are
> required to have passed the PhD degree in Comparative Indo-European
> Philology or can certify competence on an equivalent level.  In making
> this appointment as senior lecturer, weight shall be given equally to
> scholarly competence ant teaching skill.

> Application should be made by March 16, 2001.

> The complete advertisement is to be found on
> http://www.personalavd.uu.se/ledigaplatser.html.
> Information is also given by the Head of Department, Professor Gunilla
> Gren-Eklund, Tel +46 18 471 1456, e-mail
> Gunilla.Gren-Eklund at afro.uu.se

> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> LINGUIST List: Vol-12-683


From sarima at friesen.net  Sat Mar 10 06:04:12 2001
From: sarima at friesen.net (Stanley Friesen)
Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2001 22:04:12 -0800
Subject: Minoan is an IE language?
In-Reply-To: <000301c0a8d8$47254100$fd5d01d5@xpoxkjlf>
Message-ID: <FRI.9.MAR.2001.220412.0800.>

At 07:56 PM 3/9/01 +0000, you wrote:

>> chariots ... but what were they used for? Not likely for routine war

>Chariots were never used in battle in Greek times - they were used to get
>the heroes to battle.   One got off them to fight.  (Or in some cases two
>got of them to fight ...)

That was after it had ceased to be an important war machine - after the
chaos and restructuring associated with the Sea People invasions (with the
collapse of the Mycenian states, the Hittite Empire, and the major states
of Mesopotamia).

The chariot does seem to have been a major component of armies prior to
that time.

--------------
May the peace of God be with you.         sarima at ix.netcom.com


From davius_sanctex at terra.es  Sat Mar 10 12:47:22 2001
From: davius_sanctex at terra.es (=?iso-8859-1?Q?David_S=E1nchez?=)
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 13:47:22 +0100
Subject: Minoan is an IE language?
Message-ID: <SAT.10.MAR.2001.134722.0100.>

[On the possibily to use chi-2 test to discriminate if two texts are
written in the same language]

It is unnecessary to separate texts it two groups. Chi-2 homogeneity test is
appliable to only just two texts! If texts are of different times in fact the
test can tell us that we are dealing with differente languages, but
linguistically it is the case if differentiation are sufficiently advancend.

Local variations an variation among scribes might difficult the answer.  In
fact statistical test always depart from a "fundamental hypothesis" the text
can refute this hypothesis, but if the data are of bad quality in general the
test will not refute the "fundamental hypothesis", this allow us to accept the
"fundamental hypthesis" as provisional (the time will confirm or refute the
fundamental hypothesis in this case).

The only serious problem is that you mention of a text containing several
different languages (as it is the case in the Hittite archives at Hattusas).
In this case if the proportion of the two languages in the samples is different
the test will fail (and if there are two test this implies that almost always
the test will fail dealing with two-language tests!).

David Sanchez Molina (www.upc.es)
david.sanchez-molina at upc.es


From davius_sanctex at terra.es  Sat Mar 10 12:55:14 2001
From: davius_sanctex at terra.es (=?iso-8859-1?Q?David_S=E1nchez?=)
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 13:55:14 +0100
Subject: Minoan is an IE language?
Message-ID: <SAT.10.MAR.2001.135514.0100.>

> Wouldn't the question of sample size be relevant here? If inscriptions are
> very short, say only four or five words, wouldn't this make the chi-2 test
> invalid? As far as I remember, you would have to assume normalcy in order
> to use it, otherwise there are other tests with bigger error margins to be
> used. Could you define how big a continuous text sample must be before you
> can use the chi-2 test?

1. The size of the sample is important, all signs must appear at least 4 or 5
times, the total number ideally would be of 50 or more signs!

2. The test in the case of very short inscription is not invalid but in general
will fail in refute the "fundamental hypothesis", that is in general the test
will not say us more than we have assumed as "fundamental hypothesis". In
certain sense we can say that the test will be honest and if the data are very
scace it will be silent, but it will not lie!

3. Normality is not required to use a chi-2 test, that is precisely the strong
point of this test (it is a non parametrical test).

David Sanchez Molina (www.upc.es)
david.sanchez-molina at upc.es


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Sun Mar 11 20:59:38 2001
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2001 15:59:38 EST
Subject: Minoan is an IE language?
Message-ID: <SUN.11.MAR.2001.155938.EST.>

On Sat, 3 Mar 2001, David Sanchez wrote:

> Could some of the Linear A inscriptions be different languages?
> A mathematical simple proof can answe the question.
> If one wish to know if two text are written in teh same language
> only it is necessary count the number of symbols in each text and
> make a simple statistical chi-2 test to obtain the answer!!!
> ( All, all text in a concrete languages present a very similar phonemic
> ocurrences. The same is true for non phonemic inscriptions).

In a message dated 3/10/2001 12:06:08 AM, gmcdavid at winternet.com replies:
<<This assumes you can separate the texts into two or more groups before
performing the test.>>

Linear A has presented all kinds of problems, not the least of which is the
rarity of texts over twenty characters long.  But even beyond that is the
distinct possibility that pictographic symbols were used as needed in the
writing of texts.  The problem with pure pictograms (to distinguish it from
the difficult-to-define "logogram") is that pictograms are language-free and
phonetically independent.  A picture of a grape, e.g., might refer to grapes
or wine or grape-tax or a grape god without regard to what the writer or
reader calls any of those items.   This is rather functional across languages.

It should be obvious why a script developed to accommodate multiple languages
might avoid phonetic equivalencies and therefore that the comparative
statistical distribution of symbols may not correlate to differences in the
sounds of different languages.

On this basis, there appears to be no strong reason to dismiss the notion
that Linear A at some point was used by "Eteo-Cretans" to write in Semitic or
by Lykians-speakers on other occasions.  Recent finds in Anatolia and the
Near East seem to support the notion that Linear A may have been
multi-lingual and there's site (http://www.duke.edu/web/jyounger/LinearA) for
what they are up against just in terms of Linear B phonetic equivalencies,
which seems to support the no known language conclusion.

As far as equating Minoan with "Pelagasian" or similar presumed substrate
languages, it seems those substrates sometimes seem almost universal.  On the
Aegeanet list, e.g., it's been written that forms like the often cited -ss-
have been found common in Hyksos and Hurrian and distributed in an enormous
area.  The fact is that we don't even know what substrates are represented in
the substrates (e.g., could the apparent Greek elements in Minoan texts have
represented a Greek substrate in Minoan?) and no one has convincingly
recreated any of these postulated languages.

In all of this we have evidence that Crete from a very early time was
energetically multilingual, so that who is talking creates a problem in
proper conclusions.  This point about placenames particularly as evidence of
language, by Tom Palaima, appeared recently on the Aegeanet:

"[John Chadwick] points out the positive results but the need for caution in
assessing this kind of documentation.  Take Minneapolis as a name of a place
in the heartland of the good old USA.  It is a hybrid, half Indian, half
Greek.  That tells us something, but just what?  That the founders of
Minneapolis were Indians who had conquered Greeks?  That they were Greeks who
had conquered Indians?  They were Greeks and Indians who had peacefully
coalesced?  Or that they were northern Europeans who inherited a traditon of
culture and learning that made them us e a Greek word, even though they were
not Greek themselves? So in able to be able to analyze and draw proper
conclusions from this other category of information requires a very close
and correct look at the archaeological evidence."

Regards,
Steve Long


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Sat Mar 10 06:13:14 2001
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 01:13:14 EST
Subject: Goths, Naming and Ablaut
Message-ID: <SAT.10.MAR.2001.011314.EST.>

I wrote:
<<Once again we have no good reason to be sure Goth was first a

self-name (cf., "Germans", "Apaches", "Basques").>>

In a message dated 3/8/2001 12:59:19 AM, dlwhite at texas.net writes:
<<I agree.  There are, as I see it, three theoretically possible sources of
the difference between Latin /o/ and Greek /u/.

1)  The Vulgar Latin change of short /u/ to /o/.

2)  A possible Gothic change of /au/ to /o/.

3)  Latin borrowing from other Germanic with /o/, Greek borrowing

from Gothic, with /u/ for other Germanic /o/. >>

Replying:
But of course if the name was given by someone else, there's no reason to
limit it to other Germanics.

In fact, the proposed position of the Goths at the time, east of the Vistula
and later into the Ukraine as far as and beyond Crimea would suggest that
"first word" of the Goths would not have come from other Germanic speakers.

Instead we would expect that the name of the Goths would have come from the
northern and northeastern neighbors of the Greeks.  These would be Thracians,
Dacians, Getae, Celts, Paeonians, Bastarnae, Illyrians, Bosporians and of
course Scythians and Sarmatians.

None of these peoples named above, with the exception of the Bastarnae,
appear to be Germanic speakers.

So if the name of the Goths was given, it could have been given in a
non-Germanic language.  And it may have reached the Greeks being spoken in a
non-Germanic tongue.

If, in fact, the Goth name came into Greek in the forms <gut->, <gaut->,
<goth->, <gud-> or <gout->, it may well have come in the Scythian or Thracian
tongue.  And may have reached Ptolemy in Alexandria fourth-hand and become
<Gythones>.  (On the other hand, it should be remembered that Ptolemy placed
the <Gutae> up in Scandia, with no recognition of any connection with
<Gythones>.)

The Latin situation is different. The Goths first reported by Tacitus in his
Annals are involved with the Marcomanni and Marobodus and Catwalda on the
Roman border far to the west of where Ptolemy's <Gythones> are located.  Here
there are two main speaking factions involved, Germanics and Celts, with
Dacians and Paenonians mixed in.

But key here is that it appears there may have been direct Roman contact with
the "Gotones" in their attempt to subvert the regime in Marobudum.  So
Tacitus' may have had the name from the horse's mouth.  In which case,
whether or not Goth was a given or assumed name or original, what the Romans
seem to have heard was "Got-".

(The Romans seemed quite capable of saying "gut" (e.g., guttur) and "gau-"
(e.g., gaudia) but it appears no other word in Latin began with <got->).

The hitch here is that Tacitus places these "Gotones" lingering around in
Central Europe near the Suevi and getting involved in events a day's drive
west of modern Vienna, precisely when the archaeological Goths and the Goths
of Jordanes are supposed to be marching into what will become Kiev and points
east.

So it may not be impossible that we are dealing with two different groups
here with very similar names.  The Geats and "tribes" with similar names that
in Latin begin with <C> or even <Ch> might suggest this is possible (e.g.,
Cotini, Cotensi, Chatti).  In connection with this it bears noting that
Ptolemy also located north of the eastern Danube tribes named in the later
Latin version <Sargati>, <Piengitae>, <Exobygitae>, <Tyrangitae> and the
Sarmatian <Tyrgetas>.

To sum up, the Latin o/ Greek u question may not be what it appears to be on
closer inspection.

Now, with all that said, it still seems possible to me that Greek originally
gave a name to the historical Goths who later appear on the Danube coming
from the direction of the Ukraine in the early 3d century AD.   And that
those particular Goths could have taken the name as their own or perhaps took
a name in the Greek tongue. One reason among others is simply that when the
Greeks named something, it often stuck - like it or not.

Regards,
Steve Long


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Sun Mar 11 08:09:36 2001
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2001 03:09:36 EST
Subject: "Gothi" (timeline)
Message-ID: <SUN.11.MAR.2001.030936.EST.>

In a message dated 3/8/2001 2:22:24 AM, hwhatting at hotmail.com writes:
<< Another point - it seems that the variant with the n-stem
("gu/oton-")belongs to the older sources, when the Goths were just a faraway
tribe, known only from indirect (other Gmc?) sources. Later, when the contact
becomes close (and violent), we find the stem "guta- / gauta-" > "Gothi". So
maybe this indicates that "Goth" (in the form "guta- / gauta-") was a
self-name, and "gu/oton-" was the form used by other Gmc. tribes?>>

With regard to the n-stem ending attached to a proper name: it is not a
unique thing among the Greeks and to some degree the Romans, even where we
may have non-IE speakers being named - e.g., Sidones, Vascones, Nasamones.
Perhaps these endings, which were applied to peoples (or just gatherings or
groups, see e.g. <Amphictyones, antichthones>) across Greece, Gaul, Germania
and Scythia, were always based on a true n-stem root rather than a
convention.  But it is clear that there are often versions where the use of
the ending is dropped (e.g., Gothones, Gothi, Gothini).

And it may be worth noting the names of Ptolemy's <Gutae> or the later
<Gautoi> in Scandinavia don't show the ending.  This would seem to be the
reverse of what you suggested above, since the Scandinavians were always at a
distance.

I've suggested elsewhere that truly early word of the name of the Goths may
have had to pass through speakers that were not Germanic, just as the names
of other peoples far from the Greeks may have.  But the early Greeks were
exceptionally good at getting around, so direct contact is not out of the
guestion.  In fact, Tacitus, Pliny, etc., retell accounts of Greeks among the
northern Germani and of course there is even evidence of Mycenaean trade in
Denmark, etc.

What would the Gothic name have sounded like to Greeks?  Once again, we don't
have any clear-cut record of the what the early Goths called themselves.  We
have variation in the Greek.  But perhaps we can reconstruct something
backwards from Greek borrowings into Gothic.  (This is from our old friend
Sean Crist's copy of Wright's on the web, where the Browser finder made
searching for Greek refs easier.)  These are cases where a Greek source was
attributed for a word in Gothic, where the Greek contained an <o>:

Gr. <apostolos > Gothic <apau:lstau:lus, apau:lstulus> (strong masc),  apostle

Gr. <diabolos> > Gothic <diabau:lus, diabulus> (strong masc) devil (Wright:
through Lat. diabolus) (OE. de:ofol, OHG. tiufal)

Gr. <korban> > Gothic <kau:rba:n> gift (Greek from the Hebrew)

Gr. <porphura> > Gothic <pau:rpura> purple

Gr. <prophe:te:s>  > Gothic <prau:fe:tus, prau:fe:te:s> (strong masc) prophet

Note that Greek <o> appears to be consistently transliterated as <au:> except
in <diabulus> and <apaulstulus> where <u> alternatively appears.

Does this mean that if the word <got-> was heard in Greek, it would have been
written by Ulfila as <gau:t->?

hwhatting at hotmail.com also writes:
<< (3) They are adopted by another group for various reasons (as the Byzantine
Greeks used to refer to themselves as "Rhomaioi = Romans"; >>

But here I must note that <Rum> will appear soon after and become the name of
these places in everything from Turkish to Persian to Romanian and Russian.
The spelling is attributed to early Arabic in reference to the eastern Empire
and extends to the name of the Balkan provinces of the Ottoman empire. But
this version <Rum> persisted not only into later Greek but also into the
Romance language that was first called "Rumanian" for that very reason.

In fact, without background, how would we account for an Arabic kingdom in
Asia Minor calling itself "Rum"?  Or, without background, how would we
explain the o/u in Romanian/Rumanian?  And should we think that the basis of
<gotthi/gouthth/gotones/geat/getan/gutae/*gaut-> would be any simplier?

Regards,
Steve Long


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Tue Mar 13 05:04:29 2001
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 00:04:29 EST
Subject: Goths/ Prestige of Scandinavia
Message-ID: <TUE.13.MAR.2001.000429.EST.>

In a message dated 3/10/2001 4:28:01 AM, hwhatting at hotmail.com writes:
<< Generally, I accept that we cannot take the writing of the classical authors
without subjecting them to critique. And you argue quite convincing that we
cannot take the Scandinavian origin of the Goths for granted. But I'd like to
make the following points:
1) I do not see any special "prestige value" for the Goths in coming from
Scandinavia. In accordance to classical criteria, we would expect them to
show that they descend from Greeks or Troians, or from some prestigious
mythical personage, or to some other people known from antiquity. The link-up
and mix-up with the Getae you describe is much more in line with what we
would expect.>>

The "prestige value" of a Scandinavian origin was far greater than the
prestige in the other origin stories Jordanes admits hearing, including the
only one he repeats, that the Goths were once slaves among the British.
(B-T-W, there is something about this story that bears returning to at some
point for what it might be saying.)

We of course don't expect Jordanes to give these other stories a fair hearing
and somehow they have been lost to us.  But such stories, particularly in the
time of Theodoric, would certainly have to be countered.  in his single
volume abridgment of Cassiodorus' original 12 volume (yikes!) "Getica",
Jordanes does not seem that compelled to address these issues in detail.
Cassiodorus' lost work however may have had to, since Cassiodorus was
answering to Theodoric himself.

This is part of the problem with Jordanes' work.  It is an abridgment and
after-the-fact and may have been in the nature of a swan song when Gothic
origins were just barely still worth asserting by a now Catholic Goth writing
in Constantinople, but in Jordanes' later time the whole origin question was
losing relevance fast.  Cassiodorus, however, as a Roman patrician and a
member of Theodoric's Gothic-Roman court, was definitely faced in his time
with providing a lineage for the Gothic king and apparently won high praise
for finally doing so.

This rather striking fact is well-illustrated in an old note by Svante Norr
on ONN: <However, the "genetic link" might not be as deep as we wish to
believe. In a letter from Theodoric the Great's young successor Athalaric to
the Roman senate, Cassiodorus' genealogical accomplishments are praised
(Cassiodorus wrote the letter himself, doubtless with great pleasure, Variae
IX, 25, 4-5): "[Cassiodorus] extended his labour even to the ancient cradle
of our house, learning from his reading what the hoary recollections of our
elders scarcely preserved.  From the lurking place of antiquity he led out
the kings of the Goths, long hidden in oblivion. He restored the Amals, along
with the honour of their family, clearly proving me to be of royal stock to
the seventeenth generation." (Barnish ed.1992)

The important point here is that Cassiodorus claims to have based his
research on written (= classical) sources rather than Gothic oral tradition.
We also know that Tacitus's Germania was studied and much appreciated at
Theodoric's court (He is even said to have once reproached some visiting
Aesti on their ignorance of the work; Variae V, 2). The 'discovery' of a
people known as gothones up in the north must have appeared very palatable to
a king in search of an origin myth and a genealogy that would let his family
stand forth as a second gens Iulia and legitimate his rule before Goth and
Roman alike.

There are other theories about Jordanes' aims (see J.J. Donnely's on the web
somewhere), but they don't so much deal with "why Scandinavia?" possibly
because Jordanes was already given Scandinavia.  W. Goffart, The Narrators of
Barbarian History (1988) is often quoted for the theory that Jordanes was
writing more or less in order to counter Procopius' account of how Heruli
were successfully repatriated to the north, and meant to distinguish two
different types of Scandinavian origins and to point out that the Goths (as
Getae) were not such recent comers (like the Heruli) to Classical regions,
apparently even predating the Romans' advent in Italy.

Other factors that may have been involved was the presence of King Rodulf at
Theodoric's court.  Jordanes writes: [In Scandia there are also] "the
Grannii, Augandzi, Eunixi, Taetel, Rugi, Arochi and Ranii, over whom Roduulf
was king not many years ago. But he despised his own kingdom and fled to the
embrace of Theodoric, king of the Goths, finding there what he desired."
Jordanes adds in the next line: "All these nations surpassed the Germans in
size and spirit,..."  Suggesting perhaps that a Scandinavian origin might
separate the Goths from the less desirable status of continental Germans.

I also think another good explanation for the prestige value of Scandinavian
origins is apparent in both the Cassiodorus quotes above and in Jordanes.
The origins were not really about the Goths as a people.  They were
repeatedly about kings and royal families.  There was no question that late
Gothic kings as Germanic speakers could not credibly claim a southern or
eastern origin, but they had to distinguish themselves from the leaders of
continental Germanic coalitions like the Vandals and Alemanni, who had no
staying power.  Pliny made the Goths members of the Vandals and there is no
mention of that in Jordanes.  Scandinavia was a way of keeping the Gothic
rulers clear of the Roman puppet German kings mentioned by Tacitus and the
Stilicho-types who had no claim to rule by right of ancestry.

Regards,
Steve Long


From karhu at umich.edu  Wed Mar 14 22:11:53 2001
From: karhu at umich.edu (Marc Pierce)
Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2001 17:11:53 -0500
Subject: Armenian loan words in Greek
Message-ID: <WED.14.MAR.2001.171153.0500.>

Hi,

In his "Grammatik des Klassischen-Armenischen," Schmitt suggests that
evidence for vowel epenthesis in Classical Armenian can also be found in
the adaption of Armenian names into foreign languages (Greek is the only
one he names).  I have as yet been unable to track down any references on
this topic.  Is anyone aware of any such studies?  I do have Clackson's
'Linguistic Relationship between Armenian and Greek," but it seems to
focus on shared correspondences rather than loan words.

Any assistance I could receive would be greatly appreciated.

Marc Pierce
University of Michigan


From davius_sanctex at terra.es  Sat Mar 10 13:00:21 2001
From: davius_sanctex at terra.es (=?iso-8859-1?Q?David_S=E1nchez?=)
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 14:00:21 +0100
Subject: Non-Indic sustrate vocabulary
Message-ID: <SAT.10.MAR.2001.140021.0100.>

I read some time ago, that a scandinavian group have claimed
that they have proved Indus Valley script was written in a form
of a dravidian language. I was strongly surpresed and I was very
doubtful about the feasibility of this claim.

What can be said about the actual feasibility of claims of this type?


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Sun Mar 11 19:38:17 2001
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2001 14:38:17 -0500
Subject: Etruscans
In-Reply-To: <001701c0a812$7ca8f860$ad6163d1@texas.net>
Message-ID: <SUN.11.MAR.2001.143817.0500.>

	Tuscan unvoiced stops are aspirated or fricativized in some areas.
This is well documented.
	My undergrad Italian prof had Calabrian parents and told of a
similar phenomenon in their dialect, e.g. /lu xurkhu/ "fork"

>        I have it on good authority (Eric Hamp) that English-like aspiration
>occurs in some Pennine Italian dialects.

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


From acnasvers at hotmail.com  Mon Mar 12 09:14:23 2001
From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday)
Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2001 09:14:23 -0000
Subject: Etruscans
Message-ID: <MON.12.MAR.2001.091423.0000.>

David L. White (8 Mar 2001) wrote:

>I have it on good authority (Eric Hamp) that English-like aspiration occurs in
>some Pennine Italian dialects.  Perhaps an ancient version of this is the
>source.  But what language is "Thouskoi" in?  Something similar, by the way,
>appears to be going on with "Punic" versus "Phonecian", and I would like to
>know what the story is there.

The Pennine Alps are a long way from the Sabine country. Not knowing much
about Alpine dialects, I wouldn't know whether to attribute the aspiration
to substrate or the influence of German. If I squint at the map, I can see
the Matterhorn and a place called Zermatt, so I presume that German is, or
recently was, spoken here.

"Thouskoi" is late Classical Greek, with circumflexed "ou". Dioscorides (ca.
50 CE) gives 13 of their phytonyms, several of which are clearly Latin,
evidently from the Tuscan dialect which was heavily influenced by Etruscan.
"Punic" is from Lat. Punicus, earlier (or archaistic) Poenicus, from Gk.
Phoinikos, probably borrowed before the Romans bothered reproducing
aspiration. This of course is from "Phoinix", which is problematic. It means
'Phoenician' already in Homer, 'date-palm' (i.e. Phoenician tree), 'dark
red, Tyrian purple' obtained from shellfish, and of course 'phoenix-bird'
(Hdt. II.73), probably based on the actual flamingo. The etymological
situation is a mess. Some proposals I have seen are:

(1) "Phoinix" originally referred to the date-palm, Phoinikia meant
'Palm-land' and the other usages originally meant 'Phoenician dye/color' and
'Phoenician bird' or 'Ph.-colored bird'.

(2) The color-sense is primary, connected with <phoinos> 'blood-red',
<phonos> 'slaughter', etc. Phoinikia meant 'land of the red ones' referring
to their use of dye.

(3) The bird's name is primary, derived from Egyptian <bynw>. How a fabulous
Egyptian bird came to give its name to Phoenicia is anybody's guess.

I don't find any of these satisfactory. Probably we are dealing with some
confusion or assimilation of originally distinct words.

>My view is that they [the Etruscans] were a small group, very open to foreign
>influences, and that their later prevalence in Etruria is due to, dare I say
>it, elite dominance.  I think we agree that a large group could not have led
>an in effect secret existence in the Northern Aegean for several centuries,
>even during the Dark Ages.  But classical authors are not in general reliable
>for more than a few generations before their time, and for what it is worth,
>there are some assertions (evidently accepted by the Etruscan themselves) that
>they came from Anatolia.  A soujourn in Thrace/Chalcidice/Lemnos would not
>cause this to be untrue.

I have grave doubts that the Etruscan presence in Etruria, Romagna, and the
Po valley was a small elite. That _may_ have been the case in Campania
before the Samnite conquest. But in Etruria and the northern areas, a
substantial part of the general population must have been Etruscan, and I
don't see the elite-dominance model applying.

As for classical Etruscans wanting to believe in glorious ancestors who
fought in the Trojan War, this sort of romantic illusionism is practically
ubiquitous. In the USA it isn't hard to find folks who insist they are
descended from their Sunday-school heroes, seizing on the flimsiest
superficialities to establish their own membership in the fabled Lost
Tribes.

>Could this long vowel [in <Tro:s>, <Tro:ios>, etc.] not be secondary, by
>compensatory lengthening, /trosy-/ -> /trohy-/ -> /trooy-/, with /y/ later
>lost where not re-analyzable as part of a suffix with /i/?

I don't see any compensatory lengthening in Epic genitives like <megaroio>,
where we have /oyo/ < */ohyo/ < */osyo/.

>In any event, for there to be a difference of opinion about whether some vowel
>is a short high vowel or a long mid vowel is not unheard of, as seen in Vulgar
>Latin.

According to Palmer, Vulgar Latin first "closed" the quality of long vowels,
giving nine distinct vowel-timbres (/a:/ could not be "closed"). The
phonemic distinction of vowel-quantity was then lost, as stressed vowels
became long and unstressed ones short. Convergence of close /o/ with open
/U/, and of close /e/ with open /I/, formed the basis of Continental West
Romance. I don't know which dialect of VL you have in mind when you cite
convergence of /o/ with /I/.

>Length is not necessarily that clear.  The lowering of Greek original long
>mids would have to be later, but as far as I know there is no reason that this
>(somewhat strange) development has to be especially early.  The lack of a
>distinction between /u/ and /o/ also may well have something to do with
>borrowings at different times by different peoples taking slightly different
>forms.

I don't see what borrowing has to do with the lack of /o:u/ distinction in
Etruscan. Having only one phonemic back-vowel quality is an essential
characteristic of the language.

DGK


From colkitto at sprint.ca  Sat Mar 10 18:33:58 2001
From: colkitto at sprint.ca (Robert Orr)
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 13:33:58 -0500
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
Message-ID: <SAT.10.MAR.2001.133358.0500.>

Somewhere (I think in a recent edition of Folia Linguistica Historiographca)
Alexis Manaster Ramer suggests a similar analysis for Gothic, Arabic, etc.

But perhaps this is an artifact of the method, rather than anythng about the
actual language(s).

Robert Orr

-----Original Message-----
From: Rich Alderson <alderson+mail at panix.com>
Date: Saturday, March 10, 2001 5:45 AM

>In response to the presence of palatalization and labialization in NW
>Caucasian languages in combination with small vowel inventories, David L.
>White wrote on 2 Mar 2001:

>> Fair enough, but what we need is a THREE-way contrast of palatalization,
>>labio-velarization, and whatever "[a]-quality" would be called, probably
>>"uvularization", a problem being that no such thing as uvularization (as far
>>as I know) occurs.

>This sort of thing occurs in Abaza/Abkhaz, Adyghe/Kabardian, and Ubykh.  One
>reasonably accessible account is Aert Kuipers' monograph on Kabardian in the
>_Janua Linguarum Series Minor_, in which he first analyses three series in the
>obstruent system (palatalized, labialized, and plain) which cause rounding and
>fronting in the single vowel.

>He then proceeds to re-analyze the plain series as having a feature "open",
>which he symbolizes with a superscript <a> to match the superscript <j> and
><w> of the palatalized and labialized series respectively, and postulates that
>with the addition of this feature, we need not have any phonemic vowel at all
>in Kabardian.

>This analysis flies in the face of everything we know about permissible phono-
>logical systems and naturalness.

>Later studies of the language have found that the proper analysis requires
>that there be two vowels, /a/ and /I-/ ("barred i").  The major proponent of
>this analysis is, as I recall, John Colarusso; see his grammar of Kabardian
>for more details.

>25 years ago, I used Kuipers, W. S. Allen on Abaza, and Dum'ezil on Ubykh as
>the props for a completely improper analysis of the IE vowel system, as I then
>saw it based on Lehmann's monovocalic analysis.  (It took me nearly 15 years
>to see where Lehmann and I had got it all wrong:  *i and *u are primary, not
>*y and *w.)

>In my opinion, we can put this notion aside for PIE.

> Rich Alderson

>"Of course, that's just my opinion--I could be wrong."  --Dennis Miller


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Sun Mar 11 04:50:47 2001
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language)
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 22:50:47 -0600
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
Message-ID: <SAT.10.MAR.2001.225047.0600.>

Dear Rich and IEists:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Rich Alderson" <alderson+mail at panix.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 08, 2001 8:36 PM

<snip>

> Later studies of the language have found that the proper analysis requires
> that there be two vowels, /a/ and /I-/ ("barred i").  The major proponent of
> this analysis is, as I recall, John Colarusso; see his grammar of Kabardian
> for more details.

[PR]
But is not /I-/ a high/mid central vowel? opposed to /a/, a low central vowel.

I would be inclined to regard /I-/ as an allophone of /a/ in specified
phonological environments.

As you rightly observe, vocalic contrasts are the common pattern in the world's
languages but the commonest contrast set is front-central-back.

[RA]
> 25 years ago, I used Kuipers, W. S. Allen on Abaza, and Dum'ezil on Ubykh as
> the props for a completely improper analysis of the IE vowel system, as I
> then saw it based on Lehmann's monovocalic analysis.  (It took me nearly 15
> years to see where Lehmann and I had got it all wrong:  *i and *u are
> primary, not *y and *w.)

[PR]
I still harbor the feeling that Lehmann was correct; and I have written to that
effect extensively on this list and at my website.

Without rehearsing my arguments, why do you not tell us a few IE words in which
you believe /i/ and /u/ are primary?

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit ec
at ec hecc, vindg? mei?i a netr allar n?o, geiri vnda?r . . . a ?eim
mei?i, er mangi veit, hvers hann af r?tom renn." (H?vam?l 138)


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Sun Mar 11 04:57:32 2001
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language)
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 22:57:32 -0600
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
Message-ID: <SAT.10.MAR.2001.225732.0600.>

Dear Rich and IEists:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Rich Alderson" <alderson+mail at panix.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 08, 2001 8:39 PM

> On the topic of Kuipers' analysis of Kabardian, Pat Ryan wrote on 2 Mar 2001:

>> He maintained that Kabardian had only one vowel, for which he was severely
>> criticized.

> No, he was mildly to moderately criticized for that analysis.

> He was severely criticized for his suggestion that Kabardian had *NO*
> phonemic vowels, only a feature similar to Lehmann's "sonority peak".
> Rightly so.

[PR]
Rather than reopen the discussion of 'what is a phoneme', I will simply stand
corrected for the purposes of the discussion.

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit ec
at ec hecc, vindg? mei?i a netr allar n?o, geiri vnda?r . . . a ?eim
mei?i, er mangi veit, hvers hann af r?tom renn." (H?vam?l 138)


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sun Mar 11 21:49:00 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2001 15:49:00 -0600
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
Message-ID: <SUN.11.MAR.2001.154900.0600.>

> The discussion in Thurneysen $156-$174 clearly shows that early >Old
> Irish undoubtedly had three consonant "qualities",

        The discussion shows more clearly that Thurneysen _believed_ that
Old Irish had three consonantal qualities than that it did.  As a
pre-phonemic Neo-Grammarian he felt no need to adduce minimal or even
near-minimal pairs, and did not do so.  Nonetheless, I have found at least
one:  "nert" vs. "neirt" vs. "neurt".  The problem is that this, and all the
other possible cases I have come across, involve /r/, which is more than a
litle suspect for a distinction that is supposed to have existed "across the
board".
        Three /r/s, velarized (perhaps as in American English), neutral
(trilled), and palatalized, with the last tending to fade out, since it is
hard to say, would not be terribly surprising.  I would not be terribly
surprised to find a three way contrast with /l/ and /n/ as well, though I
have not yet.  Such a thing, if my understanding is correct, exists in at
least some of the modern dialects, though here it is not a retention, and
the third quality is velarization, not labio-velarization (again, if my
understanding is correct).   (It is easier to make phonetic sense of
velarized /l/ than velarized /n/.)

> U-quality in Old Irish was certainly not limited to the
> dat.sg. and verbal 1st. p.  Take for instance the word <figor> ~
> <fiugor> < Lat. figura (/f/ palatal, /g/ labiovelar, /r/ neutral).

        But "fiugor" also appears as "figor", and it is not entirely clear
that "iu", were used, was not meant to more clearly signal velarization,
which is to say non-palatalization, rather than a distinctive
labio-velarization.  Nonetheless, my original assertion, probably
mis-remembered, about morphological predictability seems to have gone too
far.

        Can we not hear from some specialists on Irish?

Dr. David L. White


From dlwhite at texas.net  Mon Mar 12 18:15:40 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2001 12:15:40 -0600
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
Message-ID: <MON.12.MAR.2001.121540.0600.>

>> Fair enough, but what we need is a THREE-way contrast of palatalization,
>> labio-velarization, and whatever "[a]-quality" would be called, probably
>> "uvularization", a problem being that no such thing as uvularization (as far
>> as I know) occurs.

> This sort of thing occurs in Abaza/Abkhaz, Adyghe/Kabardian, and Ubykh.  One
> reasonably accessible account is Aert Kuipers' monograph on Kabardian in the
> _Janua Linguarum Series Minor_, in which he first analyses three series in
> the obstruent system (palatalized, labialized, and plain) which cause
> rounding and fronting in the single vowel.

> He then proceeds to re-analyze the plain series as having a feature "open",
> which he symbolizes with a superscript <a> to match the superscript <j> and
> <w> of the palatalized and labialized series respectively, and postulates
> that with the addition of this feature, we need not have any phonemic vowel
> at all in Kabardian.

> This analysis flies in the face of everything we know about permissible
> phonological systems and naturalness.

> Later studies of the language have found that the proper analysis requires
> that there be two vowels, /a/ and /I-/ ("barred i").

        Now I am thoroughly confused.  The analysis with three contrasting
consonantal qualities is seemingly presented as a fact at first only to be
dismissed as wrong later.  If "[a]-quality", which leads to the conclusion
that there is no /a/, is an illusion, then how are there three qualities?

Dr. David L. White


From epmoyer at netrax.net  Sat Mar 10 11:22:31 2001
From: epmoyer at netrax.net (Ernest P. Moyer)
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 06:22:31 -0500
Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele
Message-ID: <SAT.10.MAR.2001.062231.0500.>

Pat:

I find your speculations of the origin of YHWH curious. Remember, this form is
part of, and should be connected with, the full conjugation of an important
Semitic verb.  That verb means "to be," "to exist," "to form," "to mold," "to
constitute," and so on.

To suggest that it was expanded from a pagan Akkadian Ea/Ia neglects that
important root verb.  I do not know anything about the Akkadian language, but
I surmise that such an important verb should appear in that Semitic language
also.

It seems to me that to neglect the significance of Creativity in that verb, and
speculatively cast the origin of the name upon some pagan superstitious source,
is a real failure in linguistic studies.

Such speculation also rejects the devout religious attitudes of people who
truly believed in God, and not merely pagan gods.

Ernest

proto-language wrote:

[ moderator snip ]

> Frankly, it looks to me as if the Hebrews brought Ea/Ia with them from Akkad.
> After, al la egyptienne, they started playing with the name to find greater
> truths, it got expanded to y-h-w-h, which might have been actually pronounced
> /ja:wa:/ but looked like a Hiph'il of h-w-h, thus making a bogus theological
> point.


From epmoyer at netrax.net  Sat Mar 10 11:29:51 2001
From: epmoyer at netrax.net (Ernest P. Moyer)
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 06:29:51 -0500
Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele
Message-ID: <SAT.10.MAR.2001.062951.0500.>

Peter:

I am sure that any name so profound as that of God would not be a vehicle for
linguistic play.  Remember, after about 300 BC the Jews would not even
pronounce it, and have held to that superstition to this day.  So to play
around with the name of God was strictly a no-no.

Ernest

petegray wrote:

>>>  y-h-w-h  ... NOT y-h-w.

>> So you reject the obvious assumption that the final `h' is merely a mater
>> lectionis?

> That idea is vary far from obvious!   In most cases where a mater lectionis
> is used, there are spellings with and without the letter, but y-h-w is never
> found for the name of God.

> Peter


From petegray at btinternet.com  Sun Mar 11 09:42:07 2001
From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray)
Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2001 09:42:07 -0000
Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele
Message-ID: <SUN.11.MAR.2001.094207.0000.>

Yah is indeed found as an alternative for Yahweh, but my point still stands -
it is never found without the written <h>.  Indeed, in some places there is a
sign which indicates it must be pronounced.

Peter

>>> `h' is merely a mater lectionis?

>> In most cases where a mater lectionis is used, there are spellings with and
>> without the letter, but y-h-w is never found for the name of God.

> But Ya is.


From epmoyer at netrax.net  Tue Mar 13 08:47:20 2001
From: epmoyer at netrax.net (Ernest P. Moyer)
Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 03:47:20 -0500
Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele
Message-ID: <TUE.13.MAR.2001.034720.0500.>

Pat:

Brown, Driver and Briggs tell me that Yah is contracted from YHWH and is the
proper spelling.  See page 219.

In the few passages I have examined it is always spelled Yah.

Did you forget the "aitch?"

Ernest

proto-language wrote:

> Dear Peter and IEists:
>  ----- Original Message -----
> From: "petegray" <petegray at btinternet.com>
> Sent: Saturday, March 03, 2001 10:51 AM

>>>>  y-h-w-h  ... NOT y-h-w.

>>> So you reject the obvious assumption that the final `h' is merely a mater
>>> lectionis?

>> That idea is vary far from obvious!   In most cases where a mater lectionis
>> is used, there are spellings with and without the letter, but y-h-w is never
>> found for the name of God.

> [PR]

> But Ya is.

> Pat


From philjennings at juno.com  Wed Mar 14 22:20:09 2001
From: philjennings at juno.com (philjennings at juno.com)
Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2001 16:20:09 -0600
Subject: Arzawa = Razawa?
Message-ID: <WED.14.MAR.2001.162009.0600.>

I wrote:

>> The simple step of identifying Raza with Rase gives the Etruscans a "Lydian"
>> homeland.

Douglas G. Kilday answered:

> One could just as easily give them an "Assyrian" homeland by identifying
> Rasna with the city of Resen (Gen.  10:12), which someone else has done. In
> this business "simple steps" alone don't amount to much. Unless they are
> backed up by other evidence, they usually turn out to be steps in the wrong
> direction.

Perhaps during their sojourn in Assyria, the proto-Etruscans learned the trick
of using tular boundary stones from the Kassites next door, whose "kudurrus"
were an innovation.  But now I'm being silly.  Please don't think I'm ready to
have the Etruscans wander the world anywhere the letters "r", "s" [and "n"] are
found in dangerous proximity.

(I am, however, almost brave enough to notice Anatolian-type "ta-prefixed"
place names in the Balkans, where some people think the Anatolian-speaking
peoples originated.  Or perhaps, like the "trail of tears" this is an Etruscan
"trail of ta-'s."  Even if the phenomenon exists, it might be interpreted in
several ways.  As a continuation of this parenthesis, I was expecting someone
well-versed in Common Anatolian and its daughter languages to shoot me down
about my ta-prefix idea, and the fact that I'm still on my feet has me rather
amazed.)

The Razawa hypothesis is just a hypothesis.  As long as the only texts
referring to Arzawa are in the Hittite language, or distant and indirect, all
we'll see is the way the Hittites worked the name.  Then too, Arzawa must have
embraced populations that spoke Anatolian languages, and had equal difficulties
pronouncing "Razawa."  The dominant ethnicities of Arzawa may have shifted
through time, and/or people switched languages.  The emigration of refugees
would have tilted the balance.  Perhaps the Khirbet Kerak incursion in Canaan
represents the first of a series of refugee movements, each of which weakened
the position of "pre-Anatolian" peoples and languages in Asia Minor.

I admit ignoring the t-r-s-k sequence.  If t-r-s-n evolved from r-s-n as I
hypothesize (or simply wish - hypothesis is a pretty fancy name for it), then
I'm obliged to assert that t-r-s-k had a separate evolution, or that someone
found it meaningful to add the -k.  Kilday points out that t-r-s-k has the
oldest attestation, and here I'm making it out to be younger and possibly
derivative, to which I plead guilty.  With my focus on Arzawa and on dates of
1200 bce or before, a date of 600 bce for "Tursikina" allows for six centuries
of change.

Assuming an east-to-west movement of proto-Etruscan refugees, and noting that
the t-r-s-n form is the more eastward form, my musings are at least slightly
coherent.  Whether they correspond to reality is another story.

I will now page among all these archives, in the suspicion that this "-k" issue
has been dealt with at great length.


From alderson+mail at panix.com  Mon Mar 12 19:16:41 2001
From: alderson+mail at panix.com (Rich Alderson)
Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2001 14:16:41 -0500
Subject: [linguist@linguistlist.org: 12.660, Qs: IE Substratum?]
Message-ID: <MON.12.MAR.2001.141641.0500.>

Forwarded from the LINGUIST list with the author's permission.

------- Start of forwarded message -------
Delivered-To: LINGUIST at listserv.linguistlist.org
Date:         Sun, 11 Mar 2001 17:14:05 -0000
From: The LINGUIST Network <linguist at linguistlist.org>
Subject:      12.660, Qs: NP Length Statistics, IE Substratum?

LINGUIST List:  Vol-12-660. Sun Mar 11 2001. ISSN: 1068-4875.

Subject: 12.660, Qs: NP Length Statistics, IE Substratum?

[ snip ]

Date:  Fri, 9 Mar 2001 06:09:13 -0500 (EST)
From:  decaen at chass.utoronto.ca (Vincent DeCaen)
Subject:  IE substratum?

dear indoeuropeanists out there,

i would be ever so grateful for direction on the **non**IE substratum of
ancient Greek, and especially Hittite. the only thing i've been able to
find is an old dissertation on nonIE in Greek. i'm looking for phonology,
and typological information.

Dr Vincent DeCaen     <decaen at chass.utoronto.ca>
c/o Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, 4 Bancroft Ave., 2d floor
University of Toronto, Toronto ON, CANADA, M5S 1A1

Hebrew Syntax Encoding Initiative, www.chass.utoronto.ca/~decaen/hsei/


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Thu Mar 15 05:07:19 2001
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 00:07:19 EST
Subject: Minoan is an IE language?
Message-ID: <THU.15.MAR.2001.000719.EST.>

In a message dated 3/14/01 9:16:46 PM Mountain Standard Time, X99Lynx at aol.com
writes:

> On this basis, there appears to be no strong reason to dismiss the notion
> that Linear A at some point was used by "Eteo-Cretans" to write in Semitic
> or

-- except that Linear A is not exclusively a pictographic or logographic
script; like the derived Linear B script, it contains both syllabic and
pictographic elements, and many of the elements are common to both.

The only thing one can say with even a high degree of probability is that
whatever language the Linear A script was designed for wasn't Indo-European,
given the clumsiness of Linear B for that purpose -- despite the fact that it
was specifically intended for Mycenaean Greek.

Therefore it's a safe bet that Linear A was totally unsuitable for writing
Mycenaean and had to be substantially modified to be useable at all, even to
the very limited extent that Linear B achieves.


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Fri Mar 16 13:20:23 2001
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2001 08:20:23 EST
Subject: Minoan is an IE language?/Sound Equivalence
Message-ID: <FRI.16.MAR.2001.082023.EST.>

In a message dated 3/2/2001 7:12:07 PM, JoatSimeon at aol.com writes:

<< -- I find this unlikely.  The Linear B script, developed from Linear A, is
not only unsuited to writing Greek, it's grossly unsuited to writing any
early IE language --  >>

Which raises the question of relative degree of sound equivalency in a
language.  One might think that languages that had just adopted a foreign
alphabet would have these equivalency problems.  But that after a thousand
years or so the correspondences would be worked out and traces of conversion
would gradually disappear.

But maybe the amount of intake a language undergoes -- the amount of
borrowing it does -- might also affect the degree of stable equivalence.

In this regard, the following story may be of interest:

<<Study: English a Factor in Dyslexia

WASHINGTON (March 15) - When English-speaking children with dyslexia begin to
read, they face the awesome task of learning more than 1,100 ways that
letters in the written language are used to symbolize the 40 sounds in the
spoken language.

This may explain why there are twice as many identified dyslexics in
English-speaking cultures as in countries with less complex languages,
according to a study appearing Friday in the journal Science.

The study by an international team compared the brain scan images and reading
skills of dyslexic university students in Italy, France and England.

The researchers found virtually no difference in the neurological signature
for dyslexia, but there was an immense difference in how well the students
learned to read their native languages.

``It is much easier for dyslexics to learn to read in languages where there
is a one-to-one relationship between a letters and the sounds,'' said Chris
D. Frith, a researcher at the University College London and a co-author of
the study. ``In English, there are more than a thousand ways to spell the
sounds.''

In Italian, dyslexic students have a far easier time. The 33 sounds in
Italian are spelled with only 25 letters or letter combinations.

The researchers noted that identified dyslexics are rare in Italy because the
language helps learning readers to quickly overcome problems caused by the
disorder. To find dyslexics among Italian university students, the researcher
had to conduct special tests to identify those with the neurological
signature for the disorder.

Experts have estimated that between 5 percent and 15 percent of Americans
have some degree of dyslexia.  Dyslexia involves a brain structure that makes
it difficult for a learning reader to connect verbal sounds with the letters
or symbols that ``spell'' that sound. Such connections are essential to learn
to read.

In the study, researchers found that English, French and Italian dyslexics
did equally poorly in tests based on the short-term memory of verbal sounds,
a key measure for the disorder. Yet the Italians were far better at reading
their native language than were the English and French students.

The students were then put through a series of reading exams using positron
emission tomography to measure and image blood flow in specific parts of the
brain, an indication of neurological activity. All of the students had the
same deficits in the left temporal lobe of the brain while performing reading
tasks.

``Although Italian dyslexics read more accurately than French or English
dyslexics, they showed the same degree of impairment'' in the brain image,
the study found.

This suggests, the researchers said, that it is the language difference alone
that makes it more difficult for English-speaking dyslexics to learn how to
read.

``The complexity of the English and French written languages stems from
historical events that have introduced spellings from other languages, while,
in comparison, Italian has remained quite pure,'' said Eraldo Paulesu of the
University of Milan Bicocca, the lead author of the study.

In English, many words share the same letter combinations, but involve
different sounds when spoken. For example: mint and pint; cough and bough,
and clove and love. In French, the complexity stems from different letter
combinations that ``spell'' the same or similar sound, such as ``au temps''
(at the time) and ``autant'' (as much, or so much).

Firth said that Spanish, Finnish and Czech are ``dyslexia friendly''
languages because they lack the sound-spelling complexity of English and
French. Japanese, he said, is also easier for children learning to read
because of its consistency of sounds and symbols.>>

Regards,
Steve Long


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Thu Mar 15 05:14:51 2001
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 00:14:51 EST
Subject: Goths, Naming and Ablaut
Message-ID: <THU.15.MAR.2001.001451.EST.>

In a message dated 3/14/01 9:45:22 PM Mountain Standard Time, X99Lynx at aol.com
writes:

> Now, with all that said, it still seems possible to me that Greek originally
> gave a name to the historical Goths who later appear on the Danube coming
> from the direction of the Ukraine in the early 3d century AD.

-- since there's no evidence that the Goths ever called themselves anything
but Goths, parsimony would indicate that this was "always" their word for
themselves as an ethnic group, at the next stage up from the various tribal
identifiers like the Amals, the Teurings, etc.

Incidentally, I'm not aware of any evidence that the Gothic tribes who
appeared on the Danube in the 3rd century came via the Ukraine; the Gothic
tradition was that the split into eastern and western groups occurred in the
course of their migration southward from the Vistula basin.

Given the extreme mobility of Germanic groups in that era, there's no reason
to doubt it that I can see.


From hwhatting at hotmail.com  Thu Mar 15 06:19:16 2001
From: hwhatting at hotmail.com (Hans-Werner Hatting)
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 07:19:16 +0100
Subject: Goths, Naming and Ablaut
Message-ID: <THU.15.MAR.2001.071916.0100.>

On Sat, 10 Mar 2001 01:13:14 EST Steve Long wrote:

>So if the name of the Goths was given, it could have been given in a
>non-Germanic language.  And it may have reached the Greeks being spoken in
>a non-Germanic tongue.

This is a possibility. As long as we have no good Etymology, we should
explore all avenues. But if, on all these avenues, we do not find some
convincing proposals, only a lot of associations, it might be better to
stick to a Germanic etymology - here at least we have a root, variants of
the name which stick to an ablaut pattern, and we just have to get the
semantics straight.

>And may have reached Ptolemy in Alexandria fourth-hand and become <Gythones>.
>(On the other hand, it should be remembered that Ptolemy placed the <Gutae> up
>in Scandia, with no recognition of any connection with <Gythones>.)

One thing we should keep in mind is on what information Ptolemy relied. For
the mediterranean region, he probably was able to tell who was situated
where. For the regions farther away, he had to rely on travellers' stories
and on older written sources, and he certainly did not check them.
Especially the written sources must have been outdated in many cases. E.g.,
our form "Gythones" looks suspicious to me - AFAIK, at Ptolemy's time Greek
_y_ did not render /u/ any more, so it seems Ptolemy copied from an older
source, written at least 200 years earlier. The _Gutae_ came from another
source, and as at that time the Goths were just a faraway people, Ptolemy
had no reason to waste his readers' time by speculations about a possible
relationship between Gythones and Gutae.

>But key here is that it appears there may have been direct Roman contact with
>the "Gotones" in their attempt to subvert the regime in Marobudum.  So
>Tacitus' may have had the name from the horse's mouth.  In which case, whether
>or not Goth was a given or assumed name or original, what the Romans seem to
>have heard was "Got-".

Which would not be astonishing if their sources were West Germanic, which is
very propbable in that area.

>The hitch here is that Tacitus places these "Gotones" lingering around in
>Central Europe near the Suevi and getting involved in events a day's drive
>west of modern Vienna, precisely when the archaeological Goths and the Goths
>of Jordanes are supposed to be marching into what will become Kiev and points
>east.  So it may not be impossible that we are dealing with two different
>groups here with very similar names.  The Geats and "tribes" with similar
>names that in Latin begin with <C> or even <Ch> might suggest this is possible
>(e.g., Cotini, Cotensi, Chatti).  In connection with this it bears noting that
>Ptolemy also located north of the eastern Danube tribes named in the later
>Latin version <Sargati>, <Piengitae>, <Exobygitae>, <Tyrangitae> and the
>Sarmatian <Tyrgetas>.

Not impossible, but unlikely, as the Goths did not vanish from the Roman
horizon afterwards, so I think we ought to assume an identity between
Tacitus' Goths and the later ones. I think it is more likely that the Goths
Tacitus mentions are Visigoths, while the ones going down to the Crimea were
Ostrogoths. Correct me if I'm wrong - I don't remember when exactly the
Visigoth - Ostrogoth split was supposed to have happened.

>Now, with all that said, it still seems possible to me that Greek originally
>gave a name to the historical Goths who later appear on the Danube coming from
>the direction of the Ukraine in the early 3d century AD.  And that those
>particular Goths could have taken the name as their own or perhaps took a name
>in the Greek tongue. One reason among others is simply that when the Greeks
>named something, it often stuck - like it or not.

In this case, we would have:
1. the Goths, named by the Greeks (or anybody else in the Balkan
neighbourhood);
2. Tacitus' Gotones, which are to be kept separate;
3. the Gythones;
4. the Gutae (= Geats?).

Of which, at least the latter two must have got their names earlier. To me,
it seems unlikely that these people have to be kept separate. After all,
until we find more evidence, I favour to explain all these names as denoting
the same (or related) people, and as coming from a Germanic source (Gmc.
*giut/gaut/gut-, PIE *gheu-d- "pour").

Best regards,
Hans-Werner Hatting


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Thu Mar 15 05:26:00 2001
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 00:26:00 EST
Subject: "Gothi" (timeline)
Message-ID: <THU.15.MAR.2001.002600.EST.>

In a message dated 3/14/01 10:17:08 PM Mountain Standard Time,
X99Lynx at aol.com writes:

> In fact, without background, how would we account for an Arabic kingdom in
> Asia Minor calling itself "Rum"?

-- ah... that's a _Turkish_ kingdom in Anatolia, not Arabic.


From hwhatting at hotmail.com  Thu Mar 15 07:22:09 2001
From: hwhatting at hotmail.com (Hans-Werner Hatting)
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 08:22:09 +0100
Subject: "Gothi" (timeline)
Message-ID: <THU.15.MAR.2001.082209.0100.>

On Sun, 11 Mar 2001 03:09:36 EST Steve Long wrote:

>With regard to the n-stem ending attached to a proper name: it is not a
>unique thing among the Greeks and to some degree the Romans, even where we
>may have non-IE speakers being named - e.g., Sidones, Vascones, Nasamones.
>Perhaps these endings, which were applied to peoples (or just gatherings or
>groups, see e.g. <Amphictyones, antichthones>) across Greece, Gaul, Germania
>and Scythia, were always based on a true n-stem root rather than a
>convention.  But it is clear that there are often versions where the use of
>the ending is dropped (e.g., Gothones, Gothi, Gothini).

>And it may be worth noting the names of Ptolemy's <Gutae> or the later
><Gautoi> in Scandinavia don't show the ending.  This would seem to be the
>reverse of what you suggested above, since the Scandinavians were always at
>a distance.

The possibility that _-ones_ was not based on anything in the original name,
but an addition by Greeks and Romans, did not occur to me - thanks for that
suggestion!

We would then only have ablaut variants, not stem variants.

>I've suggested elsewhere that truly early word of the name of the Goths may
>have had to pass through speakers that were not Germanic, just as the names
>of other peoples far from the Greeks may have.  But the early Greeks were
>exceptionally good at getting around, so direct contact is not out of the
>guestion.  In fact, Tacitus, Pliny, etc., retell accounts of Greeks among the
>northern Germani and of course there is even evidence of Mycenaean trade in
>Denmark, etc.

Just a suggestion - maybe I am wrong:

I think people who go to places abroad will be interested in finding out the
names of people they are visiting, especially if they want to trade with
them, so most probably they will ask those people, or their neighbours. And
if they give them a name themselves, it will be propbably easily
etymologisable. On the other hand, if suddenly other people turn up on your
door step, it is much more likely that you name them yourself, or take a
name for them from your own neighbours, or mix them up with other people
having some similarity with them - be it cultural, some outward traits, or
geopgraphical situation.

So if the Greeks had commercial contacts to the Goths before, it is (by this
chain of reasoning)less likely that _Goth_ is a name given to them by the
Greeks, and more likely that it is theri own name, or a name given to them
by earlier neighbours.

>These are cases where a Greek source was
>attributed for a word in Gothic, where the Greek contained an <o>:

>Gr. <apostolos > Gothic <apau:lstau:lus, apau:lstulus> (strong masc),
>apostle

>Gr. <diabolos> > Gothic <diabau:lus, diabulus> (strong masc) devil (Wright:
>through Lat. diabolus) (OE. de:ofol, OHG. tiufal)

>Gr. <korban> > Gothic <kau:rba:n> gift (Greek from the Hebrew)

>Gr. <porphura> > Gothic <pau:rpura> purple

>Gr. <prophe:te:s>  > Gothic <prau:fe:tus, prau:fe:te:s> (strong masc)
>prophet

>Note that Greek <o> appears to be consistently transliterated as <au:> except
>in <diabulus> and <apaulstulus> where <u> alternatively appears.

>Does this mean that if the word <got-> was heard in Greek, it would have been
>written by Ulfila as <gau:t->?

>From this, it seems that Ulfila wrote _au_ for Greek /o/ when it was
accented or came before the accented syllable, and /u/ otherwise. This could
also support the idea that Gothic _au_ was really pronounced /o/.
But what to make of the Greek forms with _y_ and _ou_, which seem to point
to a Greek pronounciation /gut-/, not /got-/? If I haven't missed something,
/o/ seems to be attested only in the Latin sources.

>But here I must note that <Rum> will appear soon after and become the name of
>these places in everything from Turkish to Persian to Romanian and Russian.
>The spelling is attributed to early Arabic in reference to the eastern Empire
>and extends to the name of the Balkan provinces of the Ottoman empire. But
>this version <Rum> persisted not only into later Greek but also into the
>Romance language that was first called "Rumanian" for that very reason.

>In fact, without background, how would we account for an Arabic kingdom in
>Asia Minor calling itself "Rum"?

A minor squibble - if you are talking about the Rum Seljuk empire, they were
Turkic.

>Or, without background, how would we explain the o/u in Romanian/Rumanian?
>And should we think that the basis of
><gotthi/gouthth/gotones/geat/getan/gutae/*gaut-> would be any simplier

It may be as complicated. But shouldn't we look for the simpler solution? We
can doubt some pillars which it is based on, but we should drop it only if
we find that it is counter to fact, or that we have other facts supporting
another theory.

Best regards,
Hans-Werner Hatting


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Thu Mar 15 06:48:00 2001
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 01:48:00 EST
Subject: Goths/ Prestige of Scandinavia
Message-ID: <THU.15.MAR.2001.014800.EST.>

In a message dated 3/14/01 10:55:41 PM Mountain Standard Time,
X99Lynx at aol.com writes:

> Pliny made the Goths members of the Vandals and there is no
> mention of that in Jordanes.

-- the linguistic evidence indicates a very close link between Vandals and
Goths; they were both East Germanic speakers -- unlike the Alemmanni or
Franks or Saxons.  The personal names are identical, for instance, and quite
distinct from more westerly German groups.

The historical evidence bears this out.  The Goths seem to have been the
easternmost of the Germanics and the Vandals early, and close, neighbors.

The tradition of Scandinavian origins probably refers to the antecedents of
the ruling clan/clans rather than the Gothic ethnos as a whole, which was
mixed to begin with and became more so later.

There's no reason that the tradition couldn't be true in that sense; besides
the Geats/Gotar of Sweden, whose name is at least suggestive, there are
plenty of subsequent historical analogies.   The Scandinavians who, as the
"Russ", later gave their name to Russia, are an example.


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Thu Mar 15 09:46:31 2001
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 09:46:31 +0000
Subject: Non-Indic sustrate vocabulary
In-Reply-To: <002901c0a962$11b2e600$aa1d523e@pc>
Message-ID: <THU.15.MAR.2001.094631.0000.>

David S?nchez writes:

> I read some time ago, that a scandinavian group have claimed
> that they have proved Indus Valley script was written in a form
> of a dravidian language. I was strongly surpresed and I was very
> doubtful about the feasibility of this claim.

> What can be said about the actual feasibility of claims of this type?

I think the reference must be to Asko Parpola's work.  Parpola, a Finn, is the
leader of a Finnish group which has been investigating the Indus Valley texts
for some years.  In 1994, Parpola published a book entitled Deciphering the
Indus Script, from Cambridge UP.  There he reaches the conclusion that the
language of the Indus Valley texts is most likely Dravidian.

The response to this book has been surprisingly muted, as far as I can judge.
It has not caused a storm of controversy, and I hardly ever see even a
reference to it, favorable or unfavorable.  Perhaps it is merely that most
scholars regard the book as wholly respectable but far from convincing.
Indeed, in his contribution to the 1996 Daniels and Bright volume The World's
Writing Systems (Oxford UP), Parpola is very cautious and puts forward no
strong conclusions at all.

A summary of Parpola's work can be found here:

  http://www.harappa.com/script/parpola0.html

I haven't read the book, but I think it is fair to say that the material
presented on this Website is no more than suggestive, and far from convincing.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk

Tel: (01273)-678693 (from UK); +44-1273-678693 (from abroad)
Fax: (01273)-671320 (from UK); +44-1273-671320 (from abroad)


From lmfosse at online.no  Thu Mar 15 09:51:11 2001
From: lmfosse at online.no (Lars Martin Fosse)
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 10:51:11 +0100
Subject: SV: Non-Indic sustrate vocabulary
Message-ID: <THU.15.MAR.2001.105111.0100.>

David Sanchez [SMTP:davius_sanctex at terra.es] skrev 10. mars 2001 14:00:
> I read some time ago, that a scandinavian group have claimed
> that they have proved Indus Valley script was written in a form
> of a dravidian language. I was strongly surpresed and I was very
> doubtful about the feasibility of this claim.

> What can be said about the actual feasibility of claims of this type?

I refer to my earlier mails with bibliographic details. The "Nordic group"
is Prof. Parpola of the University of Helsinki (I believe, but correct me
if he belongs to another Finnish university). Parpola has published
extensively on the Indus Script, and regards its underlying language as an
early form of Dravidian. He has tried to interpret the script in this
spirit. This has been challenged by among others Prof. Witzel of Harvard,
who sees the underlying language as possibly an an early form of Munda (or
some language X). (See the Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies). The French
scholar Bernard Sergent has suggested that the underlying language is
rather an early version of Burushaski. He rejects Dravidian on grounds of
physical anthropology ("skull measures"). Se his book L'origine de l'Inde.

A fourth possibility that has been discussed loosely is that the Indus
script was used for several different languages, a solution that would fit
the rather enormous territory covered by the Indus civilization.

No interpretation of the Indus script has so far received general
acceptance among scholars. It is possible that the problems of the script
cannot be solved.

Best regards,

Lars Martin Fosse

Dr. art. Lars Martin Fosse
Haugerudvn. 76, Leil. 114,
0674 Oslo
Norway
Phone: +47 22 32 12 19
Mobile phone: +47 90 91 91 45
Fax 1:  +47 22 32 12 19
Fax 2:  +47 85 02 12 50 (InFax)
Email: lmfosse at online.no


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Thu Mar 15 14:56:43 2001
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language)
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 08:56:43 -0600
Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele
Message-ID: <THU.15.MAR.2001.085643.0600.>

Dear Peter and Ernest and IEists:

Original Message -----
From: "petegray" <petegray at btinternet.com>
Sent: Sunday, March 11, 2001 3:42 AM

I fear that I have abraded some religious sensibilities and I apologize for any
disrespect perceived but not intended.

I have combined my answers to Peter and Ernest into one post for convenience
(uninterested readers will only have to press DELETE once).

1)

<snip>

>[PRp]
>But Ya is.

[PG]

>> Yah is indeed found as an alternative for Yahweh, but my point still stands
>> - it is never found without the written <h>.  Indeed, in some places there
>> is a sign which indicates it must be pronounced.

AND

[EPM]

> Brown, Driver and Briggs tell me that Yah is contracted from YHWH and is the
> proper spelling.  See page 219.

> In the few passages I have examined it is always spelled Yah.

> Did you forget the "aitch?"

[PR]

There are a number of personal names in the OT which seem by some scholars to
be analyzed as containing the divine name Ya, written simply [y]; e.g. Jehu
(y-hw?), 'Ya is he'; 'Ya is able'; Jeremai (yrm-y), 'Ya is high'); Jeribai
(yryb-y), 'Ya contends'; Jeshishai (yshysh-y), 'Ya is high'; etal.

These are the standard interpretations in the field (Young's Analytical
Concordance) though, of course, it might be possible to tease another analysis
from them.

2)

[EPM]

>I find your speculations of the origin of YHWH curious.  Remember, this form
>is part of, and should be connected with, the full conjugation of an important
>Semitic verb.  That verb means "to be," "to exist," "to form," "to mold," "to
>constitute," and so on.

>To suggest that it was expanded from a pagan Akkadian Ea/Ia neglects that
>important root verb.  I do not know anything about the Akkadian language, but
>I surmise that such an important verb should appear in that Semitic language
>also.

>It seems to me that to neglect the significance of Creativity in that verb,
>and speculatively cast the origin of the name upon some pagan superstitious
>source, is a real failure in linguistic studies.

>Such speculation also rejects the devout religious attitudes of people who
>truly believed in God, and not merely pagan gods.

[PR]
To the worshipper of any single god, all other worship is pagan.

"Expanded" is not really what I had in mind. I had thought more along the lines
of a people borrowing a creator god, E/Ia from the Mesopotamian culture; and
perhaps writing it [yh] to give it better recognizability or to indicate a long
vowel (/ja:/). At some point realizing that the verb form [yhwh], having to do
with "creation", contained the first two consonants of the form in which [y]
had come to be written ([yh]), perceived that [yhwh] could better explicate the
nature of Ya as 'creator' (since [y] or [yh] could provide no Hebrew
etymology).

Alternatively, [yhwh] might be an explicationally expanded from of [y-hw(3)],
'he is Ya'.

I have also explained that E/Ia should be analyzed as Sumerian E(11)-a, 'that
which is engendered', or 'the engenderer', so the creative aspect of the god is
not being neglected.

3)

[EPM]

> I am sure that any name so profound as that of God would not be a vehicle for
> linguistic play.  Remember, after about 300 BC the Jews would not even
> pronounce it, and have held to that superstition to this day.  So to play
> around with the name of God was strictly a no-no.

[PR]

The Hebrews were in the Egyptian cultural orbit.

If I need to give examples of the ubiquitous habit of Egyptian word-play with
divine concepts, by which they meant no disrespect but only hoped to illuminate
inherent connections among important concepts, then the discussion is simply
pointless.

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit ec
at ec hecc, vindg? mei?i a netr allar n?o, geiri vnda?r . . . a ?eim
mei?i, er mangi veit, hvers hann af r?tom renn." (H?vam?l 138)


From bronto at pobox.com  Fri Mar 16 05:23:30 2001
From: bronto at pobox.com (Anton Sherwood)
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 21:23:30 -0800
Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele
Message-ID: <THU.15.MAR.2001.212330.0800.>

"Ernest P. Moyer" wrote:

> Pat:
> I find your speculations of the origin of YHWH curious. Remember,
> this form is part of, and should be connected with, the full
> conjugation of an important Semitic verb.  That verb means "to be,"
> "to exist," "to form," "to mold," "to constitute," and so on.

> To suggest that it was expanded from a pagan Akkadian Ea/Ia
> neglects that important root verb. . . .

Unless the connexion with the verb is just one more in a fairly long list of
Biblical folk-etymologies.

--
Anton Sherwood  --  br0nt0 at p0b0x.com  --  http://ogre.nu/


From dlwhite at texas.net  Thu Mar 15 15:41:36 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 09:41:36 -0600
Subject: Etruscans
Message-ID: <THU.15.MAR.2001.094136.0600.>

> David L. White (8 Mar 2001) wrote:

>> I have it on good authority (Eric Hamp) that English-like aspiration occurs
>> in some Pennine Italian dialects.  Perhaps an ancient version of this is the
>> source.  But what language is "Thouskoi" in?  Something similar, by the way,
>> appears to be going on with "Punic" versus "Phonecian", and I would like to
>> know what the story is there.

> The Pennine Alps are a long way from the Sabine country. Not knowing much
> about Alpine dialects, I wouldn't know whether to attribute the aspiration
> to substrate or the influence of German. If I squint at the map, I can see
> the Matterhorn and a place called Zermatt, so I presume that German is, or
> recently was, spoken here.

        Geography is becoming confused.  I believe Hamp's original words (it
was 10-15 years ago) were something like "mountains of central Italy".  The
Alps have nothing to do with anything.  I would gues the phenomenon must be
the same thing recently pointed out as existing in Tuscan, though if it is
truly general to Tuscan we must wonder why it did not become established in
standard Italian.  My point was that aspiration is known from that general
area, and might one way or another explain the evident /th/ of "Thouskoi".
        But I could have sworn I saw "Thoursk-" cited (as Umbrian) at one
point.  What is this?

> I have grave doubts that the Etruscan presence in Etruria, Romagna, and the
> Po valley was a small elite. That _may_ have been the case in Campania
> before the Samnite conquest. But in Etruria and the northern areas, a
> substantial part of the general population must have been Etruscan, and I
> don't see the elite-dominance model applying.

        I would say _originally_ a small elite.  People can easily shift
their ethnic identity.  The genetic evidence shows that this clearly
happened in Turkey, where people who now think of themselves as Turks had
ancestors who thought of themseves as Greeks (who in turn probably had
ancestors who thought of themselves as Phrygians, etc... )  I note that
class divisions in Etruscan society seem to have been unusually rigid, with
no true middle class.  This might be because class divisions went back to
earlier ethnic divisions re-analyzed, there being great efforts to keep the
conquered in their place by erecting uncrossable class barriers.  Otherwise
the failure of Etruscan society to develop a middle class comparable to what
existed among the Greeks and Romans is somewhat strange.

> As for classical Etruscans wanting to believe in glorious ancestors who
> fought in the Trojan War, this sort of romantic illusionism is practically
> ubiquitous. In the USA it isn't hard to find folks who insist they are
> descended from their Sunday-school heroes, seizing on the flimsiest
> superficialities to establish their own membership in the fabled Lost
> Tribes.

        We are not disagreeing about anything here.  But the fact that they
_could_ be wrong does not mean they were.  My point was that the
after-the-fact glory of Troy could well have caused any northern Aegean
interlude to be skipped over.

>> Could this long vowel [in <Tro:s>, <Tro:ios>, etc.] not be secondary, by
>> compensatory lengthening, /trosy-/ -> /trohy-/ -> /trooy-/, with /y/
>> later lost where not re-analyzable as part of a suffix with /i/?

> I don't see any compensatory lengthening in Epic genitives like <megaroio>,
> where we have /oyo/ < */ohyo/ < */osyo/.

        Nor in the ancestor of /naio/, from /nasyo/.  With dentals followed
by /y/ it appears (to me) that what happend was (in effect) metathesis, as
in /melaina/ from /melanya/, followed, where applicable, by /s/-loss:
/nasyo/ -> /naiso/ -> /naio/.  In such a sequence compensatory lengthening
would not be expected, as the /s/, by the time it is lost, has ceased to be
moraic.
        The process I posit would have to be later than the change of
original /sy/.  But as the word for Troy was clearly not part of the IE
inheritance, I see no great problem with that, not counting ad-hocness.  But
for foreign borrowings to have unique sequences, regarded as at least
awkward, is not unheard of.  There would have been a second loss of /sy/
phonologically parallel with the loss of /sw/, which _did_ involve
compensatory lengthening, probably because it did not involve (de facto)
metathesis.  I admit that this probably did not happen, preferring option #2
below, but I do think there is nothing _fatally_ wrong with it.

>> In any event, for there to be a difference of opinion about whether some
>> vowel is a short high vowel or a long mid vowel is not unheard of, as seen
>> in Vulgar Latin.

> According to Palmer, Vulgar Latin first "closed" the quality of long vowels,
> giving nine distinct vowel-timbres (/a:/ could not be "closed"). The
> phonemic distinction of vowel-quantity was then lost, as stressed vowels
> became long and unstressed ones short. Convergence of close /o/ with open
> /U/, and of close /e/ with open /I/, formed the basis of Continental West
> Romance.

        Yes, the point is that long mids can sound like short highs, or
mergers would not happen.  Thus one language's long mid could sound like
another's short high.  When it happened in Latin is irrelevant, though I
believe most observers would posit a difference in quality for Latin shorts
and longs going way back into pre-history.

> I don't know which dialect of VL you have in mind when you cite
> convergence of /o/ with /I/.

        Must have been a typo.

>> Length is not necessarily that clear.  The lowering of Greek original long
>> mids would have to be later, but as far as I know there is no reason that
>> this (somewhat strange) development has to be especially early.  The lack of
>> a distinction between /u/ and /o/ also may well have something to do with
>> borrowings at different times by different peoples taking slightly different
>> forms.

> I don't see what borrowing has to do with the lack of /o:u/ distinction in
> Etruscan. Having only one phonemic back-vowel quality is an essential
> characteristic of the language.

        Certainly no sane observer would suggest that the lack of a
distinction bewteen /o/ and /u/ in Etruscan was _caused_ by borrowing.  My
point is that, where no distinction exists, it is possible for intermediate
phonetic types to be produced.  I particularly recall a professor of mine,
from Massachusetts, who made no distinction between the vowel of "caught"
and the vowel of "cot" (which seems to be the trend these days), routinely
producing for either (in my idiolect) a vowel that sounded exactly "on the
cusp" between the two, thereby annoying the hell out of me.  (I kept feeling
like asking him which one he meant.)  If the same sort of thing happened
with Etruscan /o-u/, then some difference of opinion among borrowing
languages about whether the vowel in question "was"  /o/ or /u/ is entirely
understandable, even predictable.  In sum, for Etruscan /o-u/ to have
sounded like short /u/ to some Greeks (or other people) of one period and
dialect and like long /o/ to other Greeks (or other people) of another
period and dialect would be not at all suprising.  The only thing I would
say is that since an open long /o/ of the later omega type would almost
certainly not have been what Etruscan /o-u/ sounded lke the borrowing with
long /o/ must predate lowering of this, which in turn was probably motivated
by the creation of a new vowel from /ou/ of various sources. But again, this
(unless I am missing something does not seem like a fatal, or even
near-fatal, problem.

Dr. David L. White


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Fri Mar 16 05:41:42 2001
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2001 00:41:42 EST
Subject: Etruscans
Message-ID: <FRI.16.MAR.2001.004142.EST.>

In a message dated 3/15/2001 3:01:29 AM, acnasvers at hotmail.com writes:
<< In the USA it isn't hard to find folks who insist they are descended from
their Sunday-school heroes, seizing on the flimsiest superficialities to
establish their own membership in the fabled Lost Tribes. >>

I'd double-check this one.  One does not hear an awful lot about personal
genealogical descent from the Lost Tribes, except maybe for late at night at
certain Irish-American taverns on the westside of Manhattan.  And even there,
the debate usually deal with more productive questions, like whether those
Tribes were actually Lost or merely Misplaced.  My guess is that outside the
state of Utah and among members of the Mormon faith, the overwhelmingly vast
majority of Americans do not even know who the Lost Tribes were.

As far as Etruscan origins go, certain things might be worth mentioning:

- There is (as far as I know) no evidence of anything but Villanovian
settlements in Etruscan regions before somewhere around 800BC.  The first
clear evidence of a foreign presence afterward is Greek.  But when
identifiably Etruscan settlements emerge they have some features that do not
seem Villanovian or Greek at all.  These features are however identifiable
with other locations around the Mediterranean.

- Many elements of the so-called "orientalizing" of later Etruscan culture
feature things emphatically not Greek or Early Roman, such as bucherro
pottery, which clearly establish some kind of ties with Asia Minor.  There
are other elements that suggest ties with Crete or the southern Mediterranean
coast.  These elements are not peripheral to Etruscan culture.  Their
eastern, non-Greek character had a pronounced effect on scholars from the
earliest finds and they are still plain to see in Etruscan artifact
collections.

- What is odd about the Etruscan settlement on Lemnos is not the stele.  What
is odd is that it is on Lemnos, without an apparent serious stronghold
structure, dangerously in the very teeth of a very Greek sea.  I have seen
different earliest dates for the settlement itself.  (And how early this
settlement would be scientifically dated would make a difference.)

I understand that there were over a hundred cremation burials in the
necropolis, including men and women.  The women's graves contain early
bucherro pottery and the male graves contain weapons, including
characteristically Cretan axes and daggers.

What the stele tells us is the settlement appears to have had a strong
Etruscan connection.  It does not tell us why these settlers were there.
Even as a trading colony, it is a fish out of water.  The strong implication
is I think some kind of a license or patronage allowed the settlement to be
there.  One wonders if the coming of the Persians had something to do with
this.

- Putting aside the question of who the Etruscans were for a moment, the
Etruscan language appears to the have been strongly centered in Italy from
all the evidence we have.

If it came from foreign parts, it could have come with very few carriers, but
it would have had to provide indigenous people a very good economic or social
reason to adopt it.

If it represented a large migration, we would like to see evidence of the
language elsewhere, other than in a small colony in a sea of Greeks.

On the other hand, if it was a local language adopted by immigrants from Asia
Minor and points east and south - or even Greeks - we might see the very same
footprint as in the cases above.

The origin of the Etruscan language may not tell us where some or many of the
people we know as Etruscans came from.

-  The adoption of the Greek alphabet seems to be a thing somewhat taken for
granted in all this.  But what were the mechanics of this process? How much
bi-lingualism do you need to even understand the concept?  How do we envision
converting a whole "people" without an alphabet to writing (and reading)
using the Greek method?  Would it help if many of them at first also spoke
and wrote Greek?

Regards,
Steve Long


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Fri Mar 16 19:43:52 2001
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2001 14:43:52 -0500
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
In-Reply-To: <000701c0aa75$2860c520$376163d1@texas.net>
Message-ID: <FRI.16.MAR.2001.144352.0500.>

Wouldn't <nert> and <neirt> both be palatalized?

>        The discussion shows more clearly that Thurneysen _believed_ that
>Old Irish had three consonantal qualities than that it did.  As a
>pre-phonemic Neo-Grammarian he felt no need to adduce minimal or even
>near-minimal pairs, and did not do so.  Nonetheless, I have found at least
>one:  "nert" vs. "neirt" vs. "neurt".  The problem is that this, and all the
>other possible cases I have come across, involve /r/, which is more than a
>litle suspect for a distinction that is supposed to have existed "across the
>board".

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


From alderson+mail at panix.com  Thu Mar 15 23:36:43 2001
From: alderson+mail at panix.com (Rich Alderson)
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 18:36:43 -0500
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
In-Reply-To: <00bc01c0a9e6$d72b8660$fbf1fea9@Ryan>
 (proto-language@email.msn.com)
Message-ID: <THU.15.MAR.2001.183643.0500.>

On 10 Mar 2001, Pat Ryan wrote:

[I had written:]

>> Later studies of the language have found that the proper analysis requires
>> that there be two vowels, /a/ and /I-/ ("barred i").  The major proponent of
>> this analysis is, as I recall, John Colarusso; see his grammar of Kabardian
>> for more details.

> But is not /I-/ a high/mid central vowel? opposed to /a/, a low central
> vowel.

High central unrounded.  And the operative word there is "opposed".

> I would be inclined to regard /I-/ as an allophone of /a/ in specified
> phonological environments.

Only if you don't look at Colarusso's evidence for the phonemic status of the
opposition, that is, that both occur in the *same* environments, and neither
can be motivated from the other.

> Without rehearsing my arguments, why do you not tell us a few IE words in
> which you believe /i/ and /u/ are primary?

Any word in which *i or *u can be reconstructed.  That they may alternate in
morphophonological rules with *y and *w is irrelevant to their phonemic status,
though the consonantal forms may have originated in fortitions of originally
vocalic segments.  (For the concept of fortition processes, see P. Donegan's
Ohio State dissertation, still available I believe as a working paper from the
linguistics department there.)

								Rich Alderson


From alderson+mail at panix.com  Thu Mar 15 23:48:58 2001
From: alderson+mail at panix.com (Rich Alderson)
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 18:48:58 -0500
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
In-Reply-To: <003101c0ab20$830945a0$762863d1@texas.net> (dlwhite@texas.net)
Message-ID: <THU.15.MAR.2001.184858.0500.>

On 12 Mar 2001, David White wrote:

> Now I am thoroughly confused.  The analysis with three contrasting
> consonantal qualities is seemingly presented as a fact at first only to be
> dismissed as wrong later.  If "[a]-quality", which leads to the conclusion
> that there is no /a/, is an illusion, then how are there three qualities?

The analysis of the obstruents as occurring in three series, to wit, plain,
palatalized, and labialized, is unremarkable.  Presumably, your confusion stems
from my comments on Kuipers' re-analysis of "plain":

>> He then proceeds to re-analyze the plain series as having a feature "open",
>> which he symbolizes with a superscript <a> to match the superscript <j> and
>> <w> of the palatalized and labialized series respectively, and postulates
>> that with the addition of this feature, we need not have any phonemic vowel
>> at all in Kabardian.

That is, in order to motivate a completely vowelless analysis of the phonologi-
cal system of Kabardian, Kuipers introduces an _ad hoc_ feature which he calls
"open" and symbolizes as a superscript <a> on the formerly undecorated plain
series.  This feature must then be present on every obstruent which does not
color surrounding vowels by fronting and/or rounding them, and since the color
of any vowel is thereby predicted by the coloration of the surrounding obstru-
ents, there is no need in his analysis for any phonemic vowel at all.

This latter claim ("no phonemic vowel at all") is what I referred to when I
said

>> This analysis flies in the face of everything we know about permissible
>> phonological systems and naturalness.

However, as I pointed out briefly,

>> Later studies of the language have found that the proper analysis requires
>> that there be two vowels, /a/ and /I-/ ("barred i").

so there is no need for his "open" feature, since the analysis that caused him
to propose it was fatally flawed in any case.

								Rich Alderson


From mom20 at hermes.cam.ac.uk  Tue Mar 20 15:13:44 2001
From: mom20 at hermes.cam.ac.uk (M.O.McCullagh)
Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 15:13:44 +0000
Subject: Morphological remodelling
In-Reply-To: <00bc01c0a383$59158640$63444241@Ryan>
Message-ID: <TUE.20.MAR.2001.151344.0000.>

 Can anyone on the list think of examples of morphological remodelling
within a verbal paradigm based on a single ending? The only secure example
I have been able to come up with is the creation of new middle imperative
endings in Greek from the basis of the second plural ending -sthe. That
example seems to me particularly interesting because second plural forms
are statistically the least frequent of all the personal endings
(according to Bybee's Morphology). I'd be very interested to hear of
similar remodellings, inside or outside IE.

 Matthew McCullagh,
 Cambridge University


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Sat Mar 17 04:01:43 2001
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2001 23:01:43 EST
Subject: Minoan is an IE language?/Sound Equivalence
Message-ID: <FRI.16.MAR.2001.230143.EST.>

In a message dated 3/16/01 8:05:01 PM Mountain Standard Time, X99Lynx at aol.com
writes:

> This may explain why there are twice as many identified dyslexics in
> English-speaking cultures as in countries with less complex languages,

-- it's not the complexity of the English language that's the problem, it's
the horrors of English orthography.  English spelling was regularized just
when the language was going through a major series of sound-shifts.

As originally pronounced, back in the 16th century, English spelling was
simple and highly phonetic.


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sat Mar 17 05:06:25 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2001 23:06:25 -0600
Subject: Italian as a "Pure" Language
Message-ID: <FRI.16.MAR.2001.230625.0600.>

> ``The complexity of the English and French written languages stems from
> historical events that have introduced spellings from other languages, while,
> in comparison, Italian has remained quite pure,'' said Eraldo Paulesu of the
> University of Milan Bicocca, the lead author of the study.

        Heavens to Betsy, that's really too much to go for.  Most of the
difficulties in English spellings come from things like "through", "enough",
"do", "bead" vs. "head", and "now" vs. "mow", which are quite native.
Things like "pizza" or even "frail" have very little to do with it.  The
main advantage Italian has, to simplify a bit, is that it did not go through
the Great Vowel Shift.

Dr. David L. White


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sat Mar 17 05:16:21 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2001 23:16:21 -0600
Subject: Goths, Naming and Ablaut
Message-ID: <FRI.16.MAR.2001.231621.0600.>

> After all, until we find more evidence, I favour to explain all these names
> as denoting the same (or related) people, and as coming from a Germanic
> source (Gmc.  *giut/gaut/gut-, PIE *gheu-d- "pour").

> Best regards,
> Hans-Werner Hatting

        I agree (and grow somewhat weary).  But I will note, before I nod
off, that it is quite likely that the other Germans, more specifically the
West Germans, had a name for the Goths, and that the Romans would have
picked this up from contact with them.  As little more than a vague rumor
from the shadowy margins of the "known" world, no doubt, but still they
probably would have heard it.  There is no reason to think that the
borrowing of the name must have passed directly, "as the crow flies" (or
wolf runs), from the Goths wherever they were at the time of first
attestation in Latin, passing through third-language intermediaries.
        Furthermore the occurence of what appear to be ablaut variants
suggests, however weakly, that the name was Germanic, as Germanic is known
to have preserved ablaut variation to a greater extent than most of the rest
of the family.

Dr. David L. White


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sat Mar 17 13:44:08 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 07:44:08 -0600
Subject: Gothic "au"
Message-ID: <SAT.17.MAR.2001.074408.0600.>

> From this, it seems that Ulfila wrote _au_ for Greek /o/ when it was
> accented or came before the accented syllable, and /u/ otherwise. This could
> also support the idea that Gothic _au_ was really pronounced /o/.

        That Gothic "au" was, among other things (probably), a spelling for
/o/, as "ai" was for /e/, is not disputed by most observers.  The evidence,
some of which we have just seen, is too strong.

Dr. David L. White


From rao.3 at osu.edu  Sat Mar 17 11:42:50 2001
From: rao.3 at osu.edu (Vidhyanath Rao)
Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 06:42:50 -0500
Subject: Non-Indic sustrate vocabulary
Message-ID: <SAT.17.MAR.2001.064250.0500.>

"anthony.appleyard at umist.ac.uk" <anthony.appleyard at UMIST.AC.UK> wrote

> PS: What is current belief about the Dravidian outliers Brahui and Kurukh
> and Malto?
> (2) Some say that the Brahui are descended from soldiers recruited in south
> India and dumped in Baluchistan, and that the Kurukh and Malto immigrated
> from south India.
> But is (2) derived from a proper chronicled account? Or is it derived from
> tales invented by a wandering storyteller who noticed the resemblance in
> language and made long stories out of it?

I don't think that Brahui have origin stories that connect them to the south.
[Being Muslims, they would presumably prefer a westerly origin.]
Kurukh and Malto do have traditions of migration from points southwest.
But I doubt that a wandering storyteller would know enough historical
linguistics to see the connections with the major Dravidian languages, or
enough about the minor Dravidian languages.

The strongest argument for (2) that I have seen is that Indo-Iranian borrowings
in Brahui all seem to be from Iranian languages and of a stage after 10c CE.
This is very surprising if they had been there from before any I-Ir presence.


From petegray at btinternet.com  Sat Mar 17 11:16:59 2001
From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray)
Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 11:16:59 -0000
Subject: Non-Indic sustrate vocabulary
Message-ID: <SAT.17.MAR.2001.111659.0000.>

>.. Indus Valley script ... a form
> of a dravidian language. I was strongly [surprised]..

Why surprised?  I would have expected it as a possibility.

Peter


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sat Mar 17 13:49:38 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 07:49:38 -0600
Subject: Munda in Early NW India
Message-ID: <SAT.17.MAR.2001.074938.0600.>

> This has been challenged by among others Prof. Witzel of Harvard,
> who sees the underlying language as possibly an an early form of Munda (or
> some language X).

        Munda has "voiced aspirates", or, more precisely, murmured sounds,
which appear to be native (though of course they also occur in borrowings
from Indic).  I believe it also has retroflex sounds.  So perhaps the
suggestion is not absurd, as it might motivate the appearance of such sounds
in Indic, which is otherwise a bit odd, though strangely this (the oddity)
has not (to my knowledge) received much comment.

Dr. David L. White


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sat Mar 17 13:58:47 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 07:58:47 -0600
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
Message-ID: <SAT.17.MAR.2001.075847.0600.>

> The analysis of the obstruents as occurring in three series, to wit, plain,
> palatalized, and labialized, is unremarkable.

        What is another example?

> Presumably, your confusion stems
> from my comments on Kuipers' re-analysis of "plain":

        Practically speaking, "plain" would have to be "[a]-colored", to
stay out of the way of consonants that were [i]-colored or [u]-colored.
Otherwise, with normal coarticulation, "plain" velars (to take the most
obvious case) would develop de facto [i]-coloring near /i/.   Of course,
this would not apply to a language without /i/, but Old Irish does have /i/.
If part of the claim is that [a]-coloring does not exist, I agree, but
assert that it would have to for the sound-system commonly posited for Old
Irish to be viable.

Dr. David L. White


From sarima at friesen.net  Sat Mar 17 14:17:42 2001
From: sarima at friesen.net (Stanley Friesen)
Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 06:17:42 -0800
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
In-Reply-To: <200103152336.SAA06266@panix2.panix.com>
Message-ID: <SAT.17.MAR.2001.061742.0800.>

At 06:36 PM 3/15/01 -0500, Rich Alderson wrote:

>Any word in which *i or *u can be reconstructed.  That they may alternate in
>morphophonological rules with *y and *w is irrelevant to their phonemic
>status, though the consonantal forms may have originated in fortitions of
>originally vocalic segments.  (For the concept of fortition processes, see P.
>Donegan's Ohio State dissertation, still available I believe as a working
>paper from the linguistics department there.)

I am not sure if this is what you mean here, but I find I have a tendency
in my speech to excrete a consonantal segment between two vowels in
different syllables.  Thus, starting with a sequence like 'u' + 'e' I tend
to produce the sequence 'uwe', and for sequences like 'ei' + 'e' I tend to
produce sequences like 'eye' or 'eiye'.  Even without an original high
vowel, I tend towards consonantal glides, thus I more readily pronounce 'e'
+ 'e' as 'eye' than as 'e?e' (using '?' for the glottal stop), and 'o' + o'
tends towards 'owo' for me.

As far as I can see, these sorts of processes could produce most of the 'w'
and 'y' sounds reconstructed for PIE.

--------------
May the peace of God be with you.         sarima at ix.netcom.com


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Sat Mar 17 17:10:20 2001
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language)
Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 11:10:20 -0600
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
Message-ID: <SAT.17.MAR.2001.111020.0600.>

Dear Rich and IEists:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Rich Alderson" <alderson+mail at panix.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2001 5:36 PM

>> On 10 Mar 2001, Pat Ryan wrote:

<snip>

>> Without rehearsing my arguments, why do you not tell us a few IE words in
>> which you believe /i/ and /u/ are primary?

[RA]

> Any word in which *i or *u can be reconstructed.  That they may alternate in
> morphophonological rules with *y and *w is irrelevant to their phonemic
> status, though the consonantal forms may have originated in fortitions of
> originally vocalic segments.  (For the concept of fortition processes, see P.
> Donegan's Ohio State dissertation, still available I believe as a working
> paper from the linguistics department there.)

[PR]

If an IE word with [i] could be related convincingly as a cognate with an AA
word containing [y] in the same position, would that influence your opinion of
the phonemic status of [i] in IE?

The idea, of course, being that the AA [y] would represent a Nostratic [y].

And, I also wonder if, perhaps, we are talking past each other. I do not doubt
that, at some point, [i] became phonemic in IE. It is just that I favor the
idea that in earliest IE, what became [i] must have been [y]. Does that make
any difference in your position?

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit ec
at ec hecc, vindg? mei?i a netr allar n?o, geiri vnda?r . . . a ?eim
mei?i, er mangi veit, hvers hann af r?tom renn." (H?vam?l 138)


From bmscott at stratos.net  Sat Mar 17 19:01:43 2001
From: bmscott at stratos.net (Brian M. Scott)
Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 14:01:43 -0500
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
In-Reply-To: <l0313030ab6d81d2c827b@[209.147.211.21]>
Message-ID: <SAT.17.MAR.2001.140143.0500.>

On 16 Mar 2001, at 14:43, Rick Mc Callister wrote:

> Wouldn't <nert> and <neirt> both be palatalized?

Presumably not the final group in <nert>: modern Irish has <neart>.

Brian M. Scott


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sat Mar 17 14:06:07 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 08:06:07 -0600
Subject: "neirt" versus "nert"
Message-ID: <SAT.17.MAR.2001.080607.0600.>

> Wouldn't <nert> and <neirt> both be palatalized?

        No.  /e/ is traditionally held to have palatalized preceding
consonants, leaving following consonanats as they were.  Confusion of
spelling between the two types ("nert" for "neirt"), which occasionally
occurs (if I am remembering correctly), probably indicates the difficulty of
pronouncing palatalized /r/, which is mostly (or entirely?) gone from modern
Irish.

Dr. David L. White


From petegray at btinternet.com  Sat Mar 17 11:13:48 2001
From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray)
Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 11:13:48 -0000
Subject: *gwh in Gmc.
Message-ID: <SAT.17.MAR.2001.111348.0000.>

>Caland
> >pattern

Thanks!

peter

[ Moderator's note:
  Mr. Gray is responding to Miguel Carrasquer Vidal's message with the headers

    From: Miguel Carrasquer Vidal <mcv at wxs.nl>
    Date: Fri, 09 Mar 2001 02:09:09 +0100
    Message-ID: <14agatkqbc2tr1024a58iojoc146i9pccu at 4ax.com>

  --rma ]


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sat Mar 17 16:22:22 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 10:22:22 -0600
Subject: Etruscan
Message-ID: <SAT.17.MAR.2001.102222.0600.>

        It's time (past time) for Demon David (Destroyer of Self) to get the
thrashing he so fully and richly deserves.
...

> Demon-David, Destroyer of Self:
>   Your grip on Greek historical phonology leaves somewhat to be
> desired.  /s/ was never lost after /r/ and /l/.  All the rigamarole you go
> through over /rs/ versus /rrh/ is therefore a complete waste of time
> for all concerned.  In the future, please, spare us.

        I will try.  (A distinctly un-devastating rejoinder.)

>         The reason that we find not /tursk-/ but /turs-/ as the Greek form
> is, fairly obviously, that /turs-/ was the native form.

        Is it?  What language is suffixal /k/, not to mention suffixal /i/,
from?  Some recent comments, if I have understood them correctly, seem to
indicate that is /k/ was Etruscan, in which case the question "why not
/turskenoi/?" is quite valid.

>         It looks like everything in sight is now becoming a "/turs^-/
> word" in your deluded imagination.

        It is not as if I am trying to connect /turs^/ with "Veia", after
all.  More to the poinst, it appears that the subtlety of my argument about
"Tarchun" has not been appreciated.  We begin with two propositions of quite
uncertain validity,
plus one fact:

        1) That "Tarchun" is to be connected with /tors^/.
        2) That the Etruscans (or at least an elite among them)
            came from Anatolia.
        3) Tarchun was the first Etruscan city.

        Now if both these propositions are true, we have an explanation for
why the first Etruscan city should bear the name "Tarchun".  If they are not
both true, then there is only a one in seven chance that the first Etruscan
city would just happen to bear the only name among seven that is conceivably
relatable to /tors^/.   Thus it would appear that there is a 6 out of 7
chance that both propositions are true.  This sort of argument is surely not
traditional, but that is irrelevant to its validity.

> Your argument that /tarkwini-/ (which is Latin, not Etruscan, please be more
> careful) is [one of them] is highly strained, not least by the fact that
> Etruscan "ch" represents /kh/, not /x/.

        It is fairly normal for aspirates to have voiceless fricatives as
allophones, or such sound changes as we see in Greek would not get off the
ground.  Furthermore, the variation we see in "mach" '5' versus "muvalch"
'50' suggests an original rounded /x/ (or at least [x]), as it is a lot
easier to motivate loss of [x] than loss of [kh].  The very common occurence
of "chv" after sonorants, particularly /l/ and /r/, suggests a unitary
phoneme that had to be spelled as a sequence owing to the nature of the
spelling system.  Etruscan "Tarchun" could quite possibly go back to such a
thing, which in some cases might have been a later development of /s^/, for
phonetic reasons which have been given before.

> Furthermore, if the /turs^-/ word had survived as /tarkhw-/ [or anything] in
> Etruscan, what reason would they have to re-borrow it from Greek as /truia/?

        The various changes it went through rendered the original word
(/tursik-/?) no longer recognizable as the same word as /troia/ by the time
"the glory that was Troy" came along in a Greek guise.  So they engaged in a
relatively straightforward re-borrowing.  Stranger things have happened.

        While I am at it, I may note the the nativist view has Etruscan
civilization developing in Etruria in response to Greek (and Phonecian)
contacts in Campania, since it is only there that such contacts can be
found.  Perhaps I am missing something here, but would it not make more
sense for a civilization that developed in response to Greek contacts in
Campania to develop in Campania, not Etruria?  The something I am perhaps
missing might be said to be the wealth in metals of Etruria, but Campania
had its own wealth in agriculture.  In any event, I think there is an
awkward gap to be jumped. It makes more sense to think that a small group of
Northern Aegeans, inspired to get out of a somewhat precarious existence
there, hit the colonial jackpot at the beginning of the colonial age,
beating the Greeks (and Phonecians) to prime territory, and so impressing
the natives with their superior culture that assimiliation is positively to
be expected.

Dr. David L. White


From stevegus at aye.net  Sun Mar 18 01:53:56 2001
From: stevegus at aye.net (Steve Gustafson)
Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 20:53:56 -0500
Subject: Etruscans
Message-ID: <SAT.17.MAR.2001.205356.0500.>

David L. White wrote:

>> According to Palmer, Vulgar Latin first "closed" the quality of long vowels,
>> giving nine distinct vowel-timbres (/a:/ could not be "closed"). The
>> phonemic distinction of vowel-quantity was then lost, as stressed vowels
>> became long and unstressed ones short. Convergence of close /o/ with open
>> /U/, and of close /e/ with open /I/, formed the basis of Continental West
>> Romance.

>         Yes, the point is that long mids can sound like short highs, or
> mergers would not happen.  Thus one language's long mid could sound like
> another's short high.  When it happened in Latin is irrelevant, though I
> believe most observers would posit a difference in quality for Latin shorts
> and longs going way back into pre-history.

The similarity between /e/ and /I/, at least, goes back to the earliest
authentic Latin inscriptions we know of.  The Duenos bowl contains FECED for
CL -fecit-.   A blurred distinction between /o/ and /U/ goes back almost as
far in Latin inscriptions; Old Latin frequently writes CONSOL or even COSOL
for CL -consul-.

--
Heus, nunc, mihi cantate hanc aeruginem.

Ceterum censeo sedem Romanam esse delendam.


From acnasvers at hotmail.com  Mon Mar 19 04:05:44 2001
From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday)
Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2001 04:05:44 -0000
Subject: Etruscans
Message-ID: <MON.19.MAR.2001.040544.0000.>

X99Lynx at aol.com (16 Mar 2001) wrote:

>As far as Etruscan origins go, certain things might be worth mentioning:

>- There is (as far as I know) no evidence of anything but Villanovian
>settlements in Etruscan regions before somewhere around 800BC.  The first
>clear evidence of a foreign presence afterward is Greek.  But when
>identifiably Etruscan settlements emerge they have some features that do not
>seem Villanovian or Greek at all.  These features are however identifiable
>with other locations around the Mediterranean.

Late Mycenaean pottery and hut-foundations (ca. 1200 BCE) are known from
Luni sul Mignone SE of Tarquinii. This may not have been a permanent
settlement. The Mycenaeans were there to exploit the metals. It is not
surprising that Mediterranean cultural elements diffused into Etruria. Trade
in metals (or acquisition without compensating the natives) probably went on
continuously for several centuries before 800.

>- Many elements of the so-called "orientalizing" of later Etruscan culture
>feature things emphatically not Greek or Early Roman, such as bucherro
>pottery, which clearly establish some kind of ties with Asia Minor.  There
>are other elements that suggest ties with Crete or the southern
>Mediterranean
>coast.  These elements are not peripheral to Etruscan culture.  Their
>eastern, non-Greek character had a pronounced effect on scholars from the
>earliest finds and they are still plain to see in Etruscan artifact
>collections.

I don't know what bucchero-ware has to do with Asia Minor. Etruscans
certainly traded with Syria and Phoenicia, not just Greece; incorporation of
non-Greek elements into Etruscan artefacts is not surprising. Cretan motifs
probably came in early, through contacts with Mycenaeans. One should not
expect Etruscan culture to be a mere imitation of the Greek.

>- What is odd about the Etruscan settlement on Lemnos is not the stele.
>What
>is odd is that it is on Lemnos, without an apparent serious stronghold
>structure, dangerously in the very teeth of a very Greek sea.  I have seen
>different earliest dates for the settlement itself.  (And how early this
>settlement would be scientifically dated would make a difference.)

Not only the earliest, but the latest date of Etruscan presence on Lemnos
would be of great interest.

>I understand that there were over a hundred cremation burials in the
>necropolis, including men and women.  The women's graves contain early
>bucherro pottery and the male graves contain weapons, including
>characteristically Cretan axes and daggers.

>What the stele tells us is the settlement appears to have had a strong
>Etruscan connection.  It does not tell us why these settlers were there.
>Even as a trading colony, it is a fish out of water.  The strong implication
>is I think some kind of a license or patronage allowed the settlement to be
>there.  One wonders if the coming of the Persians had something to do with
>this.

The settlement may have been a trading "station" or "outpost", not a true
colony. Perhaps it was "licensed" to Etruscans by the Chalcidians. After the
eclipse of Chalcidian power, these Etruscans would have been on their own.
Pelasgians, not Etruscans, were evicted from Lemnos by the Athenians under
Miltiades (Hdt. VI.139-40). Possibly these Pelasgians, or their forefathers,
had taken over the island and forced the remaining Etruscans to flee to
Chalcidice (cf. Thuc. IV.109.4).

>- Putting aside the question of who the Etruscans were for a moment, the
>Etruscan language appears to the have been strongly centered in Italy from
>all the evidence we have.

>If it came from foreign parts, it could have come with very few carriers, but
>it would have had to provide indigenous people a very good economic or social
>reason to adopt it.

Yes, and this "elite dominance" model advocated by Dr. White generally
requires many centuries to obliterate the indigenous languages. I'm not
aware of any evidence for native non-Etruscan speech in non-peripheral parts
of Etruria between 700 BCE and Latinization.

>If it represented a large migration, we would like to see evidence of the
>language elsewhere, other than in a small colony in a sea of Greeks.

>On the other hand, if it was a local language adopted by immigrants from Asia
>Minor and points east and south - or even Greeks - we might see the very same
>footprint as in the cases above.

If the immigration was by individuals and small groups, it would have little
impact on the language, and indeed this sort of immigration must have
occurred throughout Etruscan times. Large groups which stayed together would
form enclaves, and this probably did happen with Greeks, Carthaginians, and
eventually Latin-speakers in Etruria.

The fundamental linguistic question is one of date: when did speakers of
proto-Etruscan enter Etruria? If it was many millennia BCE, one would not
expect much in the way of pre-Etruscan substrate. If it was a century or two
before 800, one would expect a lot of non-Etruscan toponyms and hydronyms.
The evidence is hard to interpret, but seems to favor a middle ground. Most
of the ancient names in Etruria sound Etruscan, but a few (e.g. Soracte,
Umbro) look like substratal relics.

>The origin of the Etruscan language may not tell us where some or many of the
>people we know as Etruscans came from.

Yes, the origin of the Etruscans and the origin of the Etruscan language are
different questions. The latter question, in my opinion, can be more clearly
defined than the former.

>- The adoption of the Greek alphabet seems to be a thing somewhat taken for
>granted in all this.  But what were the mechanics of this process? How much
>bi-lingualism do you need to even understand the concept?  How do we envision
>converting a whole "people" without an alphabet to writing (and reading) using
>the Greek method?  Would it help if many of them at first also spoke and wrote
>Greek?

It probably would help, and it probably did happen. Early Archaic Etruscan
alphabetaria contain letters not used for writing Etruscan (b, d, o,
samekh). They have the complete Cumaeo-Pithecusan form of the
Euboico-Chalcidian alphabet. One can infer that the earliest Etruscan
litterati could speak and write Greek, and their writing of Etruscan was an
application of their ability to write Greek. The "schools" of litterati in
different Etruscan city-states all had their own opinions of the best way to
adapt the Greek system to Etruscan, leading to the orthographic
discrepancies among the Archaic inscriptions of Tarquinii, Caere, Vulci,
Veii, and Clusium.

The mechanism I favor involves the acquisition of bilingualism by those
Etruscans who dealt directly with Greek traders from Cumae and Pithecusae in
the mid-8th c. BCE; the ability to speak Greek would have had clear
advantages. During the second half of this century, many of these Etruscans
learned to write Greek also. Before 700, some of them got the idea to write
Etruscan, and during the 7th c. this idea spread through Etruria. Eventually
schools were established for ordinary free Etruscans to learn to write,
independently of knowing Greek. In my opinion, this model of "Etruscan
teachers" of writing works better than the model of "Greek teachers" which
some authors assume.

If the community on Lemnos was indeed a trading-station licensed by the
Chalcidians, presumably the acquisition of letters there was similar. The
Lemnian alphabet is Euboico-Chalcidian, but not Cumaeo-Pithecusan, and the
adaptation to writing Lemnian is independent of the schemes used for
mainland Etruscan: Lemnian uses <o>, not <u>, for the back-vowel.

DGK


From petegray at btinternet.com  Sat Mar 17 11:30:57 2001
From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray)
Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 11:30:57 -0000
Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele
Message-ID: <SAT.17.MAR.2001.113057.0000.>

>I fear that I have abraded some religious sensibilities

Not as far as I am concerned, Pat.  I understood our discussion to be
entirely linguistic.  But thanks for the sensitivity.

Peter


From petegray at btinternet.com  Sat Mar 17 11:24:29 2001
From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray)
Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 11:24:29 -0000
Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele
Message-ID: <SAT.17.MAR.2001.112429.0000.>

> to play around with the name of God was strictly a no-no.

I nowhere suggested that anyone did "play" with this word - though now that
you mention it, the Hebrews themselves did play with it in the burning bush
story ("I am who I am").

Peter


From petegray at btinternet.com  Sat Mar 17 11:22:01 2001
From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray)
Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 11:22:01 -0000
Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele
Message-ID: <SAT.17.MAR.2001.112201.0000.>

>YHWH ... should be connected with, the full conjugation of ...  "to be,"

I am sure Ernest is right, but to be fair on Pat, the connection with the
verb "to be" is only suggested, not proved!    The form of Yah- or Yawheh is
only similar to it, not identical to it in any of its attested forms.

Peter


From epmoyer at netrax.net  Mon Mar 19 14:01:37 2001
From: epmoyer at netrax.net (Ernest P. Moyer)
Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2001 09:01:37 -0500
Subject: Thoughts On The Lemnos Stele
Message-ID: <MON.19.MAR.2001.090137.0500.>

Anton:

Thanks for the comment.

I shy away from folk etymologies, recognizing in them the expression of desires
and wishes, rather than objective understanding.  But, as Richard Nixon said,
just because one is paranoid does not mean that someone is not out to get him.
Folk etymologies sometimes have a core of truth to them.

The strength of the verb, and its prominence, led me to my thoughts.

Ernest

Anton Sherwood wrote:

[ moderator snip ]

> Unless the connexion with the verb is just one more in a fairly long list of
> Biblical folk-etymologies.
>
> --
> Anton Sherwood  --  br0nt0 at p0b0x.com  --  http://ogre.nu/


From petegray at btinternet.com  Sat Mar 17 08:38:42 2001
From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray)
Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2001 08:38:42 -0000
Subject: A question about Greek or Latin
Message-ID: <SAT.17.MAR.2001.083842.0000.>

> What would you say to the alternate alternate explanation that the
> causative formant is merely an agglutinatated verb *[h1]ey-e-

The suggestion that it might be causes me no problem;  the assertion that it
is so would need proof.

I'm happy with the idea that all suffixes began life as independent
morphemes way back in early Ur-pre-proto-pre-PIE.  I think you mean more
than that, so we would need to find firm evidence for:
  (a) the existence of such a verb
  (b) the use of such a verb as a causative
  (c) the acceptance of this explanation as better than any alternative.

What about the "going" root Pokorny 296 *ei / *ia:  ?

Peter


From epmoyer at netrax.net  Mon Mar 19 13:43:22 2001
From: epmoyer at netrax.net (Ernest P. Moyer)
Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2001 08:43:22 -0500
Subject: Arzawa = Razawa?
Message-ID: <MON.19.MAR.2001.084322.0500.>

Phil:

My theme has been that a Semitic influence impacted not only on the Lemnos
stele, with the word Naphoth, but also on the "proto-Etruscans" who may have
originated in Assyrian lands.  Remember, the northern ten tribes were not only
removed to specifically named cities of the Assyrians, what we might now
recognize as Anatolian, but also "the cities of the Medes."  Those areas
extended as far north and east as the edges of the Caspian Sea.

I prominent prefix on Hebrew verbs is the future second person ta-. If this has
some connection to the ta- forms you cite, then I suppose we should be wary of
assigning origins.

Ernest

philjennings at juno.com wrote:

[ moderator snip ]

> Perhaps during their sojourn in Assyria, the proto-Etruscans learned the
> trick of using tular boundary stones from the Kassites next door, whose
> "kudurrus" were an innovation.  But now I'm being silly.  Please don't think
> I'm ready to have the Etruscans wander the world anywhere the letters "r",
> "s" [and "n"] are found in dangerous proximity.

[ Moderator's note:
  It is hardly ever necessary to quote an entire message, unless one wishes to
  comment on each paragraph in turn.  Please restrict quoted material to that
  addressed.
  --rma ]


From camelot at avalon.sul.com.br  Sat Mar 10 18:31:37 2001
From: camelot at avalon.sul.com.br (Doroteia Cheeseman)
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 15:31:37 -0300
Subject: Research
Message-ID: <SAT.10.MAR.2001.153137.0300.CAMELOT@AVALON.SUL.COM.BR>

[ Moderator's note:
  The following query arrived some time ago at the administrative mailbox for
  the Indo-European list.  After asking for and receiving clarification of
  the question, I am forwarding the entire exchange to the list, in the hope
  that one or more readers can be of assistance.  This seems like something
  we as a group ought to encourage.

  Due to the nature of the request, I have left off the usual Reply-To: header
  pointing to the Indo-European list; replies will instead go to the sender.
  --rma ]

Dear Sirs

We are putting together a history of the Portuguese language. We would like
any information on the role of Indo- European languages in it's formation
(Pre- Latin)

If you have any suggestions please advise

Thank you

David

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Rich Alderson <ALDERSON at toad.xkl.com>
To: <camelot at avalon.sul.com.br>
Sent: Monday, March 12, 2001 10:07 PM

It is unclear from the question as asked what sort of information you are
looking for:  Portuguese is an Indo-European language, a member of the
Romance branch of the Italic sub-family.  Are you asking what *other*
Indo-European languages have influenced Portuguese in its development?
Or do you question the Indo-European lineage of the Portuguese language?

Is this for inclusion in a published work, or an academic paper?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: "Doroteia Cheeseman" <camelot at avalon.sul.com.br>
To: "Rich Alderson" <ALDERSON at toad.xkl.com>
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 17:12:04 -0300

Dear Mr Alderson

Sorry for the confusion of my original message.

We want to put together a video, that would trace Portuguese's history as far
back as possible.  We believe that this would entail looking at the Proto
Indo-European language.  I would be grateful if you could suggest someone we
could contact, who specialises in this area.  We hope to visit Armenia and
Italy for people to interview.

Thanks again

Regards

David Cheeseman


From jediaz at fimo-cr.uclm.es  Fri Mar 23 11:44:05 2001
From: jediaz at fimo-cr.uclm.es (Javier Diaz)
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 12:44:05 +0100
Subject: research project: IE archaological objects
Message-ID: <FRI.23.MAR.2001.124405.0100.>

Dear all,

We are organising a research project dealing with the analysis of the IE
lexicon for material culture. Our research will focus on the analysis of the
different IE roots for archaeological objects (which will be grouped in
previously established semantic categories) and their form and evolution in
each individual language or language family. We would like to hear about
researchers working on any of these two fields (IE lexicology and IE
archaeology) who might be interested in contributing to the project, especially
in one of the following linguistic areas: Indo-Iranian, Albanian, Celtic,
Balto-Slavic.

For more information, please don't hesitate to contact me!

Javier D?az
jediaz at fimo-cr.uclm.es


From connolly at memphis.edu  Thu Mar 22 03:27:50 2001
From: connolly at memphis.edu (Leo A. Connolly)
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 21:27:50 -0600
Subject: Morphological remodelling
Message-ID: <WED.21.MAR.2001.212750.0600.>

"M.O.McCullagh" wrote:

>  Can anyone on the list think of examples of morphological remodelling
> within a verbal paradigm based on a single ending? The only secure example
> I have been able to come up with is the creation of new middle imperative
> endings in Greek from the basis of the second plural ending -sthe. That
> example seems to me particularly interesting because second plural forms
> are statistically the least frequent of all the personal endings
> (according to Bybee's Morphology). I'd be very interested to hear of
> similar remodellings, inside or outside IE.

The obvious example is the spread of -r in Danish, Swedish, and both
kinds of Norwegian from the 2.sg. (PIE -si > -z -r> into all active
forms of the present.  One could also mention the "middle" in -s, but
that's an old reflexive.

Leo Connolly


From dlwhite at texas.net  Thu Mar 22 03:58:22 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 21:58:22 -0600
Subject: Morphological remodelling
Message-ID: <WED.21.MAR.2001.215822.0600.>

> Can anyone on the list think of examples of morphological remodelling
> within a verbal paradigm based on a single ending? The only secure example
> I have been able to come up with is the creation of new middle imperative
> endings in Greek from the basis of the second plural ending -sthe. That
> example seems to me particularly interesting because second plural forms
> are statistically the least frequent of all the personal endings
> (according to Bybee's Morphology). I'd be very interested to hear of
> similar remodellings, inside or outside IE.
>
>  Matthew McCullagh,
>  Cambridge University

        There are various cases involving the 3ps taking over, though that
is probably not what you had in mind.
        It seems to me as well that the semantic link between 2nd person and
imperative makes interference between the two not as improbable as it might
be between some other forms.

Dr. David White


From adahyl at cphling.dk  Thu Mar 22 10:36:53 2001
From: adahyl at cphling.dk (Adam Hyllested)
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 11:36:53 +0100
Subject: Morphological remodelling
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.4.21.0103201504300.18513-100000@orange.csi.cam.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <THU.22.MAR.2001.113653.0100.>

On Tue, 20 Mar 2001, M.O.McCullagh wrote:

>  Can anyone on the list think of examples of morphological remodelling
> within a verbal paradigm based on a single ending? The only secure example
> I have been able to come up with is the creation of new middle imperative
> endings in Greek from the basis of the second plural ending -sthe. That
> example seems to me particularly interesting because second plural forms
> are statistically the least frequent of all the personal endings
> (according to Bybee's Morphology).

But this rule does not apply to the imperative mood, where, for obvious
reasons, the second singular and second plural forms are the _most_
frequent. I doubt you can find any morphological remodelling in other
moods based on the second plural endings (except for the exception that
proves the rule, of course ;-).

Adam Hyllested


From maxw at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Thu Mar 22 12:27:03 2001
From: maxw at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Max Wheeler)
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 12:27:03 +0000
Subject: Morphological remodelling
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.4.21.0103201504300.18513-100000@orange.csi.cam.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <THU.22.MAR.2001.122703.0000.>

It sounds as if an example of what you're looking for can be seen in the
remodelling of the preterite (past perfective indicative) in Occitan and
Catalan. In both of these languages an /-r-/ element, original to the 3pl
suffix (Lat. -erunt) appears in the 2sg, 1pl and 2pl, and, in Occitan, in
the 1sg as well. Representative preterite paradigms are, for <cantar>
'sing':

Occitan:
cant?ri
cant?res
cant?t
cant?rem
cant?retz
cant?ren < *cant+ederunt

Catalan:
cant?
cantares
cant?
cant?rem
cant?reu
cantaren < Lat. canta(ve)runt

In both languages the spread of the /r/ element from the 3pl to the other
persons, replacing PN affixes inherested from the Latin preterite, is a
post-medieval development (as far as one can judge from texts, of course).

Major source with discussion of the Occitan development in
Ronjat, J. 1937. Grammaire istorique [sic] des parlers proven?aux modernes.
Montpellier: Soci?t? des Language Romanes. Vol III, ?575 ff.

I hope this is the kind of thing you're looking for.

Max Wheeler

--On Tuesday, March 20, 2001 15:13 +0000 "M.O.McCullagh"
<mom20 at hermes.cam.ac.uk> wrote:

>  Can anyone on the list think of examples of morphological remodelling
> within a verbal paradigm based on a single ending? The only secure example
> I have been able to come up with is the creation of new middle imperative
> endings in Greek from the basis of the second plural ending -sthe. That
> example seems to me particularly interesting because second plural forms
> are statistically the least frequent of all the personal endings
> (according to Bybee's Morphology). I'd be very interested to hear of
> similar remodellings, inside or outside IE.

>  Matthew McCullagh,
>  Cambridge University

____________________________________________________________
Max W. Wheeler
School of Cognitive & Computing Sciences
University of Sussex
Falmer
BRIGHTON BN1 9QH, G.B.

Tel: +44 (0)1273 678975 Fax: +44 (0)1273 671320 Email:
maxw at cogs.susx.ac.uk
____________________________________________________________


From larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk  Fri Mar 23 11:22:27 2001
From: larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk (Larry Trask)
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 11:22:27 +0000
Subject: Morphological remodelling
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.4.21.0103201504300.18513-100000@orange.csi.cam.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <FRI.23.MAR.2001.112227.0000.>

--On Tuesday, March 20, 2001 3:13 pm +0000 "M.O.McCullagh"
<mom20 at hermes.cam.ac.uk> wrote:

>  Can anyone on the list think of examples of morphological remodelling
> within a verbal paradigm based on a single ending? The only secure example
> I have been able to come up with is the creation of new middle imperative
> endings in Greek from the basis of the second plural ending -sthe. That
> example seems to me particularly interesting because second plural forms
> are statistically the least frequent of all the personal endings
> (according to Bybee's Morphology). I'd be very interested to hear of
> similar remodellings, inside or outside IE.

See this:

Calvert Watkins. 1962. Indo-European Origins of the Celtic Verb, vol. I:
The Sigmatic Aorist, pp. 93-96, Dublin: Institute for Advanced Studies.

Watkins draws attention to such remodelings in Celtic, Polish and Persian,
at least, all based upon the third-singular forms.  The observation that
such remodelings are typically based upon third-singular forms has been
dubbed 'Watkins's Law'.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk

Tel: (01273)-678693 (from UK); +44-1273-678693 (from abroad)
Fax: (01273)-671320 (from UK); +44-1273-671320 (from abroad)


From stevegus at aye.net  Thu Mar 22 04:38:20 2001
From: stevegus at aye.net (Steve Gustafson)
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 23:38:20 -0500
Subject: Italian as a "Pure" Language
Message-ID: <WED.21.MAR.2001.233820.0500.>

David L. White wrote:

>> ``The complexity of the English and French written languages stems from
>> historical events that have introduced spellings from other languages,
>> while, in comparison, Italian has remained quite pure,'' said Eraldo Paulesu
>> of the University of Milan Bicocca, the lead author of the study.

>         Heavens to Betsy, that's really too much to go for.  Most of the
> difficulties in English spellings come from things like "through", "enough",
> "do", "bead" vs. "head", and "now" vs. "mow", which are quite native.
> Things like "pizza" or even "frail" have very little to do with it.  The
> main advantage Italian has, to simplify a bit, is that it did not go through
> the Great Vowel Shift.

That might be simplifying a bit too much.  French has thrashed its sound
system even more violently than English did, and retains a traditional
orthography whose broad outlines were fixed slightly earlier than English's.
Yet the pronunciation of French words can usually be inferred from the
spelling.

There are a number of different factors that made English so hard.  The main
etymological difficulty is not a difference between Germanic English and
Anglo-French words; they were written using the same system.  The real
dichotomy is between native [English and Anglo-French] and learned
[neo-Latinisms from scientific, technical, and religious vocabularies].
This gives English two competing systems of etymological spellings.  Either
one in isolation is fairly predictable; but you always have to know if you
are dealing with a learned word or an older one.

French consistently represents the speech of a relatively small community
that has always been the prestige dialect of French.  British English
developed that much later, and the prestige dialect tended to borrow from
surrounding forms much more freely.  The variety of pronunciations of the
digraph "ea" [bread, break, bream] is one conspicuous result of this
complicating factor.

--
Heus, nunc, mihi cantate hanc aeruginem.

Ceterum censeo sedem Romanam esse delendam.


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Thu Mar 22 08:54:56 2001
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 03:54:56 EST
Subject: Italian as a "Pure" Language
Message-ID: <THU.22.MAR.2001.035456.EST.>

In a message dated 3/21/2001 9:37:51 PM, dlwhite at texas.net writes:
<<Heavens to Betsy,... most of the difficulties in English spellings come
from things like "through", "enough", "do", "bead" vs. "head", and "now" vs.
"mow", which are quite native.... Things like "pizza" or even "frail" have
very little to do with it. >>

I wonder how many very young Americans recognize the written word "pizza"
before they ever encounter good confusing native words like psychology,
Philly, piqued, posh, pneumonia or pterodactyl (although pterodactyls are hot
these days.)  But, pizza would end up being confusing enough, if you started
there early.  In their later confusion, they might wonder why "pizza" was not
spelled "pete/sa," ("pete-" as in from the Aramaic "Peter") which it so often
sounds like these days.

Or, for that matter, why not "peet/za" (as in "tee-pee" or "creed", not as in
"beers" or "peers"; "-z- as in "Zorro" or "Men 'n Boyz")
or "peat/sa" (as in "treaty" and "please", not as in "treasure" or "clear")
or "piet/xa" ("pie-" as in "piedmont", not "piety" or "pierced ears"; "x-" as
in "Xanadu - the fragrance" or "Xerox", not "maximum" or "Exx/on.")
or even "peace/a" (as in "cease", not as in "fealty" or "feast")

I don't think it's quite that clear that the spelling difficulties in English
are mostly from "native" words. I suspect it would be very difficult to prove
that.  There are an awful lot of non-native words in English that can offer
many spelling variations.  And there are a lot more non-native than native
words in English.

And by the way, don't you mean "phrale" as in "ale" or "pale"?

<<The main advantage Italian has, to simplify a bit, is that it did not go
through the Great Vowel Shift.>>

That and pizza.  Reminds me of an old Monte Python routine: "the name is
spelled Wharburtondyswyddthrushwarbler, but it's pronounced Romney-Smythe."
That Vowel Shift sure wreaked (or reeked) havoc with some words.  Especially
caused angst I understand at Caembrige.

Regardz,
S. Longe


From petegray at btinternet.com  Thu Mar 22 19:59:36 2001
From: petegray at btinternet.com (petegray)
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 19:59:36 -0000
Subject: Italian as a "Pure" Language
Message-ID: <THU.22.MAR.2001.195936.0000.>

>> ``The complexity of the English and French written languages stems from
>> ... introduced spellings from other languages, while ... Italian has
>> remained quite pure

It is an interesting process in languages - some (like English) use the
original spelling and learn to pronounce it despite the spelling, while
others (like German) spell the word according to native rules.   The
disadvantage of the first method is obvious;  the disadvantage of the second
method is that it is sometimes difficult even for a speaker of the original
language to identify the word quickly.  For example, words probably know to
many of you out there, spelled in German as foto-umlaut-j, or miljo-umlaut
(For non-Germanists, o-umlaut is roughly the sound in "her".)

Peter


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Thu Mar 22 05:42:20 2001
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 00:42:20 EST
Subject: Minoan is an IE language?/Sound Equivalence
Message-ID: <THU.22.MAR.2001.004220.EST.>

In a message dated 3/21/2001 9:10:19 PM, JoatSimeon at aol.com writes:
<< -- it's not the complexity of the English language that's the problem, it's
the horrors of English orthography.  >>

When you are learning to read, of course, orthography becomes an integral
part of the language.  Dyslexia would at first impression not be a problem,
or even apparent, if English were only a spoken language and not a written
one.  There is a great deal of linguistic work being done on dyslexia, based
on the idea that the sound-symbol correspondence is at least in part a
linguistic subject.

Aside from all that, there was a startling statement in that article I
quoted.  It says that there are in English "more than 1,100 ways that letters
in the written language are used to symbolize the 40 sounds in the spoken
language."  While, in Italian, "the 33 sounds in Italian are spelled with
only 25 letters or letter combinations." [?] If these numbers are correct,
that's a giant variance.   And whatever problems English might create for
dyslexics would seem also to apply to some future decipherer faced with
matching up symbols and sounds.

Relating this back to Linear A, all we really have there at this point is
orthography.  If a comparable "horror" existed for the base language or
languages of Linear A, we should expect unpredictability in sound-symbol
correspondence.  And some serious difficulties for anyone who would hope to
crack such a code.

If the situation in English can be attributed in any way to imported words,
we do have evidence that Crete was "multi-national" in Homer's time,
suggesting perhaps not only a variety of symbols for the same sound, but also
a large number of sounds.

Regards,
Steve Long


From sarima at friesen.net  Thu Mar 22 06:02:43 2001
From: sarima at friesen.net (Stanley Friesen)
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 22:02:43 -0800
Subject: Non-Indic sustrate vocabulary
In-Reply-To: <000301c0af01$227e3b20$b26d01d5@xpoxkjlf>
Message-ID: <WED.21.MAR.2001.220243.0800.>

At 11:16 AM 3/17/01 +0000, petegray wrote:

>>.. Indus Valley script ... a form
>> of a dravidian language. I was strongly [surprised]..

>Why surprised?  I would have expected it as a possibility.

Indeed, I would even say I have long suspected this to be the case.

Having looked at the Web page mention, I find the evidence strongly
suggestive, especially the homophonies.  Until the approach can be used to
produce reasonable reading for most inscriptions it cannot be held as
"established", but I think the author has produced a good prima facie case
for treating Dravidian as the default hypothesis.

--------------
May the peace of God be with you.         sarima at friesen.net


From hstahlke at gw.bsu.edu  Thu Mar 22 14:02:09 2001
From: hstahlke at gw.bsu.edu (Herb Stahlke)
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 09:02:09 -0500
Subject: Munda in Early NW India
Message-ID: <THU.22.MAR.2001.090209.0500.>

As a non-IEist, I have some difficulty evaluating statements of
this sort about substratum languages.  Why would this be any
stronger a proposal than the idea that Germanic developed its
stress shift, two-term tense system and periphrastic tenses
through contact with early Finnic speakers in the Baltic region?
Both strike me as convenient but pretty much lacking in evidence.

Herb Stahlke

>>> dlwhite at texas.net 03/17/01 08:49AM >>>
> This has been challenged by among others Prof. Witzel of Harvard,
> who sees the underlying language as possibly an an early form of Munda (or
> some language X).

        Munda has "voiced aspirates", or, more precisely, murmured sounds,
which appear to be native (though of course they also occur in borrowings from
Indic).  I believe it also has retroflex sounds.  So perhaps the suggestion is
not absurd, as it might motivate the appearance of such sounds in Indic, which
is otherwise a bit odd, though strangely this (the oddity) has not (to my
knowledge) received much comment.

Dr. David L. White


From hwhatting at hotmail.com  Thu Mar 22 05:31:14 2001
From: hwhatting at hotmail.com (Hans-Werner Hatting)
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 06:31:14 +0100
Subject: Scandinavian Origins of the Goths
Message-ID: <THU.22.MAR.2001.063114.0100.>

Some thoughts on things mentioned in the last posts by Steve Long and Joat
Simeon:

1. As Joat Simeon pointed out, the Goths belong to the East Germanic Group,
which is linguistically different from the West Germanic dialects some of
the other Germanic people having contacts with the Roman empire were
speaking. So, whatever the political reasons for which the Gothic court
might have wished to emphasize any differences to these people, these
differences were real.

2. Concerning the prestigiousness of the Scandinavian origins: It would have
been much more consistent on Cassiodorus' and Jordanes' side to stick to the
Goths = Getae - equation, as this implied that the Goths were in the area
from antiquity, and even being related by marriage to the ancestors of
Alexander the Great. This would have differentiated them satisfactorily from
the other Germanic tribes. My opinion is that they simply could not do so,
as the Scandinavian origins were too widely known among the Gothic
leadership, and so they were reported  alongside with the Getae theory.

3. The Gothic court might have milked the Scandinavian origins of the Goths
(or part of the Goths) for what it was worth politically, but this does *not*
imply that anybody invented them. The political usefulness Steve Long
describes may, of course, have been an additional reason why Jordanes does
not suppress this tradition, as he seemingly does with others.

4. I would take the presence of King Rodulf at Theodoric's court not as
evidence for the invention of the Scandinavian version, but as evidence that
at least the Gothic elite never lost the connection to their ancestral
lands. What is more likely - that a dethroned monarch goes to the court of
another ruler because he is a distant relative and can hope for some
support, or that a court accepts a refugee king and only then decides to
declare, BTW, we did not know that before, but where he comes from is our
homeland? We should keep in mind that the Goths (or those of the court who
cared about what the Romans thought about them) might have felt an urge to
show the Romans that they were not common-and-garden barbarians, but I
assume that the Gothic elite - like all elites - had traditions about their
origins, which could not be simply tossed aside or replaced for mere
political reasons. This does not exclude, of course, the possibility that
Cassiodorus made the family tree of the Amalungs more impressive by adding
to it.

5. That said, I agree with Joat Simeon that the Goths were probably not
ethnically monolithic. The Ostrogoths probably had added other ethnic
elements (Germanic and Non-Germanic) on the Vistula, from their empire in
the Ukraine, and from the time they fought together with the Huns in the
Balkans. Each of these groups had their own histories, so Cassiodorus and
Jordanes may have found several deviating traditions among the Goths
themselves, as well as wild speculations among Roman authors.

6. Some support for the theory that the ethnic core of the Goths (those who
gave the language) came from Scandinavia is that the East Germanic Dialects,
to which Gothic belongs, show a close linguistic relationship to the Nordic
dialects, which led some linguists to posit a bipartite division of Germanic
(Gotho-Nordic vs. South-Germanic) instead of the usual tripartite division.

Best regards,
Hans-Werner Hatting


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Thu Mar 22 17:47:45 2001
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 12:47:45 EST
Subject: Gothic "au"
Message-ID: <THU.22.MAR.2001.124745.EST.>

In a message dated 3/21/2001 10:29:39 PM, dlwhite at texas.net writes:
<< That Gothic "au" was, among other things (probably), a spelling for
/o/, as "ai" was for /e/, is not disputed by most observers.  The evidence,
some of which we have just seen, is too strong. >>

This appears to miss the point.  There are loads of words in Wright's where
Gothic words contain an <o>.  The point is that practically every time
indicated where Gothic borrowed a word with a Greek <o> it is transliterated
as <au> (or rarely <u>).  This does not appear to be random or occasional.
If I remember correctly, the rare exceptions are where the vowel begins the
word or is from the Hebrew.  The significance might be at minimum that what
could mistakenly be attributed to a Germanic ablaut would appear to be
actually the orthographic changes that happened in borrowing.

Regards,
Steve Long


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Fri Mar 23 07:41:02 2001
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 02:41:02 EST
Subject: The Goth Question
Message-ID: <FRI.23.MAR.2001.024102.EST.>

<< So if the name of the Goths was given, it could have been given in a
non-Germanic language.  And it may have reached the Greeks being spoken in a
non-Germanic tongue.>>

In a message dated 3/16/2001 11:14:45 PM, hwhatting at hotmail.com writes:
<<This is a possibility. As long as we have no good Etymology, we should
explore all avenues. But if, on all these avenues, we do not find some
convincing proposals, only a lot of associations, it might be better to stick
to a Germanic etymology - here at least we have a root, variants of the name
which stick to an ablaut pattern, and we just have to get the semantics
straight... After all, until we find more evidence, I favour to explain all
these names as denoting the same (or related) people, and as coming from a
Germanic source (Gmc.*giut/gaut/gut-, PIE *gheu-d- "pour").>>

First, let me again thank Hans-Werner Hatting especially and all the others
here who have been patient with this little exploration of the Goth question
and to those who have responded to it.  Hopefully, this exercise has had some
value to members of the list.  It has certainly been of great value to me.

There's a basic relevance to Indo-European here that comes in part from the
relationship suggested above: (Gmc.*giut/gaut/gut-, PIE *gheu-d- "pour").
Other IE languages presumably share equally in the (PIE *gheu-d- "pour")
heritage.

Hans-Werner Hatting's suggestion above that it's best to stick to a German
etymology and stay within the ablaut pattern seems to be in fact the sole
basis of most of the recent linguistic discussions regarding the origins of
both the Goths and their name.

My best understanding is furthermore that this very question have been a
central issue in the current debate on the relationship of the Germanic
branches of the period.  Essentially, one of the main linguistic claims for a
Scandinavian origin has been based on a commonality between Gutnish (the
language spoken on Gotland) and Gothic.  To the extent that linguists now
favor a Northwest/East division of Germanic, the argument in favor of a
Scandinavian/Gothic connection would appear to be weakened, since it had
relied on a West/Northeast (Gotho-Nordic) split, the validity of Holtzmann's
law and the like.

Despite this, certain scholars still see a clean linguistic path between
Scandinavia and the historical Goths.  One approach I've already mentioned
has been taken by Thorsten Andersson.  My understanding is that his position
has been that <*gaut-> is the same as the Gotlander <go:t->, and that the
forms <gutar> and <goth> both go back to a short u.  In this, they are simply
ablaut variants of the stem <*geut->.  Another way I've seen this described
is that <go:tar> (in Goteland) comes from <*gautoz> which would have also
yielded <*gutaniz> which yielded both <Goths> and <Gutar>.  The <gutan-> form
being particularly important due to "the Pietroassa Ring" where the word
<gutani> can be cut from within the undifferentiated runic inscription.  (I
have not mentioned the ring in my previous posts because it is dated from the
4th or just as likely the 5th century AD and although it was found in
Romania, neither its context nor its provenance are known.)

There are a number of things that are a little bit troubling here, at least
from the point of view of someone familiar with, say, legal standards of
evidence and proof.

It starts, as I mentioned, with sticking to a Germanic etymology.  I have no
problem with that being a possibility or even a probability.  But it is a
little startling that no other possible path has been entertained in the
serious literature.  Especially when all this talk of ablaut is used to
explain the variances in the different forms of the Goth name.  It doesn't
take much to suspect that all the significant variables may be attributable
not only to Germanic, especially when the historical name hardly ever even
appears in Germanic until centuries later.  Before 600AD, 99% of the time the
name shows up, it seems to be in a non-German language.

A basic question becomes why the ablaut, once established, doesn't stay in
one place.  Why did the name, mainly appearing in the nominative or genitive,
need to undergo the kind of ablaut changes being suggested.  If these changes
were the kind found in names or nouns, like OE *goz/*gez (goose/geese), their
Germanic nature would be a little easier to understand.

Another problem with sticking with Germanic is that the total variances seem
far greater than either ablaut or "western German" languages can account for.
 Attested are <Gothti>, <Goththi>, <Gouththa>, <Gouthththa>, <Gythones>,
<Gutones> in less than a hundred year period in Greek alone, where western
German and the subtleties of ablaut do not appear to be at issue.

Then there's the whole question of the initial "G".  There is a rather large
group of names that share the time and place with the Goths that might even
be considered as referring to the Goths if the loose orthography of the time
were also considered.  I have a folder full of examples of "c" and "g" and
"k" interchangeability that applies to a wide range of persons, peoples and
things, but never it seems to the Gothic name. (Except in the case of Strabo,
who oddly uses a "b".) Is this a presumption that a Germanic name would never
suffer from such laxity in transcription?

There's quite a bit more, but I'll hold up here.

The problem with sticking to a purely Germanic etymology is that it seems to
leave a good deal of evidence out that might better explain what actually
happened.  Not that it is sure to but it seems it might and therefore
deserves to be entertained.  If I were a judge, I think I'd have to let it
in, conditioned upon its materiality and relevance.

The idea that sticking to Germanic may not be the best solution to the Goth
question may be some kind of heresy.  In which case it still can be capped,
since as far as I know it's only been really brought up on this list.

Regards,
Steve Long


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Fri Mar 23 16:39:48 2001
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 11:39:48 EST
Subject: Goths, Naming and Ablaut
Message-ID: <FRI.23.MAR.2001.113948.EST.>

In a message dated 3/16/2001 10:46:30 PM, JoatSimeon at aol.com writes:
<<Incidentally, I'm not aware of any evidence that the Gothic tribes who
appeared on the Danube in the 3rd century came via the Ukraine; the Gothic
tradition was that the split into eastern and western groups occurred in the
course of their migration southward from the Vistula basin. >>

According to the map on p. 42 of Heather's book, the majority of the raids of
the 3d century originated in the Ukraine.  The very first raid, on Histria at
the mouth of the Danube, has an arrow coming from the east, but I don't
believe there is any real information on that.  It may have been originally
seaborne as most of the others were.  The exception appears to be Cniva's
group breaking through the limes at Oescus, but this more westerly location
was considered a known weak point by earlier commentators and may not tell us
where that particular contingent actually came from.

<<-- since there's no evidence that the Goths ever called themselves anything
but Goths, parsimony would indicate that this was "always" their word for
themselves as an ethnic group, at the next stage up from the various tribal
identifiers like the Amals, the Teurings, etc.>>

Well, there is some evidence that the Goths called themselves other things.
You mention "Teurings".  When Ammiamus first tells of the coming of the Huns,
he records that escaping "Greuthungi" met with a king of the "Tervingi" just
west of the Dniester river.  As Heather points out although these
designations will be later reported by Jordanes to equate to "Ostrogoth" and
"Visigoth", the divisions don't hold up at all historically.  BTW,
"Greuthungi" is not a happy word as it seems to correspond to little in
written Gothic, with the off-hand possible exception of "needy."  "Tervingi"
may correspond to <<thorn>a?rh-wakan>, to keep watch, used by Ulfila in
connection with shepherds.  I believe early on Grimm took the <-ing->/<-ung>
contrast to be indicative of two different dialects.  And again, in reliable,
attestable Gothic, the Goths call themselves anything but Goths.  It may mean
something that all the variants that could correspond to Goth are taken up
with other meanings.

Regards,
Steve Long


From dlwhite at texas.net  Thu Mar 22 16:32:32 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 10:32:32 -0600
Subject: Etruscans
Message-ID: <THU.22.MAR.2001.103232.0600.>

> Yes, and this "elite dominance" model advocated by Dr. White generally
> requires many centuries to obliterate the indigenous languages. I'm not
> aware of any evidence for native non-Etruscan speech in non-peripheral
> parts of Etruria between 700 BCE and Latinization.

        It is fairly common for "language death" or "shift", which is after
all what we are talking about here, to occur over two generations:  first
generation monolingual in substrate, second generation bilingual, and third
generation monolingual in superstrate.  (Yes, three minus one is two.)  On
the other hand the death of Greek in Anatolia took nearly a thousand years,
which clearly implies stable bilingualism, a situation well-known from
various parts of the world.  There are no valid generalizations, but
abandonment of a language, once it becomes seen as "the thing to do", can be
quite rapid.

        I must wonder as well what evidence of the speech of the lower
classes we have.  If they were not Etruscan speaking (or bilingual), would
we know it?  Surely whatever funerary monuments lower-class Etruscans might
somehow have been able to produce would have followed the upper-class model,
that being the whole point of such things. For funerary inscriptions to be
in a suitably "lofty" language that the unfortunate deceased would not have
understood is hardly unknown.  ("Hic iacet")
        With regard to possible connections between "elite dominance" and
strict class stratification (digressing slightly), a situation similar to
what I posit for early Etruria seems to have existed in early medieval
Saxony, where outside of Northalbingia the Saxons appear to have been an
upper-class rigorously and brutally holding other non-Saxon tribes, victims
of earlier conquest, in subjection.  The task became so challenging that
they (evidently) found it expedient to call upon the Franks for help.  (At
least this is the interpretation of Robinson, and I see not reason to doubt
it.)  Grant posits that the upper-class in Etruria similarly called on the
Romans for help in holding down their lower-classes.  (I suppose even then
the Romans were known to leave local aristocracies in place, which is of
course the main thing the Etruscan aristocracy would have been interested
in.)

> Large groups which stayed together would form enclaves, and this probably did
> happen with Greeks, Carthaginians, and eventually Latin-speakers in Etruria.

        And of these the Latins (at least) in time linguistically converted
the original populations of their hinterlands, unless we are all now
supposed to believe that the original population of Etruria (not to mention
the rest of the Roman Empire) was exterminated by Roman colonists cruelly
scattering their seed corn to the winds (which surely would have come as a
nasty shock to the hopeful Etruscan aristocrats; but it is a Fantasy
Scenario anyway.)

> The fundamental linguistic question is one of date: when did speakers of
> proto-Etruscan enter Etruria? If it was many millennia BCE, one would not
> expect much in the way of pre-Etruscan substrate. If it was a century or two
> before 800, one would expect a lot of non-Etruscan toponyms and hydronyms.

        Hydronyms are more reliable than other "nyms", but even hydronyms
can point in the wrong direction.  For example, most of the river names of
Texas, for example Trinity, Brazos, Colorado, Pedernales, Llano, San Marcos,
Blanco, Guadalupe, and San Antonio (not sure about Sabine, Neches, and
Nueces), are Spanish.  What does this tell us, that the original inhabitants
of Texas were Spanish speaking, as opposed to the rest of North America,
where Amerindian names are more usual?  Not really.  The Spanish were just
more willing to give new (often religious) names to rivers.  It's up to the
people in charge, and they can do as they please, regardless of our
retrospective need for solid principles and firm expectations.

Dr. David L. White


From dlwhite at texas.net  Thu Mar 22 16:51:10 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 10:51:10 -0600
Subject: Etruscan
Message-ID: <THU.22.MAR.2001.105110.0600.>

        Surely Demon-David (Destroyer of Self) cannot be expected to take
all this lying down ...

>         It is not as if I am trying to connect /turs^/ with "Veia", after
> all.  More to the poinst, it appears that the subtlety of my argument about
> "Tarchun" has not been appreciated.  We begin with two propositions of quite
> uncertain validity, plus one fact:

>         1) That "Tarchun" is to be connected with /tors^/.
>         2) That the Etruscans (or at least an elite among them)
>             came from Anatolia.
>         3) Tarchun was the first Etruscan city.

>         Now if both these propositions are true, we have an explanation for
> why the first Etruscan city should bear the name "Tarchun".  If they are not
> both true, then there is only a one in seven chance that the first Etruscan
> city would just happen to bear the only name among seven that is conceivably
> relatable to /tors^/.   Thus it would appear that there is a 6 out of 7
> chance that both propositions are true.  This sort of argument is surely not
> traditional, but that is irrelevant to its validity.

        Before you going throwing traditional methodolgy, which has led to
spectacularly successful results in the usage of scholars far greater than
you will ever be, out onto your intellectual garbage heap, you might want to
consider why it developed in the first place.  (Here is a good rule:  never
break a rule until you have understood why it is a rule.)  In this case, the
problem is that is we accept things that have, say, a 90% chance of being
true as being in effect 100% true, it does not take long until any chain of
reasoning based upon such things reaches "certain" conclusions which are
probably false.  I am too lazy to do the math right now, but I think it only
takes about six or so iterations until the probability of all of them being
true (and therefore of any propostion dependent on all of them being true)
drops to below 50.  That, for your information, is why the validity of
propositions is traditionally required to approach 100 before they are
regarded as valuable.

>         It is fairly normal for aspirates to have voiceless fricatives as
> allophones, or such sound changes as we see in Greek would not get off the
> ground.  Furthermore, the variation we see in "mach" '5' versus "muvalch"
> '50' suggests an original rounded /x/ (or at least [x]), as it is a lot
> easier to motivate loss of [x] than loss of [kh].  The very common occurence
> of "chv" after sonorants, particularly /l/ and /r/, suggests a unitary
> phoneme that had to be spelled as a sequence owing to the nature of the
> spelling system.  Etruscan "Tarchun" could quite possibly go back to such
> a thing, which in some cases might have been a later development of /s^/,
> for phonetic reasons which have been given before.

        So Etruscan has a phoneme, rounded /x/, that no one has ever noticed
before?  I think the specialists can be trusted to do their jobs a little
better than that.

>         The various changes it went through rendered the original word
> (/tursik-/?) no longer recognizable as the same word as /troia/ by the time
> "the glory that was Troy" came along in a Greek guise.  So they engaged in
> a relatively straightforward re-borrowing.  Stranger things have happened.

        Vaguely as in "shirt" and "skirt", I suppose.  Possible, but you
seem awfully dependent on positing things which are merely possible, then
casually proceeeding to regard them as probable.  The same sad syndrome is
evident in your attempts to explain the long vowel of the adjective /troo-/.

Demon-David (Destroyer of Self)


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Thu Mar 22 17:23:46 2001
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 12:23:46 EST
Subject: Etruscans
Message-ID: <THU.22.MAR.2001.122346.EST.>

In a message dated 3/22/2001 3:52:39 AM, acnasvers at hotmail.com writes:
<< I don't know what bucchero-ware has to do with Asia Minor. Etruscans
certainly traded with Syria and Phoenicia, not just Greece; incorporation of
non-Greek elements into Etruscan artefacts is not surprising. Cretan motifs
probably came in early, through contacts with Mycenaeans. One should not
expect Etruscan culture to be a mere imitation of the Greek. >>

But I'm sure you see the assumption made in attributing influences to
Mycenaeans.  Arguably, there is nothing distinctly Etruscan at that point.
Whatever Etruscan culture received from Mycenaeans or Crete might have been
acquired elsewhere and may have traveled with some element of the Etruscans.
 And although "bucchero-ware" is distinctly Etruscan, the use of bucherro
clay and technique significantly pre-dates the Etruscans.  The museum at
Mytilene has a collection of "bucchero" pottery made at local workshops from
before the Classical era.  Bucchero jugs were among the finds on the Ulu
Bulun wreck suggesting early Cypriot or Phoenician usage.  There were
obviously a great many influences in Etruscan culture that came from far to
the east.  How they got to Etruria and whether language was one of them still
seems a valid question.  There is a strong case for local origin.  But when
you have so much importing, it seems hard to rule out the possibility that
Etruscan may have been a novelty that took hold sometime before 800BC among
people who were being introduced to novelties at breakneck speed.

I wrote:
<<If it came from foreign parts, it could have come with very few carriers,
but it would have had to provide indigenous people a very good economic or
social reason to adopt it.>>

acnasvers at hotmail.com replied:
<<Yes, and this "elite dominance" model advocated by Dr. White generally
requires many centuries to obliterate the indigenous languages. I'm not aware
of any evidence for native non-Etruscan speech in non-peripheral parts of
Etruria between 700 BCE and Latinization.>>

I was thinking more of a "trade language" model.  One only has to belong to a
few e-mail lists to recognize the universality of English.   Attributing that
to any kind of elite dominance is of course ludicrous.  There is a time when
adopting a foreign language becomes just plain practical and perhaps
sometimes a point when it becomes the only language that persists among a
diversity of very local languages - just for the sake of unified
communication.

The trade in both copper (e.g., for bronze) and iron in Etruria were
apparently quite valuable, judging by the gold the Greeks pumped through in
trade.  The notion that some earlier group had arrived from the eastern
Mediterranean to exploit the same resources is not out of the question.  The
fact that they did not leave their junk behind like the Greeks always did is
problematic.  Perhaps they were miners and engineers and sailors and had no
foreign potters or soldiers or aristocrats with them.  Or perhaps the fact
that the Etruscans had already converted to a mining and export economy
before the Greeks arrived might bespeak that earlier presence.  I seem to
recall that "rich guy" graves start appearing among the Villanovians before
the first sign of the Greek inundation.

<<The mechanism I favor involves the acquisition of bilingualism by those
Etruscans who dealt directly with Greek traders from Cumae and Pithecusae in
the mid-8th c. BCE; the ability to speak Greek would have had clear
advantages. During the second half of this century, many of these Etruscans
learned to write Greek also. Before 700, some of them got the idea to write
Etruscan, and during the 7th c. this idea spread through Etruria.>>

Perhaps it's the speed of this model that is troubling.  European IE
languages didn't convert to writing so quickly, even though they were
converting between related languages.  Some think Phoenician to Greek took
centuries.  It might make one suspect that an entire previously illiterate
population was not involved.  Or perhaps even that Etruscan itself might have
been spreading with the writing.

Regards,
Steve Long


From dlwhite at texas.net  Fri Mar 23 19:50:42 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 13:50:42 -0600
Subject: ".. in a sea of Greeks"
Message-ID: <FRI.23.MAR.2001.135042.0600.>

        If I a not mistaken (always a big if), the Lemno-Tyrrhenians were
not necessarily "in a sea of Greeks" from the beginning.  The northern
Aegean was not Greek until after the colonization period, and is no more
inherently Greek than is Sicily.  Likewise, the testimony of the geographers
and other considerations suggest that over time the focus of Tyrrhenian
presence in the northern Aegean had (perhaps) drifted to the south
(Thrace -> Chalcidice -> Lemnos).   (Note that in the Aeneid the Trojans on
their way to Italy (or Africa) sail from Thrace past Lemnos without a
sideward glance (I guess), as if the place had no importance to them at the
time the legends reached fixed form.)  Thus it is quite possible that their
later "in a sea of Greeks" status was a result of later developments, not
necesarily intended by any parties at the outset.

Dr. David L. White


From edsel at glo.be  Thu Mar 22 19:44:44 2001
From: edsel at glo.be (Eduard Selleslagh)
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 20:44:44 +0100
Subject: Arzawa = Razawa?
Message-ID: <THU.22.MAR.2001.204444.0100.>

----- Original Message -----
From: <philjennings at juno.com>
Sent: Wednesday, March 14, 2001 11:20 PM

[snip]

> I admit ignoring the t-r-s-k sequence.  If t-r-s-n evolved from r-s-n as I
> hypothesize (or simply wish - hypothesis is a pretty fancy name for it), then
> I'm obliged to assert that t-r-s-k had a separate evolution, or that someone
> found it meaningful to add the -k.  Kilday points out that t-r-s-k has the
> oldest attestation, and here I'm making it out to be younger and possibly
> derivative, to which I plead guilty.  With my focus on Arzawa and on dates of
> 1200 bce or before, a date of 600 bce for "Tursikina" allows for six
> centuries of change.

> Assuming an east-to-west movement of proto-Etruscan refugees, and noting that
> the t-r-s-n form is the more eastward form, my musings are at least slightly
> coherent.  Whether they correspond to reality is another story.

> I will now page among all these archives, in the suspicion that this "-k"
> issue has been dealt with at great length.

[Ed]

What I'm missing in this discussion (unless I overlooked it, in which case I
apologize) is the possibility that the t-r-s-k sequence might actually be a
t-r-s-sk sequence, with the well-known IE -sk- element for adjectives (Fales,
Faliscus). The t-r-s-n sequence might contain an -n- found in ethnonyms
etc.(Lat. -e/anus). If I'm right, we only have to consider t-r-s or t-r-r(h)
which might actually be two variants (s>r or r>s) of the same thing.

Ed. Selleslagh


From mcv at wxs.nl  Fri Mar 23 00:23:13 2001
From: mcv at wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 01:23:13 +0100
Subject: A question about Greek or Latin
In-Reply-To: <007501c0aebd$d56cc060$0b2a073e@xpoxkjlf>
Message-ID: <FRI.23.MAR.2001.012313.0100.>

On Sat, 17 Mar 2001 08:38:42 -0000, "petegray"
<petegray at btinternet.com> wrote:

>> What would you say to the alternate alternate explanation that the
>> causative formant is merely an agglutinatated verb *[h1]ey-e-

>The suggestion that it might be causes me no problem;  the assertion that it
>is so would need proof.

>I'm happy with the idea that all suffixes began life as independent
>morphemes way back in early Ur-pre-proto-pre-PIE.  I think you mean more
>than that, so we would need to find firm evidence for:
>  (a) the existence of such a verb

<iyami> is the verb for "make, do" in Hittite (and Anatolian in
general).  Its existence outside Anatolian is doubtful (Toch. A ya- ~
ypa- "to make" probably does not belong here), but that would make
sense if the verb was grammaticalized elsewhere (PIE *-ei-e-
causative) except in Anatolian (where causatives are made with -nu-).

>  (b) the use of such a verb as a causative

It makes sense semantically.

>  (c) the acceptance of this explanation as better than any alternative.

A possibly good argument is the one I gave: the existence of causative
forms in *-p-ei-e- (with preverb *pe-?), which in Vedic occur in verbs
ending in -a:, such as dha:- "put" -> dha:paya "cause to put", jn~a:-
"to know" -> jn~apaya "cause to know", etc. and in the verbs ar-paya
"cause to go", ks.e:-paya- "cause to dwell", ja:-paya- " cause to
conquer", s'ra:-paya-, ro:-paya- "raise [cause to rise]".

>What about the "going" root Pokorny 296 *ei / *ia:  ?

Semantically difficult.  Athematic.

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


From philjennings at juno.com  Thu Mar 22 03:33:05 2001
From: philjennings at juno.com (philjennings at juno.com)
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 21:33:05 -0600
Subject: Lactose Intolerance
Message-ID: <WED.21.MAR.2001.213305.0600.>

I am a fiction writer.  People wonder where I get my plots, and volunteer plot
devices of their own, as if this were the trickiest part of writing, not the
easiest.  Likewise, I suspect that for linguists and archeologists, making
hypotheses is the easiest part of their work.  They don't need amateurs coming
up with speculations we don't know how to develop.

Nevertheless, I hope you'll bear with me.  The focus of my concern is the
Khirbet Kerak incursion from NE Asia Minor into Canaan, in the middle 3rd
millennium bce.  At this time, the fertile crescent and its environs were
technically and socially more developed than surrounding areas.  Any incursion
by a less-organized culture against the natives of the fertile crescent might
be expected to fail.  In terms of known lasting effects, the Khirbet Kerak
event was a failure.

However, other people, ie. speakers of Anatolian languages, are thought to have
dislodged the Khirbet Kerak people from their NE Asia Minor homeland, and it
remains to be explained how they succeeded in putting these indigenes to
flight.  What advantages did the Anatolians have?

Moreover, immediately after the Khirbet Kerak wave of destruction, Canaan and
the fertile crescent flowered as never before, resulting in the development of
Ebla as a great power.  Why just then?

My speculation is; that the successful Anatolian invaders made better use of
the land's resources than the indigenes, because they had learned to culture
and ferment milk into a variety of products which could be digested even by
lactose-intolerant adults. (Almost all adults were lactose-intolerant in those
times.)

In favor of this idea; the pre-Anatolian and non-Anatolian peoples of the
Levant kept cattle of impressive size, and were proud of their mastery over
such dangerous creatures, as demonstrated by their art and religious
paraphernalia.  Large cattle are beef cattle.  Less-impressive, smaller, and
tractible dairy cattle would not inspire such cults, but in the long run
produce more food per acre of grazing land.  We see a decline in "the religion
of the cow/bull" over the course of time, that might have begun with the
Anatolian invasion of Asia Minor.

If this speculation about dairy products is true, we would find no words or
symbols for "cheese," "yoghurt," or other such products in the texts we have
from before Khirbet Kerak, in any of the non-IE languages of the fertile
crescent (Sumerian only?).  Equally, if these products are an Indo-Anatolian
innovation, we might expect a diaspora of related terms for cheese, yoghurt,
etc. in a number of daughter languages.

The technology of cheese, etc., spreading quickly into the fertile crescent,
would be accompanied by terminology adopted from the Anatolian.  This would
lead to an agricultural revolution and sudden prosperity, as with Ebla.

Another linguistic possibility is two sets of words for cattle; one appropriate
to the smaller dairy breed and the other borrowed to describe the larger
animals.  Here I take it from the Anatolian point-of-view, the exchange may
have worked in reverse in the languages of Ebla, Akkad and Sumer.

A companion to this hypothesis is that the Anatolians brought with them not
just fermented milk products, but the whole idea of fermentation/leavening,
almost immediately applied to beer and later to bread.  Is there evidence for
beer in Sumer or Egypt prior to the mid-3rd millennium bce?  (Linguistic or
otherwise?)  I'm given to understand that there is, and that this companion
hypothesis fails.

My more limited "fermented milk" hypothesis has a sequel; that the later
development of horse-and-cow nomadism by the precursors of the Indo-Aryans
north of the Black Sea will have resulted in a population of completely
lactose-tolerant people, able to expand at the expense of less
protein-nourished lactose-intolerant agriculturalists to the east, west and
south.  (Eventually, as nomadism spread among Altaics, Nilotics, desert Semites
and other peoples, so did lactose-tolerance.)

I am not sure, however, that this sequel had any linguistic impact.
Linguistically, "milk" the glandular secretion that nurtures new-borns, and
"milk" the protein-rich adult drink, may never have been distinguished by
separate terms.  Archeologically, the existence of milk-buckets, churns, and so
forth, does not signify the ability to digest raw milk.


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Thu Mar 22 16:19:44 2001
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language)
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 10:19:44 -0600
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
Message-ID: <THU.22.MAR.2001.101944.0600.>

Dear Stanley and IEists:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Stanley Friesen" <sarima at friesen.net>
Sent: Saturday, March 17, 2001 8:17 AM

> At 06:36 PM 3/15/01 -0500, Rich Alderson wrote:

>> Any word in which *i or *u can be reconstructed.  That they may alternate in
>> morphophonological rules with *y and *w is irrelevant to their phonemic
>> status, though the consonantal forms may have originated in fortitions of
>> originally vocalic segments.  (For the concept of fortition processes, see
>> P. Donegan's Ohio State dissertation, still available I believe as a working
>> paper from the linguistics department there.)

> I am not sure if this is what you mean here, but I find I have a tendency
> in my speech to excrete a consonantal segment between two vowels in
> different syllables.  Thus, starting with a sequence like 'u' + 'e' I tend
> to produce the sequence 'uwe', and for sequences like 'ei' + 'e' I tend to
> produce sequences like 'eye' or 'eiye'.  Even without an original high
> vowel, I tend towards consonantal glides, thus I more readily pronounce 'e'
> + 'e' as 'eye' than as 'e?e' (using '?' for the glottal stop), and 'o' + o'
> tends towards 'owo' for me.

> As far as I can see, these sorts of processes could produce most of the 'w'
> and 'y' sounds reconstructed for PIE.

[PR]

I do not doubt that what you have described is natural for you and for speakers
of many languages in which contiguous vowels are present.

However, IE as it is normally reconstruted, did not have contiguous vowels so
the real process you describe seems to me to be irrelevant.

Furthermore, whether /i/ and /u/ derive from earlier /y/ and /w/ in avocalic
environments or not; and, if not for some instances at least, have separate
phonemic status in earliest IE (which is what Rich is suggesting), no one to my
knowledge has ever challenged the phonemic status of /y/ and /w/.

I have no axe to grind by denying IE /i/ and /u/. It is just that, where I can
find AA cognates for IE roots, a medial or final /i/ or /u/ in IE shows up as a
consonantal /y/ or /w/ in AA. I have to conclude that all IE /i/ and /u/ derive
from avocalic /y/ and /w/.

One might also want to notice the great infrequency of IE roots beginning with
/i/ and /u/. This rarity suggests to me that initial /i/ and /u/ are zero-grade
forms of earlier *Hey/w -- evidently, an uncommon occurrence.

Finally, if /i/ and /u/ had separate phonemic status in earliest IE, one might
expect them to be part of the Ablaut process; e.g. raising /e/ to /i/ for some
grammatical nuance. Or, if /i/ and /u/ are phonemic vowels, what would be the
zero-grade form of a Ci/u(C) syllable? Must we say that /i/ and /u/ are
entirely outside the system?

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit ec
at ec hecc, vindg? mei?i a netr allar n?o, geiri vnda?r . . . a ?eim
mei?i, er mangi veit, hvers hann af r?tom renn." (H?vam?l 138)


From alderson+mail at panix.com  Thu Mar 22 19:45:04 2001
From: alderson+mail at panix.com (Rich Alderson)
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 14:45:04 -0500
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
In-Reply-To: <002301c0aeea$86c7df80$712363d1@texas.net> (dlwhite@texas.net)
Message-ID: <THU.22.MAR.2001.144504.0500.>

On 17 Mar 2001, David L. White wrote (quoting my previous message):

>> The analysis of the obstruents as occurring in three series, to wit, plain,
>> palatalized, and labialized, is unremarkable.

> What is another example?

There are several NW Caucasian languages for which this is the parsimonious
analysis of the obstruent system; besides Kabardian/Adyghe/Circassian, I know
of Abaza/Abkhaz and Ubykh.

>> Presumably, your confusion stems from my comments on Kuipers' re-analysis of
>> "plain":

> Practically speaking, "plain" would have to be "[a]-colored", to stay out of
> the way of consonants that were [i]-colored or [u]-colored.  Otherwise, with
> normal coarticulation, "plain" velars (to take the most obvious case) would
> develop de facto [i]-coloring near /i/.  Of course, this would not apply to a
> language without /i/, but Old Irish does have /i/.

The examples have all been drawn from languages which lack /i/ and /u/, to
support an analysis of PIE as lacking /i/ and /u/.  However, the re-analysis of
plain (that is, non-palatalized and non-labialized) obstruents as being somehow
[a]-colored, in order to allow an analysis of the vowel system as lacking any
full-specified vowel at all, quite simply violates phonological universals.
(This objection leaves aside the simple fact that the analysis missed the
contrast between /a/ and /I-/, so that reducing the "one-vowel" system in this
way was already wrong.)

I was unaware that we were discussing Old Irish--the Subject: header refers to
three-way contrasts in PIE.

> If part of the claim is that [a]-coloring does not exist, I agree, but assert
> that it would have to for the sound-system commonly posited for Old Irish to
> be viable.

I'm afraid that my Old Irish background is so weak as to be non-existent, so I
cannot evaluate this claim.  How do you come to this conclusion?

								Rich Alderson


From alderson+mail at panix.com  Thu Mar 22 20:00:13 2001
From: alderson+mail at panix.com (Rich Alderson)
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 15:00:13 -0500
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
In-Reply-To: <004501c0af05$2613c120$fbf1fea9@Ryan>
 (proto-language@email.msn.com)
Message-ID: <THU.22.MAR.2001.150013.0500.>

In the following, we are using the American practice of writing <y> for IPA <j>
and <"u> for IPA <y>.

On 17 Mar 2001, Patrick Ryan wrote:

> If an IE word with [i] could be related convincingly as a cognate with an AA
> word containing [y] in the same position, would that influence your opinion
> of the phonemic status of [i] in IE?

Not in the least.  History does not equate to synchronic phonology.

Further, any PAA or PN reconstruction that recognized *y but not *i would have
to come under very close scrutiny before I found it acceptable.

> And, I also wonder if, perhaps, we are talking past each other. I do not
> doubt that, at some point, [i] became phonemic in IE. It is just that I favor
> the idea that in earliest IE, what became [i] must have been [y]. Does that
> make any difference in your position?

I think that we may indeed be talking past each other.  The Lehmann system
calls for *phonetic* [i] at all stages, with /i/ arising at a late stage when a
distinction arose between *i and *y.  My position is that at no stage was there
only a phoneme /y/, though there *may* have been a stage with a phoneme /i/ and
no phoneme /y/.  I think that recognizing that *i and *y (mutatis mutandis, *u
and *w) fell into morphophonemic alternations without trying to reduce either
to the other allows us *more* leeway in seeking out possible external relations
(for which discussion we need to move to the Nostratic list).

								Rich Alderson


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Sat Mar 24 06:53:05 2001
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 01:53:05 EST
Subject: Minoan is an IE language?/Sound Equivalence
Message-ID: <SAT.24.MAR.2001.015305.EST.>

In a message dated 3/23/01 11:27:27 PM Mountain Standard Time,
X99Lynx at aol.com writes:

> If the situation in English can be attributed in any way to imported words,

-- it's not the imported words, it's the changing sounds.

First, one-to-one correspondences between sound and symbol have collapsed as
the language changed and the orthography didn't.  English has undergone an
extremely brusque series of changes over the past 500 years. (Second, English
now has a much greater stock of synonyms than it used to.)

In Caxton's time, "through" didn't rhyme with "you", but it did rhyme with
"bough".

It's much more probable that Linear A has presented problems simply because
the language it was designed to write was an isolate -- not related to any
other we know.

That would, insofar as I understand the matter, make it inherently very
difficult or impossible to decypher, unless we were lucky enough to find a
bilingual document.

Rather as if we had a few documents in a script originally designed to write
Basque, which was then adapted (badly) to write Latin... and had no
Latin-Basque translations at all, and no mention of Basque in the Latin texts.


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sun Mar 25 21:58:24 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2001 15:58:24 -0600
Subject: Italian as a "Pure" Language
Message-ID: <SUN.25.MAR.2001.155824.0600.>

> I don't think it's quite that clear that the spelling difficulties in
> English are mostly from "native" words.

        Native words, being most common, are the ones most commonly
encountered by young learners.  Something like "psychology" is less
problematic than "night", I think.

Dr. David L. White


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sun Mar 25 21:52:58 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2001 15:52:58 -0600
Subject: Italian as a "Pure" Language
Message-ID: <SUN.25.MAR.2001.155258.0600.>

>> The main advantage Italian has, to simplify a bit, is that it did not go
>> through the Great Vowel Shift.

> That might be simplifying a bit too much

        I admit I should have mentioned dialect mixture as a major
contributor to the problem.

Dr. David L. White


From acnasvers at hotmail.com  Mon Mar 26 04:59:35 2001
From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday)
Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 04:59:35 -0000
Subject: Italian as a "Pure" Language
Message-ID: <MON.26.MAR.2001.045935.0000.>

X99Lynx at aol.com (22 Mar 2001) wrote:

>In their later confusion, they might wonder why "pizza" was not
>spelled "pete/sa," ("pete-" as in from the Aramaic "Peter") which it so
>often sounds like these days.

"Peter" is not Aramaic. It represents Greek <Petros>, lit. 'piece of rock',
given by John (1:42) as the translation of <Ke:pha:s>, the nickname bestowed
upon Simon by Jesus. This Aramaic name is cognate with Hebrew <ke:f> 'rock,
crag, cliff' found only in the plural <ke:fiym> (Jer. 4:29). This in turn is
referred to an obsolete radical *k-w-p 'to be high, crag-like' by
Davies-Mitchell, which looks dubious. I am more inclined to regard <ke:f> as
coming from pre-West Semitic substrate.

DGK


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sun Mar 25 22:11:43 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2001 16:11:43 -0600
Subject: Gothic "au"
Message-ID: <SUN.25.MAR.2001.161143.0600.>

----- Original Message -----
From: <X99Lynx at aol.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2001 11:47 AM

> In a message dated 3/21/2001 10:29:39 PM, dlwhite at texas.net writes:
> << That Gothic "au" was, among other things (probably), a spelling for
> /o/, as "ai" was for /e/, is not disputed by most observers.  The evidence,
> some of which we have just seen, is too strong. >>

> This appears to miss the point.  There are loads of words in Wright's where
> Gothic words contain an <o>.  The point is that practically every time
> indicated where Gothic borrowed a word with a Greek <o> it is transliterated
> as <au> (or rarely <u>).  This does not appear to be random or occasional.

        I am not saying it is random or occasional.  The rule (if I am
remembering correctly) is that Greek short /o/ appears as "au" (representing
short /o/), whereas Greek long /o/ appears as "o", which in Gothic is
inherently long, perhaps by influence from Greek omega.

Dr. David L. White


From hwhatting at hotmail.com  Mon Mar 26 07:23:53 2001
From: hwhatting at hotmail.com (Hans-Werner Hatting)
Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 09:23:53 +0200
Subject: Gothic "au"
Message-ID: <MON.26.MAR.2001.092353.0200.>

On Thu, 22 Mar 2001 12:47:45 EST Steve Long wrote:

>This appears to miss the point.  There are loads of words in Wright's
>where Gothic words contain an <o>.  The point is that practically every
>time indicated where Gothic borrowed a word with a Greek <o> it is
>transliterated as <au> (or rarely <u>).  This does not appear to be random
>or occasional.

>If I remember correctly, the rare exceptions are where the vowel begins the
>word or is from the Hebrew.  The significance might be at minimum that
>what could mistakenly be attributed to a Germanic ablaut would appear to be
>actually the orthographic changes that happened in borrowing.

Good idea! All this discussion had started to make me think along similar
lines already:

AFAIK, Gothic clearly keeps apart <o> and <au>. The first one corresponds to
Proto-Gmc. /o:/ (< PIE /o:/ and /a:/), the second one to Proto-Gmc. /au/ (<
PIE /ou/, /au/)- in which case it is denoted <au> in the modern editions -
*and* to Proto-Gmc. /u/ (< PIE /u/, syllabic /r/) before (as far as I
remember)/r/ and /hw/, in which case it is denoted /au'/ in the modern
editions. The distinction between the two <au> was not made in the original
manuscripts, and though there has been a heated debate on whether they are
different sounds or not, I prefer to see <au> as representing *one* sound.
The fact that one of the sources it is derived from is Proto-Gmc. /u/ makes
it probable that <au> represented a diphthong /ou/ or a closed /o:/, while
<o> represented an open /o:/. Greek /o/ seems to have been too closed to be
rendered by Gothic <o>, so <au> or <u> were chosen. On the other hand, the
sound represented by <au> seems to have been more closed than Greek <o>
(into which at that time /o/ and /o:/ already had merged), so in Greek it
was perceived as /u/ and rendered in the earliest sources by <y> (as I said
before, Ptolemy's source must come from a period when <y> still could render
/u/), later by /ou/).

The Latin sources, OTOH, perceived the sound denoted by <au> as the closed
/o/ they had from the merger of Classical Latin /u/ and /o:/, and rendered
it by <o>.

So we do not have ablaut variants, we just have different renderings of
Gothic <au> by Greek and Roman sources. In this case, the "-ones" suffix
might be either an attachement by Greek and Roman sources, or it might be an
individualising n-stem formation in Gmc. (*Gauto:n-), which
would not pose any problems, as we don't have an ablaut change.

Steve Long wrote on 23 Mar:
>Despite this, certain scholars still see a clean linguistic path between
>Scandinavia and the historical Goths.  One approach I've already mentioned
>has been taken by Thorsten Andersson.  My understanding is that his
>position has been that <*gaut-> is the same as the Gotlander <go:t->, and
>that the forms <gutar> and <goth> both go back to a short u.  In this, they
>are simply ablaut variants of the stem <*geut->.  Another way I've seen
>this described is that <go:tar> (in Goteland) comes from <*gautoz> which
>would have also yielded <*gutaniz> which yielded both <Goths> and <Gutar>.
>The <gutan-> form
>being particularly important due to "the Pietroassa Ring" where the word
><gutani> can be cut from within the undifferentiated runic inscription.  (I
>have not mentioned the ring in my previous posts because it is dated from
>the 4th or just as likely the 5th century AD and although it was found in
>Romania, neither its context nor its provenance are known.)

If my idea holds, all these contortions are not necessary any more. Whether
the Pietroassa ring has a bearing on this question at all, remains to be
seen. The question of the dialectal sub-division of Gmc. ist still debated,
and you have to look at the periodisation. IMHO, the proposed similarities
between Western Gmc. and Nordic are due to later contacts, in whicht the
Eastern Gmc. dialects simply could not participate because they were extinct
or - Crimean Gothic - isolated in a farway place.

>It starts, as I mentioned, with sticking to a Germanic etymology.  I have
>no problem with that being a possibility or even a probability.  But it is
>a little startling that no other possible path has been entertained in the
>serious literature.  Especially when all this talk of ablaut is used to
>explain the variances in the different forms of the Goth name.  It doesn't
>take much to suspect that all the significant variables may be attributable
>not only to Germanic, especially when the historical name hardly ever even
>appears in Germanic until centuries later.  Before 600AD, 99% of the time
>the name shows up, it seems to be in a non-German language.

This is an argument ex silentio, and not a very convincing one, as the only
Gmc. sources before 600 AD I know of are some short runic inscriptions,
mostly of none-Gothic provenance, and the Gothic texts, from which,
according to their nature, we would not expect a mention of the Goths
(AFAIK, they do not figure prominently in the New Testament :)).

>A basic question becomes why the ablaut, once established, doesn't stay in
>one place.  Why did the name, mainly appearing in the nominative or
>genitive, need to undergo the kind of ablaut changes being suggested.  If
>these changes were the kind found in names or nouns, like OE *goz/*gez
>(goose/geese), their Germanic nature would be a little easier to
>understand.

The last type of change is late, becoming of phonological relevance only
after the period discussed here. The ablaut changes were always meant to be
seen as some sort of archaism. They make sense only if the name of the Goths
was originally derived from a consonant stem, combining different suffixes
with different ablaut grades. But, as I showed above, maybe we can drop the
different ablaut grades altogether.

>Another problem with sticking with Germanic is that the total variances
>seem far greater than either ablaut or "western German" languages can
>account for.  Attested are <Gothti>, <Goththi>, <Gouththa>, <Gouthththa>,
><Gythones>, <Gutones> in less than a hundred year period in Greek alone,
>where western German and the subtleties of ablaut do not appear to be at
>issue.

See my above discussion of these variants. The variants in the rendering of
Gothic /t/ show just the Greeks (or the intermediaries they heard the name
from) mangling Gothic phonology. <Gothti>, <Goththi>, don't look Grek to me
- I would expect <Gotht(h)oi>. But even if they are Greek, <o> can be
explained as a Greek writers taking the word from a Latin source.

>Then there's the whole question of the initial "G".  There is a rather
>large group of names that share the time and place with the Goths that
>might even be considered as referring to the Goths if the loose orthography
>of the time were also considered.  I have a folder full of examples of "c"
>and "g" and "k" interchangeability that applies to a wide range of persons,
>peoples and things, but never it seems to the Gothic name. (Except in the
>case of Strabo, who oddly uses a "b".) Is this a presumption that a
>Germanic name would never suffer from such laxity in transcription?

Well, one cannot exclude that. The question is, do we know something about
these other groups which leads us to exlude these possibilities? Going back
to examples you quoted, we know, e.g., that the Chatti have been sitting on
the right bank of the Rhine for quite a time, and that the name of the area
of Hesse derives from their name, so we have a confirmation that the name
had to be pronounced /(c)hat-/ in Tacitus time, and that they basically
stayed there afterwards. Now, we can of course say that they are identical
with the Goths, that their name just got mangled by intermediaries, and look
for reasons why the Goths "invented" a Scandinavian origin and forgot about
their Hessian cousins. But does this get us any further?

>The problem with sticking to a purely Germanic etymology is that it seems
>to leave a good deal of evidence out that might better explain what
>actually happened.  Not that it is sure to but it seems it might and
>therefore deserves to be entertained.  If I were a judge, I think I'd have
>to let it in, conditioned upon its materiality and relevance.
>The idea that sticking to Germanic may not be the best solution to the Goth
>question may be some kind of heresy.  In which case it still can be capped,
>since as far as I know it's only been really brought up on this list.

Well, I certainly don't want to cap any idea or discussion. I just do not
see the "good deal of evidence ... that might better explain what actually
happened". I see some arguments putting under doubt the theory of a
Scandinavian origin - which, nevertheless, does *not* explain away the
existence of the Gutae / Geats, whose name would still need an explanation
-, some speculations about possible alternative etymologies from Greek (or
other IE languages), and a mix-in of other ethnonyms which might or might
not be related. I just do not see that the lines of investigation proposed
by you are more promising.

>Well, there is some evidence that the Goths called themselves other things.
>You mention "Teurings".  When Ammiamus first tells of the coming of the
>Huns, he records that escaping "Greuthungi" met with a king of the
>"Tervingi" just west of the Dniester river.  As Heather points out although
>these designations will be later reported by Jordanes to equate to
>"Ostrogoth" and "Visigoth", the divisions don't hold up at all
>historically.  BTW, "Greuthungi" is not a happy word as it seems to
>correspond to little in written Gothic, with the off-hand possible
>exception of "needy."  "Tervingi" may correspond to <<thorn>amrh-wakan>, to
>keep watch, used by Ulfila in connection with shepherds.  I believe early
>on Grimm took the <-ing->/<-ung> contrast to be indicative of two different
>dialects. And again, in reliable,
>attestable Gothic, the Goths call themselves anything but Goths.  It may
>mean something that all the variants that could correspond to Goth are
>taken up with other meanings.

As was said before, the Goths were certainly not ethnically monolithic. In a
tribal society, or a feudal society just emerging from tribalism, tribes and
sub-tribes are an important part of the identity. So it's no wonder that in
a context where inner-Gothic developments are described, reference is made
to the level of tribe, or sub-tribe. The question is: do we have any sources
where Goths are referring to themselves as "Goths"? Or as "Visigoths /
Ostrogoths"? If not, does this mean that "Goths" was an other-name, or do we
simply not have sources where we should expect such a self reference? And we
should expect such a reference only when the source talks about the nation
as a whole, in oppsition to another nation like Romans or Huns.
As for the etymologisabilty of the names of Gothic sub-tribes from *Gothic*,
we should not forget that 1. we only have a limited corpus of Gothic and 2.
that the names can be quite old and be based on words extinct in the
documented Gothic.

Phew, I hope I do not trigger a button against lengthy postings.

Best regards,
Hans-Werner Hatting


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Sat Mar 24 07:39:23 2001
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 02:39:23 EST
Subject: Scandinavian Origins of the Goths
Message-ID: <SAT.24.MAR.2001.023923.EST.>

In a message dated 3/24/01 12:27:32 AM Mountain Standard Time,
hwhatting at hotmail.com writes:

> 5. That said, I agree with Joat Simeon that the Goths were probably not

-- the pattern of early Germanic loan-words in Slavic (at the Common Slavic
stage) would strongly support this.

At least some of the area attributed to states controlled by Gothic rulers
(Hermannaric, etc.) was undoubtedly inhabited by Slavic-speakers.
Contemporary written sources put the Ostrogoths in the Ukraine in the 4th
century CE, and the survival of Gothic-speakers in the Crimea down to the
16th century certainly supports this, but this doesn't speak to the extent to
which the area was predominantly "Gothic" in linguistic terms.  It may well
have included large areas where Gothic-speakers were a ruling minority.
Volkerwanderung-era folk migrations often consisted primarily of elite
groups, after all.

The "Goths" and other East-Germanic groups such as the Vandals also included
(politically) Iranian-speakers; eg., the Alans.  If I recall correctly, the
Vandal monarchs styled themselves "Kings of the Vandals and Alans" and
Alannic tribes ended up as far from the steppe as Spain, Gaul and Tunisia.


From JoatSimeon at aol.com  Sat Mar 24 07:43:05 2001
From: JoatSimeon at aol.com (JoatSimeon at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 02:43:05 EST
Subject: Scandinavian Origins of the Goths
Message-ID: <SAT.24.MAR.2001.024305.EST.>

In a message dated 3/24/01 12:27:32 AM Mountain Standard Time,
hwhatting at hotmail.com writes:

> 4. I would take the presence of King Rodulf at Theodoric's court not as
> evidence for the invention of the Scandinavian version, but as evidence that
> at least the Gothic elite never lost the connection to their ancestral

-- I agree with this.

We should keep in mind that it really isn't that far from the Danube to the
Baltic; perhaps a month's travel on foot or horseback.  And only slightly
longer to Italy.

Migration-period graves from Scandinavia include large amounts of Roman and
East Roman coinage and artifacts, probably the result of mercenary service
and plunder as well as trade.  Scandinavia in early historic times was
usually in continuous contact with both Western Europe and the eastern
Mediterranean, and there's no reason to believe it wasn't, if on a smaller
scale, in earlier times.  The amber route from the Baltic to the Adriatic is
ancient, for example.


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Mon Mar 26 07:56:40 2001
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 02:56:40 EST
Subject: Scandinavian Origins of the Goths
Message-ID: <MON.26.MAR.2001.025640.EST.>

In a message dated 3/24/2001 2:27:32 AM, hwhatting at hotmail.com writes:
<< 2. Concerning the prestigiousness of the Scandinavian origins: It would have
been much more consistent on Cassiodorus' and Jordanes' side to stick to the
Goths = Getae - equation, as this implied that the Goths were in the area from
antiquity, and even being related by marriage to the ancestors of Alexander the
Great. This would have differentiated them satisfactorily from the other
Germanic tribes.>>

But in fact that's what exactly they did.  They apparently stuck with the
Goths = Getae - equation as far back as it could go (Homer).  That of course
still would not have answered the question as to where the Getae came from.
The Gothic genealogy in fact includes Getic kings, including some we have
never heard of.  For all we know, the Getae may also have claimed
Scandinavian origins.  But there's no dualism in Jordanes' story.  That's a
modern perception.  In Jordanes, the Goths are the Getae and they come from
Scandinavia.

<<My opinion is that they simply could not do so, as the Scandinavian origins
were too widely known among the Gothic leadership, and so they were reported
alongside with the Getae theory. >>

There isn't much folk knowledge in Jordanes. He rejects "old wives tales" and
doesn't mention Gothic leadership remembering anything.  Ironically, one of
the few instances where he does mention the content of living folk tradition
is with regard to the Getae-Dacians:

"Then when Buruista was king of the Goths, Dicineus came to Gothia at the
time when Sulla ruled the Romans. Buruista received Dicineus and gave him
almost royal power. [Burebista was of course king of the "Geto-Dacian"
confederation north of the Danube in the first century BC.]  It was by his
advice the Goths ravaged the lands of the Germans, which the Franks now
possess. (68) .... He gave the name of Pilleati to the priests he ordained, I
suppose because they offered sacrifice having their heads covered with
tiaras, which we otherwise call pillei. (72) But he bade them call the rest
of their race Capillati. This name the Goths accepted and prized highly, and
they retain it to this day in their songs."

This is not saying that Jordanes has this quite right.  But up until modern
times, no one seemed to argue with the Goth-Getae connection.  And, from all
indications, Gothic leadership found it quite logical.  It appears that the
Getae name disappears just before the Goths show up in reference to anything
else but the Goths.  So the conclusion that one was the other made simple,
straightforward sense at the time.

In all this, there is a completely different aspect that is hardly ever
mentioned.  The Goths were apparently not the first Germanic speakers to
appear just north of the Danube, in the Ukraine or along the Black Sea.  They
may not have been the first with a tradition of coming from Scandinavia.
They may not have been the first to have such a tradition in their songs.
And so if the Gothic leadership or the Gothic singers were remembering a
journey from Scandinavia, they may have been remembering when that journey
would have happened in a much more direct way at an earlier time.  Possibly
around 200BC.

Regards,
Steve Long


From acnasvers at hotmail.com  Mon Mar 26 07:37:44 2001
From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday)
Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 07:37:44 -0000
Subject: Soap
Message-ID: <MON.26.MAR.2001.073744.0000.>

X99Lynx at aol.com (28 Feb 2001) wrote:

>There is something in all this however that must have to do with the
>phonotactics of these languages or something like that.  Clearly there are
>a good many forms in Greek, some relatively early, that show some serious
>commonality.

><dusapaleiptos> means hard to wipe out in Sophocles.

This is transparently dus-ap-aleiptos and has nothing to do with *sap-. If
memory serves, Hesychius referred <aleipho:> to Pelasgian, but the verb has
IE ablaut with zero-grade 2nd perf. and 2nd aor. pass. forms.

><anapsao:> is cited early for wipe up, clean out.

><psao:> crumble away, vanish, disappear (L&S write that "psao:, psaio:,
>psauo:, psairo:, pse:cho:, pso:cho:, and perh. psio:, pso:mos, seem to be
>different enlargements of ps-")

[snip]

><pse:phos> Doric <psaphos>, Aeol. <psaphax>, a worn stone or pebble, precious
>stone, polished gem. (Doric has a tendency to look like the Germanic from
>time to time.)

Could you explain how "Doric looks like Germanic"?

[snip]

><psapharos> powdery, crumbling, of loose texture, thin, watery

>(All the above definitions are from Lewis & Short)

>I would not even pretend to understand how <psa-> might
>travel to <sap->.

As a working hypothesis I take <psao:> and some of the other Greek words
with initial "psi" as based on Pelasgian stems. For "psi" representing a
Psg. sound (affricate?) cf. <apsinthos> 'wormwood'. OTOH we have IE ablaut
in <psego:> 'I blame' ~ <psogos> 'blame', so not all of these words are from
substrate. Watkins has rather lame etymologies for some of the words in
terms of metathesis, others as extended zero-grade forms from PIE *bhes-. It
is very odd that Greek would preserve no forms in *phes- or *phos- connected
with these.

If my view on <psao:> is correct, some of the words referring to 'rubbing,
crumbling, erosion' etc. might illustrate processes of Pelasgian
word-formation, not merely Greek processes.

I see no connection between <psa-> and <sap->, but it is very tempting to
relate Gk. <psa:r> 'starling' to OE <st&r>, OHG <stara>, Lat. <sturnus>
(from PIE *stor-). Other than this I have no plausible comparanda for words
with initial "psi".

DGK


From acnasvers at hotmail.com  Sun Mar 25 10:26:43 2001
From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday)
Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2001 10:26:43 -0000
Subject: Etruscans
Message-ID: <SUN.25.MAR.2001.102643.0000.>

David L. White (15 Mar 2001) wrote:

>Geography is becoming confused.  I believe Hamp's original words (it
>was 10-15 years ago) were something like "mountains of central Italy".  The
>Alps have nothing to do with anything.  I would gues the phenomenon must be
>the same thing recently pointed out as existing in Tuscan, though if it is
>truly general to Tuscan we must wonder why it did not become established in
>standard Italian.  My point was that aspiration is known from that general
>area, and might one way or another explain the evident /th/ of "Thouskoi".

In your earlier posting, you must have intended "Apennine" instead of
"Pennine". I don't know whether the modern aspiration goes all the way back
to Pelasgian substrate (to whose influence I have tentatively ascribed
<Thouskoi>), but I doubt it. I am inclined to regard the modern aspiration
as a post-ancient result of heavy recessive stress-accent in these dialects,
itself the legacy of Etruscan substrate or adstrate.

(Those with elephantine memories may recall that I once said "Etruscan does
not qualify as a substrate". In that posting I was dealing with the
situation circa 700-450 BCE, not with later Latin or Italian dialects.)

>But I could have sworn I saw "Thoursk-" cited (as Umbrian) at one
>point.  What is this?

It's nothing _I_ cited; the Umbrian example is <Turskum numem> 'the Etruscan
nation' = Lat. <Tuscum nomen>. I won't point fingers, but _someone_ appears
to have conflated Umbr. Tursk- with Late Gk. Thousk-.

>I would say _originally_ a small elite.  People can easily shift
>their ethnic identity.  The genetic evidence shows that this clearly
>happened in Turkey, where people who now think of themselves as Turks had
>ancestors who thought of themseves as Greeks (who in turn probably had
>ancestors who thought of themselves as Phrygians, etc... )  I note that
>class divisions in Etruscan society seem to have been unusually rigid, with
>no true middle class.  This might be because class divisions went back to
>earlier ethnic divisions re-analyzed, there being great efforts to keep the
>conquered in their place by erecting uncrossable class barriers.  Otherwise
>the failure of Etruscan society to develop a middle class comparable to
>what existed among the Greeks and Romans is somewhat strange.

Onomastic evidence indicates that class-barriers could be overcome. "Lethe"
was a name sometimes bestowed on freedmen, and there are examples (such as
the famous Larth Felsnas of Tarquinii) showing that sons of "Lethe" were
considered free citizens with their own "nomina gentilicia". Furthermore,
the very common occurrence of Etruscanized Italic gentilicia and cognomina,
ranging from Early Archaic (7th cent.) up to Late Etruscan (1st cent.) shows
that ethnic background was no bar to acquiring wealth and status.

There had to be a considerable middle class in Etruria. You can't expect
slaves or serfs to function as the artisans, merchants, and clerks required
by this type of society. To our knowledge, the Etruscan middle class never
acquired the political clout of its counterparts in Athens or Rome, but that
is not strange. It takes centuries of experimentation with riots,
assassinations, banishment of plutocrats, plebeian secessions, and the like
for any middle class to achieve significant political power, and to forge
the uneasy power-sharing arrangement with the upper class that some of us
take for granted. As you know, once Rome became powerful, its leaders did
whatever they could to maintain the upper-class political monopoly in the
Etruscan city-states, squelching whatever experimentation was taking place.
Likewise, in the good old USA, we (I don't mean "you" and "me") spend a good
chunk of disposable GDP pulling strings in other parts of the world, usually
attempting to preserve the "status quo".

>> I don't see any compensatory lengthening in Epic genitives like
>> <megaroio>, where we have /oyo/ < */ohyo/ < */osyo/.

>Nor in the ancestor of /naio/, from /nasyo/.  With dentals followed
>by /y/ it appears (to me) that what happend was (in effect) metathesis, as
>in /melaina/ from /melanya/, followed, where applicable, by /s/-loss:
>/nasyo/ -> /naiso/ -> /naio/.  In such a sequence compensatory lengthening
>would not be expected, as the /s/, by the time it is lost, has ceased to be
>moraic.
>         The process I posit would have to be later than the change of
>original /sy/.  But as the word for Troy was clearly not part of the IE
>inheritance, I see no great problem with that, not counting ad-hocness.
>But for foreign borrowings to have unique sequences, regarded as at least
>awkward, is not unheard of.  There would have been a second loss of /sy/
>phonologically parallel with the loss of /sw/, which _did_ involve
>compensatory lengthening, probably because it did not involve (de facto)
>metathesis.  I admit that this probably did not happen, preferring option
>#2 below, but I do think there is nothing _fatally_ wrong with it.

Your proposal was /trosy-/ > /trohy-/ > /trooy-/ with later loss of /y/ when
not re-analyzable as suffixal. The first form, being foreign, evaded your
postulated metathesis, so no /troys-/. Now if memory serves, Archaic
Corinthian preserves <hw> (i.e. heth + waw) for earlier */sw/, so I'm not
about to disagree with your general treatment of lengthening. I just don't
like the necessity of invoking foreignness in order to evade one
sound-change, then insisting on "naturalization" in order to obey subsequent
changes.

>In sum, for Etruscan /o-u/ to have sounded like short /u/ to some Greeks (or
>other people) of one period and dialect and like long /o/ to other Greeks (or
>other people) of another period and dialect would be not at all suprising.

Different-sounding _quality_ wouldn't surprise me. Different-sounding
_quantity_ would surprise me a lot. We're talking about languages in which
long and short vowels were distinct.

DGK


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Wed Mar 28 21:19:31 2001
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 16:19:31 -0500
Subject: Etruscans
In-Reply-To: <000901c0b2ed$c1e864c0$b02863d1@texas.net>
Message-ID: <WED.28.MAR.2001.161931.0500.>

[ moderator edited ]

>        Hydronyms are more reliable than other "nyms", but even hydronyms
>can point in the wrong direction.  For example, most of the river names of
>Texas, for example Trinity, Brazos, Colorado, Pedernales, Llano, San Marcos,
>Blanco, Guadalupe, and San Antonio (not sure about Sabine, Neches, and
>Nueces), are Spanish.  What does this tell us, that the original inhabitants
>of Texas were Spanish speaking, as opposed to the rest of North America,
>where Amerindian names are more usual?  Not really.  The Spanish were just
>more willing to give new (often religious) names to rivers.  It's up to the
>people in charge, and they can do as they please, regardless of our
>retrospective need for solid principles and firm expectations.

>Dr. David L. White

	Sabine is probably from Mexican Spanish sabino "type of pine
tree/conifer" but possibly from French sapin "fir, spruce (or the like)"
--it's in the heart of the piney woods. Sabino also exists as a first name
among Mexicans, so it could be from that.
	Nueces is "nuts". If you walk down Nueces St. in Austin in the
Fall, you'll notice peopling gathering pecans from all the trees planted in
honor of the name
	Neches does not seem to be Spanish AFAIK--although in Tejano slang
it means "nothing, no way!" e.g. Tejano <<No truje neches.>> for standard
Spanish <<No traje absolutamente nada.>>

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


From acnasvers at hotmail.com  Wed Mar 28 12:20:01 2001
From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday)
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 12:20:01 -0000
Subject: Arzawa = Razawa?
Message-ID: <WED.28.MAR.2001.122001.0000.>

Eduard Selleslagh (22 Mar 2001) wrote:

>What I'm missing in this discussion (unless I overlooked it, in which case I
>apologize) is the possibility that the t-r-s-k sequence might actually be a
>t-r-s-sk sequence, with the well-known IE -sk- element for adjectives (Fales,
>Faliscus). The t-r-s-n sequence might contain an -n- found in ethnonyms
>etc.(Lat. -e/anus). If I'm right, we only have to consider t-r-s or t-r-r(h)
>which might actually be two variants (s>r or r>s) of the same thing.

I don't consider the matter settled, but what little evidence there is
points to infixed /k/, not /sk/. The Iguvian Tables contain the passage
(I.b:16-7; Etruscan letters) <enumek etur'stamu tuta tar'inate trifu
tar'inate turskum naharkum numem iapuzkum numem> 'then drive from (our)
borders the civitas Tadinas (i.e. the Tadinates, inhabitants of the Picene
city of Tadinae), the tribus Tadinas (i.e. the whole "tribe" living around
Tadinae), the (nomen) Tuscum (i.e. Etruscan nation), the nomen Narcum (i.e.
dwellers in the Nar valley, prob. Sabines), (and) the nomen Iabuscum (i.e.
Messapian nation)'. This is partially reprised (VI.b:58-9; Latin letters)
<totam tarsinatem trifo tarsinatem tuscom naharcom iabuscom nome>.

The older Umbrian passage contains three 2nd-decl. ethnic adjectives.
<Naharkum> contains a hydronym and -kum, that is infixed /k/ plus the
2nd-decl. neut. sg. acc. suffix. <Iapuzkum> has before -kum an assibilated
form of Iapud-, variant of Iapug-, used to denote Messapians (Strabo
VI.277). It is thus reasonable to divide Turs-kum, with Turs- the same
ethnic stem as is found in Gk. <Turse:noi>. Alternative divisions Turs-skum
and Tursk-kum can't be rigorously excluded, but IMHO are much less likely.

The younger passage suggests that Latin <Tuscus> was borrowed from Late
Umbrian, in which original /r/ has been absorbed before /s/, while the
presumed trilled fricative /r'/ resulting from assibilated /d/ has proceeded
into a new /rs/.

The older Umbrian text does not antedate 400 BCE. The golden fibula of
Clusium (ca. 600 BCE) has an Etruscan text which in Heurgon's recension is
<mi arathia velaves'nas' zamathi mamurke mulvenike tursikina> 'I am the
golden (object) of Arath Velavesna; Mamurke Tursikina dedicated (me)'. The
native suffix -na is the most common formant in Etruscan gentilicia. The
structure of Tursikina, however, strongly suggests modification of an
Umbrian gentilicium *Tursikis. A parallel Etr. gent. of Caere, Vestiricina
(ca. 550 BCE), is known to be derived from the Oscan gent. Vestirikis.
Clusium and the ager Clusinus had both Etruscan and Umbrian communities.
Mamurke Tursikina probably lived among the Umbrians (hence his Italic
praenomen) but had Etruscan ancestry, so his gentilicium meant 'Etruscan'.
If the infix /sk/ had been used in the presumed Umbrian form, it is highly
unlikely that Etruscan would split the cluster. Other Archaic Etruscan
gentilicia, such as the well-known Feluske, contain it.

I didn't make clear in earlier postings that <Trsk> refers to a separate
text, not a mere sequence of consonants. An amphora from Milan reads
<trskmetr LXXVI s>, obviously a metrologic inscription: the vessel holds 76
units of liquid measure. <Trskmetr> presumably stands for *Turskna metru
'Etruscan measure'; <metru> from Gk. <metron> is otherwise attested. <S>
probably abbreviates <sun>, a unit roughly equal to a pint. A smaller
amphora reads <sun X>. Probably the Etruscan and Ligurian standards of
measure were different. In the good old pre-metric days we had containers
marked "5 U.S. gallons" so that Canadians would know they weren't getting 5
full Imperial gallons.

The alternative favored by Buffa is that the <sun> 'pint' was fixed, and
<metr> stands for <metreta>, from Gk. <metre:te:s>, a large unit of liquid
measure. The Ligurian metreta had 80 pints, and Buffa figured the Etruscan
had only 76, with the inscription meaning 'Etruscan metreta, 76 pints'. I
can't fathom why anyone would define a large unit as 76 small units, and
specifying both units would be redundant. It seems more likely that this
vessel just turned out to contain 76 Etruscan pints.

I don't have a date for this amphora, but it probably postdates 400 BCE.
These examples don't necessarily tell us what the Etruscans called
themselves. Whether Turs- was originally a self-name or an other-name
remains an open question.

DGK


From dlwhite at texas.net  Mon Mar 26 15:34:28 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 09:34:28 -0600
Subject: "Guadalupe"
Message-ID: <MON.26.MAR.2001.093428.0600.>

        It appears, on further examination, that "Guadalupe" should be added
to my maybe list of Spanish river names in Texas.  Perhaps "Frio" and
"Medina" (go figure) can take its place.

Dr. David L. White


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sun Mar 25 22:03:19 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2001 16:03:19 -0600
Subject: Munda in Early NW India
Message-ID: <SUN.25.MAR.2001.160319.0600.>

> As a non-IEist, I have some difficulty evaluating statements of
> this sort about substratum languages.  Why would this be any
> stronger a proposal than the idea that Germanic developed its
> stress shift, two-term tense system and periphrastic tenses
> through contact with early Finnic speakers in the Baltic region?
> Both strike me as convenient but pretty much lacking in evidence.

> Herb Stahlke

        Lacking in _direct_ evidence, which it is virtually inconceivable
that we would have anyway.  But when related descendants are around, guesses
about what characteristics an earlier relative probably had are not so wild,
unless all IE-ists are wasting their time.
But I was not making a proposal.  I do not know enough about Munda to do
that.  I was suggesting a possibility.

Dr. David L. White


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Mon Mar 26 19:13:36 2001
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 14:13:36 EST
Subject: [linguist@linguistlist.org: 12.660, Qs: IE Substratum?]
Message-ID: <MON.26.MAR.2001.141336.EST.>

In a message dated 3/16/2001 8:35:23 PM, alderson+mail at panix.com writes:

[ Moderator's note:
  Actually, Dr. DeCaen wrote this; I simply forwarded it.
  --rma ]

<< i would be ever so grateful for direction on the **non**IE substratum of
ancient Greek, and especially Hittite. the only thing i've been able to
find is an old dissertation on nonIE in Greek. i'm looking for phonology,
and typological information.
Dr Vincent DeCaen     <decaen at chass.utoronto.ca> >>

This reply comes courtesy of Tom Palaima on Aegeanet.  Thought the list my be
interested also.

<<Start, very warily, with:
Colin Renfrew, "Word of Minos," Cambridge Archaeological Journal 8:2 (1998)
239-264.  (very full bibliography of worthwhile further readings;
provocative ideas; assessing material evidence and evidence of
reconstructed languages; please note in bibliography my first initial
should be T. not P.)

Then go immediately to:
D.A. Hester,  "Recent developments in Mediterranean <<Substrate>> Studies,"
Minos 9:2 (1968) 219-235.
         "'Pelasgian': A New Indo-European Language?"  Lingua 13 (1965)
335-384
         "Methods of Identifying Loan-Word Strata in Greek," Lingua 18
(1967) 168-178.

Then try M. Lejeune, "Linguistique Prehellenique," Revue des Etudes
Anciennes 49 (1947) 25-37.

That all should give you a good and sensible idea of the problems and enable
you to plunge into further readings with some real foundation.
TGP>>


From sarima at friesen.net  Sat Mar 24 14:32:28 2001
From: sarima at friesen.net (Stanley Friesen)
Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 06:32:28 -0800
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
In-Reply-To: <003c01c0b2eb$ea36ea20$fbf1fea9@Ryan>
Message-ID: <SAT.24.MAR.2001.063228.0800.>

At 10:19 AM 3/22/01 -0600, proto-language wrote:

>I do not doubt that what you have described is natural for you and for
>speakers of many languages in which contiguous vowels are present.

>However, IE as it is normally reconstruted, did not have contiguous vowels so
>the real process you describe seems to me to be irrelevant.

That is not strictly so.  Look at one form of the genitive of u-stems:
*-uos.  Since the /u/ is clearly a vowel in the other case forms, this
almost certainly was a vowel-vowel contact in the pre-proto stage at least.

>Furthermore, whether /i/ and /u/ derive from earlier /y/ and /w/ in avocalic
>environments or not; and, if not for some instances at least, have separate
>phonemic status in earliest IE (which is what Rich is suggesting), no one
>to my knowledge has ever challenged the phonemic status of /y/ and /w/.

I suppose I would not either, though I see few independent occurrences of
these sounds - where they do not seem derived from older vocalic /u/ and
/i/.  I can think of *yeug.  (Still that one alone is probably enough to
establish at least /y/ as a phoneme rather than an allophone of /i/).

>I have no axe to grind by denying IE /i/ and /u/. It is just that, where I can
>find AA cognates for IE roots, a medial or final /i/ or /u/ in IE shows up as
>a consonantal /y/ or /w/ in AA. I have to conclude that all IE /i/ and /u/
>derive from avocalic /y/ and /w/.

Does proto-AA as currently reconstructed have vocalic /i/ and /u/?  If not,
I would suspect that the same error has been made here as in traditional
PIE reconstructions.  Given the 'triliteral root' tradition in the Semitic
languages, I would think there would be a considerable bias in this direction.

>Finally, if /i/ and /u/ had separate phonemic status in earliest IE, one might
>expect them to be part of the Ablaut process; e.g. raising /e/ to /i/ for some
>grammatical nuance. Or, if /i/ and /u/ are phonemic vowels, what would be the
>zero-grade form of a Ci/u(C) syllable?

The same as the zero grade of a CeC syllable - CC.

>Must we say that /i/ and /u/ are entirely outside the system?

No, but e/o ablaut is rather odd and special, so there is no reason to
suppose it would have applied to /i/ and /u/.  And other than that the
earliest layer really only shows full and zero grade.

--------------
May the peace of God be with you.         sarima at friesen.net


From dlwhite at texas.net  Sun Mar 25 22:35:39 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Sun, 25 Mar 2001 16:35:39 -0600
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
Message-ID: <SUN.25.MAR.2001.163539.0600.>

> On 17 Mar 2001, David L. White wrote (quoting my previous message):

>>> The analysis of the obstruents as occurring in three series, to wit, plain,
>>> palatalized, and labialized, is unremarkable.

>> What is another example?

> There are several NW Caucasian languages for which this is the parsimonious
> analysis of the obstruent system; besides Kabardian/Adyghe/Circassian, I know
> of Abaza/Abkhaz and Ubykh.

        I will have to investigate.  Abstract parsimony can sometimes lead
to less than real "solutions".

>>> Presumably, your confusion stems from my comments on Kuipers' re-analysis
>>> of "plain":

>> Practically speaking, "plain" would have to be "[a]-colored", to stay out of
>> the way of consonants that were [i]-colored or [u]-colored.  Otherwise, with
>> normal coarticulation, "plain" velars (to take the most obvious case) would
>> develop de facto [i]-coloring near /i/.  Of course, this would not apply to
>> a language without /i/, but Old Irish does have /i/.

> The examples have all been drawn from languages which lack /i/ and /u/, to
> support an analysis of PIE as lacking /i/ and /u/.  However, the re-analysis
> of plain (that is, non-palatalized and non-labialized) obstruents as being
> somehow [a]-colored, in order to allow an analysis of the vowel system as
> lacking any full-specified vowel at all, quite simply violates phonological
> universals.

        It's the "in order to" part that is the problem.  I agree that
analyzing a language as having no vowels (in part by leaping from "one
vowel" to "no vowel") is seriously problematic.

> (This objection leaves aside the simple fact that the analysis missed the
> contrast between /a/ and /I-/, so that reducing the "one-vowel" system in
> this way was already wrong.)

> I was unaware that we were discussing Old Irish--the Subject: header
> refers to three-way contrasts in PIE.

        Whether Old Irish had a three-way contrast is an issue.  Some say it
did not, and I have always wondered whether they were right.
My point is that to speak of "plain" consonants existing in such a system is
in a sense non-sensical, because "plain" in effect means "as in a language
without secondary articulations", which in turn means "as in a language with
ordinary co-articulation", but a language with secondary articulations could
not possibly have ordinary coarticulations, since overriding ordinary
coarticlation for phonemic effect is what languages with secondary
articulations do.
Such languages can, for example, produce back velars before front vowels,
and front velars before back vowels.  The very term "plain", as applied to
velars, woud in effect mean "tending to be backed before back vowels and
fronted before front vowels".  In a language with secondary articulations,
this really could not happen.  So where one velar series was "[i]-colored",
and another was "[u]- colored", a third would almost have to be something
like "[yeri]-colored" or "[y]-colored" (IPA value) or (in terms of F2)
"[a]-colored",  in order to stay out of the way of the other two.  But such
colorations are not, to my knowledge, known.  So I think regardless of other
errors, Kuiper's instinct that a 3rd quality would have to be "[a]-colored"
rather than "plain" was fundamentally correct.   I hope all that makes
sense.

>> If part of the claim is that [a]-coloring does not exist, I agree, but
>> assert that it would have to for the sound-system commonly posited for Old
>> Irish to be viable.

> I'm afraid that my Old Irish background is so weak as to be non-existent,
> so I cannot evaluate this claim.  How do you come to this conclusion?

        As above.  What is "plain" /k/ in a sequence /ki/ supposed to have
been that would be different from palatalized /k/ in the same sequence?
Likewise what is "plain" /k/ supposed to have been in the sequence /ku/ that
would be different from labio-velarized /k/ in the same sequence? I suppose
we could say that the palatalized and labio-velarized versions would come
out more like [kyi] and [kwu] respectively, but according to my
understanding secondary articulations are not ordinarily so strong, and to
regard them as equivalent to following [y] or [w], though it may be a
convenient first approximation for learners, is a mistake.  I suppose it's
possible though, and if I have to "stand corrected" I will, not for the
first (or last) time.  But I am distressed at how casually "plain"
consonants are posited for such a system.  The phonetics would not be that
un-problematic.

Dr. David L. White


From jrader at Merriam-Webster.com  Mon Mar 26 17:59:10 2001
From: jrader at Merriam-Webster.com (Jim Rader)
Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2001 12:59:10 -0500
Subject: "neirt" versus "nert"
In-Reply-To: <002d01c0aeeb$79d4a320$712363d1@texas.net>
Message-ID: <MON.26.MAR.2001.125910.0500.>

[ moderator edited ]

>> Wouldn't <nert> and <neirt> both be palatalized?

>         No.  /e/ is traditionally held to have palatalized preceding
> consonants, leaving following consonanats as they were.  Confusion of
> spelling between the two types ("nert" for "neirt"), which occasionally
> occurs (if I am remembering correctly), probably indicates the difficulty of
> pronouncing palatalized /r/, which is mostly (or entirely?) gone from modern
> Irish.

> Dr. David L. White

What??

All dialects of Modern Irish and Scottish Gaelic preserve a
distinction between palatalized and unpalatalized <r>
(conventionally /r/ and /r'/) in all but initial position.  The modern
genitive of <neart>, "strength," is <neairt>, with both [r] and [t]
palatalized.  Certainly in Connemara Irish, with which I am most
familiar aurally, the difference between <pa/ipe/ar>, "(news)paper"
(nom. sg.), and <pa/ipe/ir>, "paper" (gen. sg. and nom. pl.) ["/"
represents the acute accent marking vowel length] is quite clearly
audible.  The /r/ is a flap with some retroflexion, while /r'/ is a
strongly palatalized fricative made by brief contact between the
tongue tip and the alveolar ridge, which tends to devoice finally and
before voiceless consonants (as is <neairt>).  For detailed phonetic
observations see the various volumes on Irish dialects, all bound in
blue, published by the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies since
the `40's and many times reprinted.  As mentioned, initial [r']
unprotected by a consonant was lost in all dialects (I believe),
though the spelling does not usually indicate this, and very
sporadically with a consonant, i.e., Old Irish <cride>, "heart,"
Modern Irish <croidhe> [traditional spelling], a change old enough
to show up in the very conservative Irish orthographical system.

What has been lost on a more widespread basis was the contrast
between unlenited /R/ and /R'/ vs. lenited /r/ and /r'/.  All
descendants of Old Irish have to some degree collapsed and/or lost
the four historical distinctions among the resonants <r>, <l>, and
<n>, with Munster dialects having the most loss and Scottish
Gaelic dialects the most preservation.  In Scottish Gaelic /R/ and
/R'/ have fallen together as /R/, typically, I believe, an alveolar trill
with the vocal tract configured to give it a peculiar dark sound
(how's that for precise description?), while /r/ is an alveolar flap.
That leaves /r'/, which has very diverse outcomes in Scottish
Gaelic dialects.  In the Hebridean Scottish Gaelic that I've heard, it
actually sounds like an interdental fricative.

"Difficult to pronounce" for non-native speakers, maybe....

Jim Rader


From jrader at Merriam-Webster.com  Wed Mar 28 14:57:57 2001
From: jrader at Merriam-Webster.com (Jim Rader)
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2001 09:57:57 -0500
Subject: "neirt" vs. "nert"
Message-ID: <WED.28.MAR.2001.095757.0500.>

A correction to my post of March 26 on Irish and Scottish Gaelic
palatalized <r>:  I gave the genitive singular of Modern Irish <neart>
as <neairt>.  This form is given in Mi/chea/l O/ Siadhail's textbook
_Learning Irish_, and presumably is valid for the Irish of Cois
Fhairrge in County Galway on which O/ Siadhail's book is based.
But the "standard" Irish genitive of <neart> is <nirt>; this is the
form given in O/ Do/naill's government-sponsored dictionary
_Foclo/ir Gaeilge-Be/arla_.

Jim Rader


From sarima at friesen.net  Sat Mar 24 14:19:12 2001
From: sarima at friesen.net (Stanley Friesen)
Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 06:19:12 -0800
Subject: Lactose Intolerance
In-Reply-To: <20010321.213305.-451481.0.PhilJennings@juno.com>
Message-ID: <SAT.24.MAR.2001.061912.0800.>

At 09:33 PM 3/21/01 -0600, philjennings at juno.com wrote:
>A companion to this hypothesis is that the Anatolians brought with them not
>just fermented milk products, but the whole idea of fermentation/leavening,
>almost immediately applied to beer and later to bread.  Is there evidence for
>beer in Sumer or Egypt prior to the mid-3rd millennium bce?  (Linguistic or
>otherwise?)  I'm given to understand that there is, and that this companion
>hypothesis fails.

Absolutely.  Beer is a staple food as far back as there is writing in both
Mesopotamia and Egypt.  In fact beer is one of the main foods of the poorer
classes - it was often used as payment for laborers prior to the invention
of money.  (This results in it, or its precursors such as malted grain,
being common in inventory lists).

--------------
May the peace of God be with you.         sarima at friesen.net


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Sat Mar 24 15:49:19 2001
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language)
Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2001 09:49:19 -0600
Subject: Lactose Intolerance
Message-ID: <SAT.24.MAR.2001.094919.0600.>

Dear Phil and IEists:

 ----- Original Message -----
From: <philjennings at juno.com>
Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2001 9:33 PM

> I am a fiction writer.  People wonder where I get my plots, and volunteer
> plot devices of their own, as if this were the trickiest part of writing, not
> the easiest.  Likewise, I suspect that for linguists and archeologists,
> making hypotheses is the easiest part of their work.  They don't need
> amateurs coming up with speculations we don't know how to develop.

<snip>

> A companion to this hypothesis is that the Anatolians brought with them not
> just fermented milk products, but the whole idea of fermentation/leavening,
> almost immediately applied to beer and later to bread.  Is there evidence for
> beer in Sumer or Egypt prior to the mid-3rd millennium bce?  (Linguistic or
> otherwise?)  I'm given to understand that there is, and that this companion
> hypothesis fails.

<snip>

[PR]

For what it may be worth in this context, I am convinced that the Egyptian word
for 'beer', Hnq.t, came to life as a cognate of IE *k{e}n6k?-, and designated
'mead' originally.

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit ec
at ec hecc, vindg? mei?i a netr allar n?o, geiri vnda?r . . . a ?eim
mei?i, er mangi veit, hvers hann af r?tom renn." (H?vam?l 138)


From X99Lynx at aol.com  Tue Mar 27 05:05:05 2001
From: X99Lynx at aol.com (X99Lynx at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 00:05:05 EST
Subject: Lactose Intolerance
Message-ID: <TUE.27.MAR.2001.000505.EST.>

In a message dated 3/24/2001 6:26:51 AM, philjennings at juno.com writes:
<< If this speculation about dairy products is true, we would find no wordsor
symbols for "cheese," "yoghurt," or other such products in the texts we have
from before Khirbet Kerak, in any of the non-IE languages of the fertile
crescent (Sumerian only?).  Equally, if these products are an Indo-Anatolian
innovation, we might expect a diaspora of related terms for cheese, yoghurt,
etc. in a number of daughter languages. >>

I think you only need to do a search on the web listing "cheese" and
"Sumerian" to find a good deal that contradicts this.  One of the most
interesting stated "Remnants of a material identified as cheese have been
found in a Sumerian tomb dating to 3000 BC." Wonder if anyone was tempted to
take a bite. There are a slew of Sumerian Glossaries that list a cheese word.

There's another problem.  And that is it isn't clear that bovines were the
first or primary source of cheese in many cases.  I have citation if you like
from I think a Swedish Journal where evidence is reported of goat-milking in
the Sudan circa 7000BC.  And it appears that domesticated goats preceed cows
practically everywhere.  Also, there have been studies that indicate a
genetic casein pattern of domestic goats across southern Europe that favors
cheese-making quality and a reduction in lactose (e.g., A. Kouvatsi's work on
Greek goats) that is apparently not found in dairy cattle, perhaps suggesting
that goat's cheese was breed early on to be more digestible than cow cheese.
It should be remembered too that cattle - oxen - were domesticated to some
degree as work animals.  I don't know what the distribution of bones are in
NE Anatolia or the plateau, but my bet would be a lot more caprine than
bovine.  If I'm not mistaken, bovine bones are relatively rare at the early
levels at Troy.  But I think red deer and goat was rather plentiful.

(Interestingly, Homer's and the usual word for cheese in Greek, <turos>,
might suggest a whole new angle for the etymology of Troy or a confusion in
urban-dwelling Greeks about which gender of cattle cheese came from - just
kidding.)

Isn't there something not-right about Anatolian cowboys out on a beef cattle
drive developing a smaller cow so that they could become dairy farmers and
finally begin eating cheese.  It makes sense that larger herds - the kind
indicated quite early in the Levant  - were not kept for beef.

Cheese, like so many other early forms of processing, allows for both
preservation and digestion.  I don't know the history of chordizo sausage
technology, but I would think that cheese would always have the advantage of
being less perishable than meat and more likely to be valuable in trade or
just to store.  Hunting would seem to be a more efficient way to put meat on
the table until better preservative methods come along.  In Europe,
mesolithic types seem to eat more animal protein than bronze and iron age
types.

<<A companion to this hypothesis is that the Anatolians brought with them not
just fermented milk products, but the whole idea of fermentation/leavening,
almost immediately applied to beer and later to bread.  Is there evidence for
beer in Sumer or Egypt prior to the mid-3rd millennium bce?  (Linguistic or
otherwise?)  I'm given to understand that there is, and that this companion
hypothesis fails.>>

See Andrew Sheratt's (the author of the "secondary-products revolution"
construct very relevant to your subject) change of opinion regarding the LBK
vats (c. 4500BC).  He once thought they were holding milk, but now he thinks
they were for holding malt.  Remember that beer is also a way to perserve
grain and a good way to make questionable water drinkable.  Among other
things.

<<My more limited "fermented milk" hypothesis has a sequel; that the later
development of horse-and-cow nomadism by the precursors of the Indo-Aryans
north of the Black Sea will have resulted in a population of completely
lactose-tolerant people, able to expand at the expense of less
protein-nourished lactose-intolerant agriculturalists...>>

I should point out that communities that develop ways around lactose
intolerance, like cheese, don't really need to develop lactose tolerance.
The amount of dairy consumed by the French per capita is much larger than the
amount consumed by Swedes, despite a rather higher rate of intolerance.  It
is of course consumed in the form of cheese.

And that European agriculturalists introduced cows and had cows very early
on, in many cases plenty more cows than are found on the steppes.
Domesticated cattle are among the first signs of the coming of
neolithization.  I see here a report that milk curdling vessels dating from
5,000 B.C. have been found on the shore of Lake Neufch?tel in Switzerland.
If anyone had cow cheese, it was the agriculturalists.

And if we go by ordinary statistical epicenters as origin points based on
today's distribution of lactose tolerance, your precursors of Indo-Aryans
started in Sweden and Finland and spread to some lesser extant to Spain and
to an even lesser extent to Hungary and the Ukraine, having however
established isolated strongholds in Saudi Arabia and among the Tussi in Afri
ca.  Actually, they sound like they might be vikings to me.

<<Linguistically, "milk" the glandular secretion that nurtures new-borns, and
"milk" the protein-rich adult drink, may never have been distinguished by
separate terms.>>

I have this note from a Thai scholar:
"The word for breast and milk in many Southeast Asian languages are often
related etymologically. For example, in Thai nom(32) is breast, and
nam(45)nom(32) 'water breast' is milk...  In Rgyalthang, another variety of
Khams Tibetan spoken in Yunnan (PRC), the word for milk is nei (231), which
obviously came from nei(231)po(51) 'breast'.

However, Rgyalthang also distinguishes between nei(231) 'breast milk' and
wui(231) 'cow milk'...."

Regards,
Steve Long


From bamba at centras.lt  Wed Mar 28 23:30:57 2001
From: bamba at centras.lt (Jurgis)
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 01:30:57 +0200
Subject: Morphological remodelling
Message-ID: <THU.29.MAR.2001.013057.0200.>

> Can anyone on the list think of examples of morphological remodelling
> within a verbal paradigm based on a single ending? The only secure example

There're cases in Lithuanian dialects when fragments of former athematic
endings have been reinterpreted as parts of the present stem.

In the case of Lithuanian verb miegoti "to sleep", there two remodellings of
this kind attested.

1) -m- was introduced from 1st sg. miegmu ("I'm sleeping") after it had been
remodelled from 1st sg. miegmi (cf. dirbu "I'm working"):
1 sg. miegmu
2 sg. miegmi
1 pl.  miegmam
2 pl. miegmat
3 sg./pl. miegma

2) -t- was introduced from 3rd sg./pl. athematic form miegti ("sleeps"). The
paradigm itself got i-stem endings probably because 3rd sg./pl. athematic
miegti reminds of an i-stem form (cf. 3rd sg./pl. tiki "believes"):
1 sg. miegciu (c = ch; miegciu < *miegtju, cf. tikiu "i believe")
2 sg. miegti (stress on the 2nd syllable, cf. tiki "you believe")
1 pl. miegtim (cf. tikim(e) "we believe")
2 pl. miegtit (cf. tikit(e) "you believe")
3 sg./pl. miegti

Source of the forms: Z. Zinkevicius, Lietuviu dialektologija, Vilnius:
Mintis, 1966, p. 349.

Larry Trask mentions:

>Watkins draws attention to such remodelings in Celtic, Polish and Persian,
>at least, all based upon the third-singular forms.  The observation that
>such remodelings are typically based upon third-singular forms has been
>dubbed 'Watkins's Law'.

Could anyone provide data / reference on how typical / frequent remodelling
based on 1st sg. is?

Regards,
Jurgis Pakerys
Vilnius University


From gordonbr at microsoft.com  Thu Mar 29 17:13:39 2001
From: gordonbr at microsoft.com (Gordon Brown)
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 09:13:39 -0800
Subject: Peter (WAS: Italian as a "Pure" Language)
Message-ID: <THU.29.MAR.2001.091339.0800.>

DGK's posting reminds me of a question I've had for quite a while.  In
an article about Bede (Baeda), I saw a bibliographic reference that
implied that the name Baeda might be somehow related to the name Peter.
Is this possible?  In any case, does Baeda equate to any modern name?

> ----------
> From: 	Douglas G Kilday[SMTP:acnasvers at hotmail.com]
> Sent: 	Sunday, March 25, 2001 8:59 PM

> "Peter" is not Aramaic. It represents Greek <Petros>, lit. 'piece of
> rock', given by John (1:42) as the translation of <Ke:pha:s>, the
> nickname bestowed upon Simon by Jesus. This Aramaic name is cognate
> with Hebrew <ke:f> 'rock, crag, cliff' found only in the plural
> <ke:fiym> (Jer. 4:29). This in turn is referred to an obsolete radical
> *k-w-p 'to be high, crag-like' by Davies-Mitchell, which looks
> dubious. I am more inclined to regard <ke:f> as coming from pre-West
> Semitic substrate.


From hwhatting at hotmail.com  Thu Mar 29 09:15:09 2001
From: hwhatting at hotmail.com (Hans-Werner Hatting)
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 11:15:09 +0200
Subject: Scandinavian Origins of the Goths
Message-ID: <THU.29.MAR.2001.111509.0200.>

Steve Long wrote:
>But in fact that's what exactly they did.  They apparently stuck with the
>Goths = Getae - equation as far back as it could go (Homer).  That of
>course
>still would not have answered the question as to where the Getae came from.
>The Gothic genealogy in fact includes Getic kings, including some we have
>never heard of.  For all we know, the Getae may also have claimed
>Scandinavian origins.  But there's no dualism in Jordanes' story.  That's a
>modern perception.  In Jordanes, the Goths are the Getae and they come from
>Scandinavia.

Well, if one wants to make sense of this, and the other facts you mention,
it seems that the Goths, after their time in the Ukraine, came to the
Balkans, and either got mixed up with the Getae, or actually incorporated
their remains. When Jordanes wrote his history, he used written texts - as
it was obligatory for historians of his time - and he probably found a lot
more available on the Getae (as ancient neighbours of the Greeks) than on
the Goths, who were newcomers. The coming of the Goths to that area gets
moved back in time, to provide the kings with a long pedigree. But the fact
that Jordanes had to incorporate the Scandinavian origin shows that this was
a tradition which was too strong to be ignored.

>There isn't much folk knowledge in Jordanes. He rejects "old wives tales"
>and doesn't mention Gothic leadership remembering anything.

If he got an information not from ancient authors, but from informers, it
was perhaps the best thing not to mention that.

I think it would be an interestin endeavour to disentangle what of Jordanes
writing is actually pertaining to the Goths, and what to the Getae.

Best regards,

Hans-Werner Hatting


From dlwhite at texas.net  Thu Mar 29 18:58:18 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 12:58:18 -0600
Subject: Gothic "au"
Message-ID: <THU.29.MAR.2001.125818.0600.>

> On Thu, 22 Mar 2001 12:47:45 EST Steve Long wrote:

>> This appears to miss the point.  There are loads of words in Wright's
>> where Gothic words contain an <o>.  The point is that practically every
>> time indicated where Gothic borrowed a word with a Greek <o> it is
>> transliterated as <au> (or rarely <u>).  This does not appear to be
>> random or occasional.

>> If I remember correctly, the rare exceptions are where the vowel begins
>> the word or is from the Hebrew.  The significance might be at minimum that
>> what could mistakenly be attributed to a Germanic ablaut would appear to
>> be actually the orthographic changes that happened in borrowing.

> Good idea!

[respondent snip, to put it mildly]

        I am not too sure this is such a good idea.  The Greek/Hebrew names
in Wright show that the basic rule is what I said it was (what a
coincidence!):  long /oo/ comes across as "o", short /o/  as "au".
        Anyway, I have a prospective article on the subject of Gothic "au"
and "ai", which would be much too long to post.  (And which is much too
unscholarly as is to be publishable.  Feel free to offer assistance, anyone.
I could use it.)  The conclusion is that "au" (mostly) represents (Gothic)
short /o/, and that "o" represents long /oo/.  (Likewise for "ai" and "e".)
The one exception is that "au" before vowels, as in "stauida" (if I am
remembering correctly:  if this does not exist, parallel words do)
represents long /oo/, in part because "oi" in such cases would have wrongly
seemed to represent a monosyllabic diphthong.  (From the Greek point of
view.   But then spelling what was apparently /ng/ as "gg" suggests that a
Greek point of view was there.).  For similar reasons "ei" would not have
been a good idea.  I also suggest that the "aw" of things like "tawida"
represents short /o/, because "au" would have meant long /oo/.  If this is
true, then one of the major alternations Gothic is supposed to have had,
/oo/ vs. /au/, and /o/ vs. /aw/, is only a spelling rule, and the vowel in
such forms did not vary.  I suppose I can dredge up the Damned Thing and
send to anyone who may be interested.
        For propriety's sake, it should be noted that some "au" (cases
before vowels) is actually from long /oo/.

Dr. David L. White


From dlwhite at texas.net  Thu Mar 29 19:30:43 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 13:30:43 -0600
Subject: Getae as Goths
Message-ID: <THU.29.MAR.2001.133043.0600.>

        Here is a somewhat wild, and probably worthless (or at least wrong)
possibility:  could the name of the Getae be from umlaut of /got-thiuda/ or
something of the sort?  Probably not:  all Germanic umlaut is supposed to be
a lot more recent than that, and the original Getae were pretty clearly
Iranians, according to what I just read in "The Oxford Illustrated
Prehistroy of Europe".  But perhaps the process of umlaut cannot in fact be
so finely dated.  It has been suggested with considerable plausibility that
Saxon had umlaut that it did not mark in writing, and there must have been a
pre-phonemic stage, where fronted former back-round vowels existed as (for
lack of a better word) allophones, and thus would have been thought of by
Goths as /o/, etc.  Nonetheless, if sufficiently fronted, they might have
been heard as more like /e/ than /o/, though I suppose for Greek "/y/" would
have to be our best guess about how such a thing would have been heard.  But
there could have been an intermediary language or two.
        By the way, how did the umlaut in "Goeteborg" (or is that "-burg")
and "-goetland" get there?  Does it suggest an earlier form (at least in the
north) with following /i/?
        As for getting rid of ablaut variation in our explanations, that
would also involve getting rid of the Geats, which I would suggest is not
advisable.  If we have to use abluat to explain the Geats (as something
other than an extraordinary coincidence) we might as well use it generally.

Dr. David L. White


From sarima at friesen.net  Thu Mar 29 15:09:36 2001
From: sarima at friesen.net (Stanley Friesen)
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 07:09:36 -0800
Subject: Etruscans
In-Reply-To: <F129ZCHusMjQHtMFauk0000ac77@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <THU.29.MAR.2001.070936.0800.>

At 10:26 AM 3/25/01 +0000, Douglas G Kilday wrote:

>Your proposal was /trosy-/ > /trohy-/ > /trooy-/ with later loss of /y/ when
>not re-analyzable as suffixal. The first form, being foreign, evaded your
>postulated metathesis, so no /troys-/. Now if memory serves, Archaic
>Corinthian preserves <hw> (i.e. heth + waw) for earlier */sw/, so I'm not
>about to disagree with your general treatment of lengthening. I just don't
>like the necessity of invoking foreignness in order to evade one
>sound-change, then insisting on "naturalization" in order to obey subsequent
>changes.

Why, as far as I can see this happens all the time.  A borrowed word ceases
to be perceived as foreign after a few generations, after which time it is
subject to any *subsequent* (or even concurrent) sound changes in the
borrowing language.  Consider for instance ME 'chief', borrowed from
Medieval Norman French and then subjected to the Great Vowel Shift just
like a native English word.

--------------
May the peace of God be with you.         sarima at friesen.net


From dlwhite at texas.net  Thu Mar 29 17:52:30 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 11:52:30 -0600
Subject: Etruscans
Message-ID: <THU.29.MAR.2001.115230.0600.>

> In your earlier posting, you must have intended "Apennine" instead of
> "Pennine".

        Yes, sadly.

>  I don't know whether the modern aspiration goes all the way back
> to Pelasgian substrate (to whose influence I have tentatively ascribed
> <Thouskoi>), but I doubt it. I am inclined to regard the modern aspiration
> as a post-ancient result of heavy recessive stress-accent in these dialects,
> itself the legacy of Etruscan substrate or adstrate.

        Maybe, but if it occurs in the same area, then it could well be a
constant, so to speak.

>> But I could have sworn I saw "Thoursk-" cited (as Umbrian) at one
>> point.  What is this?

> It's nothing _I_ cited; the Umbrian example is <Turskum numem> 'the Etruscan
> nation' = Lat. <Tuscum nomen>. I won't point fingers, but _someone_ appears
> to have conflated Umbr. Tursk- with Late Gk. Thousk-.

        Well, if you won't point fingers (or will you?) I will:  must have
been me.

>> I would say _originally_ a small elite.  People can easily shift
>> their ethnic identity.  The genetic evidence shows that this clearly
>> happened in Turkey, where people who now think of themselves as Turks had
>> ancestors who thought of themseves as Greeks (who in turn probably had
>> ancestors who thought of themselves as Phrygians, etc... )  I note that
>> class divisions in Etruscan society seem to have been unusually rigid,
>> with no true middle class.  This might be because class divisions went back
>> to earlier ethnic divisions re-analyzed, there being great efforts to keep
>> the conquered in their place by erecting uncrossable class barriers.
>> Otherwise the failure of Etruscan society to develop a middle class
>> comparable to what existed among the Greeks and Romans is somewhat strange.

> Onomastic evidence indicates that class-barriers could be overcome.  "Lethe"
> was a name sometimes bestowed on freedmen, and there are examples (such as
> the famous Larth Felsnas of Tarquinii) showing that sons of "Lethe" were
> considered free citizens with their own "nomina gentilicia". Furthermore,
> the very common occurrence of Etruscanized Italic gentilicia and cognomina,
> ranging from Early Archaic (7th cent.) up to Late Etruscan (1st cent.) shows
> that ethnic background was no bar to acquiring wealth and status.

> There had to be a considerable middle class in Etruria. You can't expect
> slaves or serfs to function as the artisans, merchants, and clerks required
> by this type of society.

        It is fairly normal for slaves to be artisans, and clerks.

>To our knowledge, the Etruscan middle class never
> acquired the political clout of its counterparts in Athens or Rome, but that
> is not strange. It takes centuries of experimentation with riots,
> assassinations, banishment of plutocrats, plebeian secessions, and the like
> for any middle class to achieve significant political power, and to forge
> the uneasy power-sharing arrangement with the upper class that some of us
> take for granted. As you know, once Rome became powerful, its leaders did
> whatever they could to maintain the upper-class political monopoly in the
> Etruscan city-states, squelching whatever experimentation was taking place.

        I think there was a difference (in development of a middle class),
and that the explanation I have suggested works.

> Now if memory serves, Archaic
> Corinthian preserves <hw> (i.e. heth + waw) for earlier */sw/, so I'm not
> about to disagree with your general treatment of lengthening. I just don't
> like the necessity of invoking foreignness in order to evade one
> sound-change, then insisting on "naturalization" in order to obey subsequent
> changes.

        Well, the word can hardly have been part of the IE inheritance, so
"invoking foreignness" would seem to be not much of an issue.  The question
then becomes what would happen to a somewhat anomalous (or even unique) /sy/
as /sw/ was lost.  If the development was parallel, then compensatory
lengthening would occur.

> Different-sounding _quality_ wouldn't surprise me. Different-sounding
> _quantity_ would surprise me a lot. We're talking about languages in which
> long and short vowels were distinct.

        Yes, but long vowels are often no more than 50% longer than
corresponding shorts, and in languages that do not have any such
distinction, vowels that are short (in the sense of being mono-moraic, as
far as we can tell) can be long enough to qualify as long by the standards
of some languages.  (I am thinking of English /ae/.)
        At some point when the older generation of Latin speakers was
speaking a language where, in their minds, short and long vowels were
distinct, the younger generation coming up managed (in much of the Empire)
to hear long mids and short highs as the same, indicating that they must
have sounded much the same.  (I recently came across the same phenomenon in
Gothic, though I forget the example.  I suppose I can dig it up if
challenged.)  If the same sort of thing was characteristic at one point
(which as I have repeatedly noted must have been before the development of
the new longs written "ou" and "ei"), then there could have been some
disagreement about what a foreign sound qualified as:  long /o/ or short
/u/.  A sound intermediate between /o/ and /u/, which Etruscan is likely to
have had, would be especially likely to provoke that sort of difference of
opinion.
        To place this all back in its original rhetorical context, the
original allegation, which I am attempting to refute, was more or less "in
Greek the vowel was originally long, so it cannot be from an (Anatolian)
Etruscan simple, i.e. short, vowel."  The two possibilities I have suggested
are meant to show two (entirely independent) ways that it could have been
from Etruscan.  Either the lengthening could have been a later development
from the elimination of /sy/ in parallel with /sw/, or Etruscan /o-u/ could
have fallen within the range of Greek long /o/ for some speakers at some
time.

Dr. David L. White


From acnasvers at hotmail.com  Fri Mar 30 10:54:54 2001
From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday)
Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 10:54:54 -0000
Subject: Etruscans
Message-ID: <FRI.30.MAR.2001.105454.0000.>

David L. White (22 Mar 2001) wrote:

>It is fairly common for "language death" or "shift", which is after
>all what we are talking about here, to occur over two generations:  first
>generation monolingual in substrate, second generation bilingual, and third
>generation monolingual in superstrate.  (Yes, three minus one is two.)  On
>the other hand the death of Greek in Anatolia took nearly a thousand years,
>which clearly implies stable bilingualism, a situation well-known from
>various parts of the world.  There are no valid generalizations, but
>abandonment of a language, once it becomes seen as "the thing to do", can
>be quite rapid.

Agreed. But we do have one thing to go on here, in contemplating the
presumed replacement of pre-Etruscan, and that is the replacement of
Etruscan itself by Latin in Etruria. If we reckon from the Roman conquest of
Veii to the latest inscriptions at Volaterrae (ca. 50 CE) it took about 450
years for this to happen. As Grant has pointed out, Etruria is not a
"refuge" for residual peoples. Its fertility has certainly supported a
substantial population since the Neolithic arrived, several millennia before
history. If Etruscans came from someplace else and Etruscanized the natives,
one would expect several centuries to be required, and that is assuming a
continuous influx of Etruscans analogous to the influx of Latin-speakers
during Latinization. A few shiploads of refugees from Troy or its allies,
arriving over a decade or two, simply don't cut the mustard in this picture,
no matter how dazzling their High Culture might have been. As for mysterious
North Aegeans, where exactly was their homeland? The island of Chryse, east
of Lemnos, which sank into the sea according to Pausanias (VIII.33.4)?
(Migrationist doctrine, rigorously pursued, eventually leads us either
_down_ to Atlantis and similar sunken lands or _up_ to von Daeniken's
ancient astronauts.)

>For funerary inscriptions to be
>in a suitably "lofty" language that the unfortunate deceased would not have
>understood is hardly unknown.  ("Hic iacet")

Most Etruscan funerary inscriptions (alas!) consist only of names, but the
language is clearly Etruscan, with genitives of parents and possessives of
spouses commonly found. Lower-class "monuments" in some cases are crudely
marked ceramic tiles. The language is still Etruscan. Tiles and other
markers are there to identify the deceased to the living, and there is no
reason whatsoever to convert the deceased's actual name into a form
unrecognized by the living.

>And of these the Latins (at least) in time linguistically converted
>the original populations of their hinterlands, unless we are all now
>supposed to believe that the original population of Etruria (not to mention
>the rest of the Roman Empire) was exterminated by Roman colonists cruelly
>scattering their seed corn to the winds (which surely would have come as a
>nasty shock to the hopeful Etruscan aristocrats; but it is a Fantasy
>Scenario anyway.)

No, the violent scenario would have obliterated the names as well as the
people, and some of the names are still around. The family Ceicna of
Velathri became the family Caecina of Volaterrae, and is now the family
Cecina of Volterra. It's too bad the language itself wasn't as resilient as
some of the aristocrats were.

Speaking of hinterlands, I've seen speculation that Etruscan might have
persisted as a spoken language around Mt. Amiata (the most "remote" part of
Etruria) for several centuries after its extinction in the cities. But since
hillbillies seldom concern themselves with permanent written records, we'll
probably never know.

>Hydronyms are more reliable than other "nyms", but even hydronyms
>can point in the wrong direction.  For example, most of the river names of
>Texas, for example Trinity, Brazos, Colorado, Pedernales, Llano, San Marcos,
>Blanco, Guadalupe, and San Antonio (not sure about Sabine, Neches, and
>Nueces), are Spanish.  What does this tell us, that the original inhabitants
>of Texas were Spanish speaking, as opposed to the rest of North America,
>where Amerindian names are more usual?  Not really.  The Spanish were just
>more willing to give new (often religious) names to rivers.  It's up to the
>people in charge, and they can do as they please, regardless of our
>retrospective need for solid principles and firm expectations.

I concede this point. Retention of toponyms is a complex matter. I can't
pretend to have a handle on any of the factors at work in prehistoric
Etruria.

I note in passing that casual surveys may undercount the old toponyms due to
popular assimilation or "folk etymology". If "Nueces" isn't shortened from
"Rio de las Nueces", might it represent a modified substratal name? Or was
an early explorer so tired of fording rivers that he exclaimed "Nuts,
another river!" and the name stuck? (Stranger things have happened in Texas,
I'm sure...)

DGK


From jordan at chuma.cas.usf.edu  Fri Mar 30 14:32:34 2001
From: jordan at chuma.cas.usf.edu (Greg Jordan)
Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 09:32:34 -0500
Subject: Etruscans: Summary
In-Reply-To: <l03130318b6e803ace02b@[209.147.211.21]>
Message-ID: <FRI.30.MAR.2001.093234.0500.>

This has been an interesting debate on Etruscan, could someone please
indicate where to go for further information? I.e., what are the
key/seminal articles/books/reports on the subject? Thanks

Greg Jordan
University of South Florida
jordan at chuma.cas.usf.edu


From philjennings at juno.com  Fri Mar 30 23:08:37 2001
From: philjennings at juno.com (philjennings at juno.com)
Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 17:08:37 -0600
Subject: Etruscans
Message-ID: <FRI.30.MAR.2001.170837.0600.>

I refer to Ian Russell Lowell's translation of the Annals of Mursilis II,
and especially to the events of the third year.  Here is the background:
Mursilis II's father died of disease during an excursion away from the
Hittite homeland, and the next in line to the throne hardly took
possession before he also succumbed to disease.  Mursilis II was young,
the Hittites were troubled by strife during times of succession, and the
satellite polities of the Hittite Empire were quick to take advantage of
this interregnum and throw off the yoke.  The Hittites had enemies anyhow.
The treachery of conquered "friends" merely added to the young Mursilis's
problems.

Year by year with great vigor, Mursilis undertook campaigns to restore and
extend the Hittite claims.  He was concerned in Year 3 with fallen-away
subjects who had gone for protection to Uhhazitis, King of Arzawa.
Quote:
"These men of mine _ the troops Attarimma, the troops of Huwarsanassa, the
troops of Suruda _ have come over to you: give them back to me!"  This is
the only time he refers to these groups as troops, later he uses terms
translated as 'subjects,' 'deportees' and 'displaced persons.'

Due to illness/injury, King Uhhazitis of Arzawa failed to confront
Mursilis II in battle.  (Remarkably, some people theorize he was struck by
a meteor as the Hittites advanced.  Mursilis calls it a thunderbolt.  Talk
about bad omens!)  There was a battle, the Arzawans lost, and remnant
Arzawans, and particularly the Hu(wa)rsanassan, Suduran and Attarimman
'displaced persons,' were obliged to take refuge in one of three places.
The first, with the King himself, was on an island, the second, on Mt.
Arinnandas, a peninsula with access to the sea, and the third, a
landlocked city called Purandas.

In describing this situation, The Annals of Mursilis II mention the
Ahhiyawans (Achaeans) whose King was associated with Milawanda (Miletos),
and who were apparently responsible for supporting the enfeebled King of
Arzawa in his island retreat.  Mursilis II was able to beseige and reduce
Mt. Arinnandas in the first year of battle, and took Purandas in what
reads like a second year campaign.  In neither of these cases did he need
or use a navy.  People who have studied this era deny that the Hittites
could have fielded a naval force, especially in Achaean waters.
Nevertheless, there is this confusing passage: "(...). (...). (...) he was
in the sea/on an island. (...). Piyama-Kurundas (logogram:
mSUM--ma-dKAL-as), the son of Uhhazitis (...). And he came out of the sea
and he (...) and he came in with the King of Ahhiyawa. My Sun(-god) sent
(man's name) by ship (...). (...). And they brought him out. With him
(were) deportees whom they also brought out. And they, with the deportees
of (city name) and with the deportees of Lipa altogether were x0,x00
deportees."

This seems to refer to another defeated attack on the mainland by diehard
Arzawan resisters, and does not imply that Mursilis II dealt with the
island retreat as well as the two others, in subduing the Kingdom of
Arzawa to vassalage.  He simply could not have done so.  King Uhhazitis's
island was out of reach.

As regards all these deportees, the Annals consistently report twofold
statistics: "I alone brought 15,500 deportees to my house, but it is
impossible to number the deportees whom the Hittite troops,
horse(-troop)s, and sarikuwas-troops brought."  In this case I theorize
that the 15,500 were military-age men capable of fighting, ie, troops,
while the larger number included women, children, the aged, and almost
always sheep and cattle thrown in.   Given anything like a reasonable
ratio, an army of 15,500 implies a total population of 60,000 or more,
perhaps much more.  To quote again from a summary of the whole campaign:
"As I conquered the whole of the land of Arzawa, the deportees whom My Sun
brought to the palace they were in total (Hit.: anda 1-etta) 66,000; the
deportees, cattle and sheep which the Hittite lords, troops and
horse(-troop)s brought it is impossible to number."  Here we see a captive
population of perhaps 200,000 people, not going home to whatever satellite
polities they'd occupied before these wars began, but rather being taken
to the capital, where they can expect nothing good to happen.

We can only speculate regarding the work that the Hursanassans, the
Surudans, and the Attarimmans were made to do in captivity, but all these
200,000 people must have been aware that some fraction of their number
were still free on an Aegean island or islands.  Whether the vaunted
freedom of this remnant galled the Hittites or not, there was nothing they
could do about it.  Even when they forged occasional alliances with the
Achaeans over the next 150 years (before the fall of Troy), the Achaeans
lost nothing by maintaining their island relationship.  This is probably
more true as they had not discommoded themselves in the first place by
giving King Uhhazitis one of their own islands, but rather settled the
Arzawan refugees on a Pelasgian island, such as Lemnos.  (The Pelasgians
were too weak to protest at being forced to share.)

In the situation outlined here, it seems probable that a continous small
flux of escapees from Hittite rule, would have sought refuge on the island
in question, until the problem of new arrivals became troubling, and new
settlements had to be provided.  As the Mycenaeans were a power in the
region and an ally, these settlements had to be located to complement and
not compete with Greek-dominant enterprises.   At this time, one of the
Mycenaean trade routes led up the Adriatic, and so refugee settlements
along the shores of the Italian Adriatic might have seemed a reasonable
proposition.

As these refugees arrived by a constant trickle, and not a flood, their
memories of the homeland were memories of hunger and mistreatment
stretched out over decades, not the more dramatic memories of defeat and
shame in war.  By Herodotus's time, the names of the principal figures
involved in battle from so long ago meant nothing and connected to
nothing.

It needs to be pointed out that in a period of general illiteracy there
were no emigrant letters home, and the flow of refugees would have
diminished after the first or second decade, if not for a conscious effort
of nation re-building on someone's part, leading to the commissioning of
troublemakers willing to enter the Hittite realm and pass words of
encouragement.  Anyone reading the Annals will see that the ardor was
there.  A passion to fight until Arzawa was utterly defeated, might well
be converted into a passion to found a daughter nation beyond reach of
the Hittites.

A mixed group of refugees; Hursanassans, Surudans, Attarimmans, Arzawan
royals, et cetera, living on part of an island like Lemnos, would not
necessarily have imposed a group-name on themselves; but the Pelasgians,
their neighbors, would have done so, ignoring precise distinctions.
Pelasgians spoke an "Anatolian" language.  They would have recognized
"-assos" as a geopolitical suffix, and dropped its inappropriate use,
therefore the Hursanassans would have become Hursana(pl) or 'Rsana(pl).
If the dominant language among the refugees was distinctive and
incomprehensible, as it surely was, those who spoke as the Hursana did
might have been called the "ta-'rsana(pl)."  The Greeks also needed a
group name for these people, and might have turned "ta-'rsana(pl)" into
"Tyrsennoi."  With time, the refugees themselves would have acceded to the
need for a single name, minus the Pelasgian prefix: and pronounced their
own way: eventually Ras'na.

Against this whole "Etruscan origins" story and all its props and
gimmicks, lies the fact that no proto-Etruscan-like language has been
preserved in the extensive Hittite archives, which generously cite
diplomatic and liturgical passages in Hattic, Palaic, Luwian, Akkadian,
and Hurrian.  However, as far as I know, the Hittites also ignored Achaean
Greek, Minoan, and the Northwest Semite language of Canaan, and even Egyptian.

The period 1330bce - 1180bce for the gradual settlement of a proto-Etruria
near the classical Etruria is so far not ruled out by archeological
evidence.  Anything much later than 1180 bce seems to be discouraged.
Anything much earlier than 1330 strains credulity as regards the long
endurance of the small Lemnos enclave, and the long memories of the
eventual Etruscans, unsupported by written records until 700bce.

In this view, the Etruscan pioneers were succoured by people with a
national consciousness and would have retained concepts of civic duty,
offices to be performed, et cetera.  This would have put them immediately
at a higher level than the natives of central-northern Italy.


From acnasvers at hotmail.com  Sat Mar 31 11:27:39 2001
From: acnasvers at hotmail.com (Douglas G Kilday)
Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2001 11:27:39 -0000
Subject: Etruscans
Message-ID: <SAT.31.MAR.2001.112739.0000.>

X99Lynx at aol.com (22 Mar 2001) wrote:

>There were obviously a great many influences in Etruscan culture that came
>from far to the east.  How they got to Etruria and whether language was one of
>them still seems a valid question.  There is a strong case for local origin.
>But when you have so much importing, it seems hard to rule out the possibility
>that Etruscan may have been a novelty that took hold sometime before 800BC
>among people who were being introduced to novelties at breakneck speed.

Even Dr. White requires two generations for his jackrabbit model of
linguistic shift, and that's an extreme case. Acquiring a new language takes
vastly more effort and incentive than mastering a hula-hoop.

>I [Lynx] wrote:
><<If it came from foreign parts, it could have come with very few carriers,
>but it would have had to provide indigenous people a very good economic or
>social reason to adopt it.>>

>I was thinking more of a "trade language" model.  One only has to belong to a
>few e-mail lists to recognize the universality of English.  Attributing that
>to any kind of elite dominance is of course ludicrous.  There is a time when
>adopting a foreign language becomes just plain practical and perhaps sometimes
>a point when it becomes the only language that persists among a diversity of
>very local languages - just for the sake of unified communication.

Fine, a trade language doesn't require elite dominators to bully the natives
with superior military technology. But as you point out yourself, it
requires a considerable socioeconomic incentive for the natives to give up
their own languages. The trademasters must be able to construct an
infrastructure which will clearly increase the wealth of the natives (not
just their leading class, or the commoners would have no reason to change
their speech). The trademasters must already have their own profitable
infrastructure in place. Since reactionary demagogues will likely appear
among the natives, the trademasters must have access to military might, and
along with the commercial infrastructure will come garrisons and military
roads. This model doesn't differ greatly from standard elite dominance.
Generally speaking, trade goes hand-in-hand with "gunboat diplomacy", and it
is introduced by what we usually call "colonial powers".

In the scenario you suggest, Etruria was commercialized by Etruscan-speakers
from outside who were wealthy and powerful enough to establish trade
throughout the land. But where is the evidence for this great non-Italian
Etruscan commercial empire? What plague or genocide wiped out all
Etruscan-speakers in the presumed homeland?

>Or perhaps the fact that the Etruscans had already converted to a mining and
>export economy before the Greeks arrived might bespeak that earlier presence.
>I seem to recall that "rich guy" graves start appearing among the Villanovians
>before the first sign of the Greek inundation.

This is a good point. What happened in Etruria is in stark contrast to the
colonization of Magna Graecia. With its wealth of metals and agricultural
fecundity, Etruria would have been a tempting target for Greek colonization.
Something blocked this from taking place. Somehow the Villanovans acquired
the centralized social organization necessary for them to stand up to the
Greeks and demand that whatever the Greeks took out of the land be paid for.
A by-product of social organization is social stratification; hence the
"rich guy" graves.

The question now is whether the Villanovans had native leaders who just
happened to be more astute than their counterparts in southern Italy, or
they had outside help in preparing themselves for the Greek inundation. It
would make perfect sense for the Phoenicians to practice this sort of
intervention, as they stood to lose a great deal if Etruria fell into Greek
hands. Either way, I don't see the Etruscan language coming into Etruria at
that time; it was already established. If Phoenician or other foreign
"advisors" came in to organize the "resistance", they would have had little
impact on the native speech.

>Perhaps it's the speed of this model [for acquiring writing] that is
>troubling.  European IE languages didn't convert to writing so quickly, even
>though they were converting between related languages.  Some think Phoenician
>to Greek took centuries.  It might make one suspect that an entire previously
>illiterate population was not involved.  Or perhaps even that Etruscan itself
>might have been spreading with the writing.

It didn't take long for you to slam the brakes on the breakneck speed you
claimed for the introduction of novelties: your model has culture and
language barreling into Etruria like a Montana Freeman heading for a gun
show, while literacy must plod along like an ice truck making deliveries in
Chicago during so-called "rush" hour.

And what's so "quick" about a lifetime? Greek literacy is attested at
Pithecusae and Gabii circa 770. The oldest Etruscan incriptions are circa
700 at Tarquinii. It took another 70 years or so for Etruscan literacy to
reach Vetulonia and Volaterrae. The spread of literacy could easily have
obeyed a speed limit of 5 miles per year. I don't happen to know the speed
limits for European IE literacy, but Etruscan writing teachers weren't
exactly burning up the pavement.

And if Etruscan itself was spreading with literacy, why was there no
standard way of using the Archaic alphabet? We don't see anything like the
7th-cent. Etruscan diversity of writing conventions in 17th-cent. North
American English, where language actually did spread with literacy.
Caeritans were still writing left-to-right when other urban Etruscans were
going right-to-left. Even in Recent Etruscan, the discrepancy between
Northern and (reformed) Southern representation of sibilants was never
resolved. To explain this, migrationists will need to postulate that
different writing conventions were imported by literate Aegean
Paleo-Etruscans from different city-states in their mysterious homeland, and
for this there is not one iota (sorry!) of evidence.

DGK


From rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu  Thu Mar 29 14:26:27 2001
From: rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu (Rick Mc Callister)
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 09:26:27 -0500
Subject: "Guadalupe"
In-Reply-To: <000901c0b60a$4ee17320$516163d1@texas.net>
Message-ID: <THU.29.MAR.2001.092627.0500.>

	Mozarabic, said to be from (seomthing like) Arabic wadi "valley" +
Mozarabic lup, lupe < Latin lupus
	Medina, of course, is Arabic for "town"
	BTW: Don't forget Austin's Colorado River
	I've also seen Spanish language maps with the Red River as "Ri/o
Rojo" but I don't know if this was the original form or just a translation
	Which begs another question:
Spanish rojo vs, colorado for "red"
	Why are some things <rojo> and other things <colorado>?
	A chile is <rojo> if it's matured to that point. But a <chile
colorado> is a specific type of chile. Which suggests that --at some
level-- rojo is for anything that happens to be "red" but colorado for
something that is "naturally red." But this isn't always the case. Any
ideas?

>        It appears, on further examination, that "Guadalupe" should be added
>to my maybe list of Spanish river names in Texas.  Perhaps "Frio" and
>"Medina" (go figure) can take its place.

>Dr. David L. White

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


From davius_sanctex at terra.es  Thu Mar 29 17:54:39 2001
From: davius_sanctex at terra.es (David Sanchez)
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 19:54:39 +0200
Subject: "Guadalupe"
Message-ID: <THU.29.MAR.2001.195439.0200.>

Origin of "guada-" in river names:

<guada->   <   **wada-    <    arabic <wadi> 'river'

In Merdional Spain almost every river was renamed in the islamic period:

Roman "Anas" > actually "Guadiana"
Roman "Betis" (?) > "Guadalquivir" (wadi al-Kbr)


From dlwhite at texas.net  Thu Mar 29 17:18:27 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 11:18:27 -0600
Subject: American River Names
Message-ID: <THU.29.MAR.2001.111827.0600.>

>>        Hydronyms are more reliable than other "nyms", but even hydronyms
>>can point in the wrong direction.  For example, most of the river names of
>> Texas, for example Trinity, Brazos, Colorado, Pedernales, Llano, San Marcos,
>> Blanco, Guadalupe, and San Antonio (not sure about Sabine, Neches, and
>> Nueces), are Spanish.

> Sabine is probably from Mexican Spanish sabino "type of pine
> tree/conifer" but possibly from French sapin "fir, spruce (or the like)"
> --it's in the heart of the piney woods. Sabino also exists as a first name
> among Mexicans, so it could be from that.
> Nueces is "nuts". If you walk down Nueces St. in Austin in the
> Fall, you'll notice peopling gathering pecans from all the trees planted in
> honor of the name
> Neches does not seem to be Spanish AFAIK--although in Tejano slang
> it means "nothing, no way!" e.g. Tejano <<No truje neches.>> for standard
> Spanish <<No traje absolutamente nada.>>

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

        Thank you; my Spanish dictionary is rather bad.
        But before someone else brings up a few points on this, I might as
well do it myself...
        The prevalence of Spanish river names might be attributed to very
low poplation density of Indians in Texas, the idea being that the Spanish
explorers and presumed namers encountered rivers more often than natives
(likely enough, actually).   This probably has something to do with it, but
in East Texas (which might as well be Alabama, in more ways than one) the
population density was, as far as I know, not any lower than in SE America
generally.  The resident Caddoes (sp?) were mound-building famers of the
usual sort.  Yet Spanish river names occur there too.  Furthermore, the
names of tribes are (almost?) all native, indicating that the Spanish were
perfectly well able to find out what the native word for some thing or group
was and apply it when appropriate.  The name "Waco" (and "Hueco"?)  for
example, is from Tonkawa, and the Tonkawas were about as marginal as tribes
got.  Yet evidently some Europeans bothered to talk to them, rather than
regarding them as non-existent.  Moving westward, my impression is that the
valley of California was rather densely populated (by Amerindian standards),
yet the same phenomenon of (largely) Spanish river names occurs there.
        So though low population density probably is a factor, I doubt that
is can be considered decisive.

Dr. David L. White


From davius_sanctex at terra.es  Thu Mar 29 17:41:40 2001
From: davius_sanctex at terra.es (David Sanchez)
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 19:41:40 +0200
Subject: Minoan is an IE language?/Sound Equivalence
Message-ID: <THU.29.MAR.2001.194140.0200.>

> It's much more probable that Linear A has presented problems simply because
> the language it was designed to write was an isolate -- not related to any
> other we know.

I think the number of "possible" isolated languge in mediterranean area is
too great. Perhaps the future would reduce such a great number of isolated L.


From sarima at friesen.net  Thu Mar 29 15:27:19 2001
From: sarima at friesen.net (Stanley Friesen)
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 07:27:19 -0800
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
In-Reply-To: <006701c0b57d$13975c40$4b2363d1@texas.net>
Message-ID: <THU.29.MAR.2001.072719.0800.>

At 04:35 PM 3/25/01 -0600, David L. White wrote:
>My point is that to speak of "plain" consonants existing in such a system is
>in a sense non-sensical, because "plain" in effect means "as in a language
>without secondary articulations",

In this context I would more likely read it as meaning "lacking overt
co-articulations".

>Such languages can, for example, produce back velars before front vowels,
>and front velars before back vowels.  The very term "plain", as applied to
>velars, woud in effect mean "tending to be backed before back vowels and
>fronted before front vowels".  In a language with secondary articulations,
>this really could not happen.  So where one velar series was "[i]-colored",
>and another was "[u]- colored", a third would almost have to be something
>like "[yeri]-colored" or "[y]-colored" (IPA value) or (in terms of F2)
>"[a]-colored",  in order to stay out of the way of the other two.

Is this the same as a backed velar? Or a non-fronted velar?
[As I would interpret "plain" in this case to be one of the above:
backed/non-fronted seems quite adequate as a contrast to palatalized to me,
amateur that I am].

>But such colorations are not, to my knowledge, known.

Backed velars do not seem all that unusual to me.

>         As above.  What is "plain" /k/ in a sequence /ki/ supposed to have
>been that would be different from palatalized /k/ in the same sequence?

Backed. Or at least not fronted/palatalized.

>Likewise what is "plain" /k/ supposed to have been in the sequence /ku/ that
>would be different from labio-velarized /k/ in the same sequence?

Lacking lip rounding during articulation.  I.e., the onset of rounding
would be delayed relative to the onset in /kwu/.  Rounding might also be
slightly stronger at onset in /kwu/ (narrower, more extreme) than in /ku/.

--------------
May the peace of God be with you.         sarima at friesen.net


From alderson+mail at panix.com  Thu Mar 29 19:46:45 2001
From: alderson+mail at panix.com (Rich Alderson)
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 14:46:45 -0500
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
In-Reply-To: <006701c0b57d$13975c40$4b2363d1@texas.net> (dlwhite@texas.net)
Message-ID: <THU.29.MAR.2001.144645.0500.>

On 25 Mar 2001, David L. White wrote:

> My point is that to speak of "plain" consonants existing in such a system is
> in a sense non-sensical, because "plain" in effect means "as in a language
> without secondary articulations", which in turn means "as in a language with
> ordinary co-articulation", but a language with secondary articulations could
> not possibly have ordinary coarticulations, since overriding ordinary
> coarticlation for phonemic effect is what languages with secondary
> articulations do.

This indicates that we have encountered a terminological whirlpool.  In the
phonological theory to which I most strongly subscribe, the term "plain" means
simply "not having secondary articulations" when used to describe a sound in a
language which has same.  It makes no reference to other languages or features
to be found therein.

> Such languages can, for example, produce back velars before front vowels,
> and front velars before back vowels.  The very term "plain", as applied to
> velars, woud in effect mean "tending to be backed before back vowels and
> fronted before front vowels".

No, it means "not possessing features which are otherwise salient in this
language."  It is perfectly natural for features to be described in the
negative.

> In a language with secondary articulations, this really could not happen.  So
> where one velar series was "[i]-colored", and another was "[u]- colored", a
> third would almost have to be something like "[yeri]-colored" or "[y]-
> colored" (IPA value) or (in terms of F2) "[a]-colored", in order to stay out
> of the way of the other two.

Why?  Why complicate your phonological life with additional entities, when the
simplest analysis is "none of the above"?  Let's leave the world of obstruents
for a moment and look at a vowel system (where <+> will be used for "barred i"
for the sake of simplicity):

	i   +   u
	e   @   o
	&   a   O

In this system, we have palatal and labial vowels, and vowels which are neither
palatal nor labial.  We do not have to describe the central vowels in terms of
a third coloration, but only as having neither coloration.

Of course, this discussion all started with, if I remember correctly, Miguel
Carrasquer Vidal's proposal of a pre-IE obstruent system in which labialization
(and palatalization?  I forget.) is a salient feature at *all* points of
articulation, as in a number of Northwest Caucasian languages.  It is much less
urgent in, for example, dentals, to worry about whether "plain" equates to an
actual coloring rather than the lack of same.

> But such colorations are not, to my knowledge, known.  So I think regardless
> of other errors, Kuiper's instinct that a 3rd quality would have to be "[a]-
> colored" rather than "plain" was fundamentally correct.  I hope all that
> makes sense.

Only if you insist on complicating your phonological theory by refusing to
allow negatives.

								Rich Alderson

P. S.  There are, of course, languages in which one or more obstruents clearly
are to be considered "[a]-coloured"; cf. the effect of proximity to a pharyngal
on short /a/ in Arabic.


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Thu Mar 29 22:25:50 2001
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language)
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 16:25:50 -0600
Subject: Three-Way Contrast of Secondary Articulations in PIE
Message-ID: <THU.29.MAR.2001.162550.0600.>

Dear Stanley and IEists:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Stanley Friesen" <sarima at friesen.net>
Sent: Saturday, March 24, 2001 8:32 AM

<snip>

[PRp]
>> Or, if /i/ and /u/ are phonemic vowels, what would be the
>> zero-grade form of a Ci/u(C) syllable?

[SF]
> The same as the zero grade of a CeC syllable - CC.

<snip>

[PR]
Easily said but more difficult to illustrate with an actual credible example.

But, I am willing to learn. Do you have one?

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit ec
at ec hecc, vindg? mei?i a netr allar n?o, geiri vnda?r . . . a ?eim
mei?i, er mangi veit, hvers hann af r?tom renn." (H?vam?l 138)


From dlwhite at texas.net  Thu Mar 29 16:54:24 2001
From: dlwhite at texas.net (David L. White)
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 10:54:24 -0600
Subject: "neirt" versus "nert"
Message-ID: <THU.29.MAR.2001.105424.0600.>

>> Confusion of spelling between the two types ("nert" for "neirt"), which
>> occasionally occurs (if I am remembering correctly), probably indicates the
>> difficulty of pronouncing palatalized /r/, which is mostly (or entirely?)
>> gone from modern Irish.

>> Dr. David L. White

> What??

> All dialects of Modern Irish and Scottish Gaelic preserve a
> distinction between palatalized and unpalatalized <r>
> (conventionally /r/ and /r'/) in all but initial position.

        I was thinking of the intitial case, and mis-remembering the rest.
        By the way, I would like to know what a lenited /n/ (or /l/ or /r/)
actually is, in terms the IPA would understand.  My guess, from various
descriptions I have seen, is that the lenited forms are neutral, the
unlenited forms palatalized or velarized, as appropriate.  (And that in the
old days when there were four sounds the unlenited forms were long.)  But it
is only a guess. Not much Irish spoken around here.

Dr. David L. White


From proto-language at email.msn.com  Thu Mar 29 23:38:59 2001
From: proto-language at email.msn.com (proto-language)
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 17:38:59 -0600
Subject: A question about Greek or Latin
Message-ID: <THU.29.MAR.2001.173859.0600.>

Dear Peter and IEists:

----- Original Message -----
From: "petegray" <petegray at btinternet.com>
Sent: Saturday, March 17, 2001 2:38 AM

>> What would you say to the alternate alternate explanation that the
>> causative formant is merely an agglutinatated verb *[h1]ey-e-

> The suggestion that it might be causes me no problem;  the assertion that it
> is so would need proof.

> I'm happy with the idea that all suffixes began life as independent
> morphemes way back in early Ur-pre-proto-pre-PIE.  I think you mean more
> than that, so we would need to find firm evidence for:
>   (a) the existence of such a verb
>   (b) the use of such a verb as a causative
>   (c) the acceptance of this explanation as better than any alternative.

> What about the "going" root Pokorny 296 *ei / *ia:  ?

[PR]

Actually, is it not pretty well-established that this formant is used in
present tenses?

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN | PROTO-LANGUAGE at email.msn.com (501) 227-9947 * 9115 W. 34th
St. Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES: PROTO-LANGUAGE:
http://www.geocities.com/proto-language/ and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit ec
at ec hecc, vindg? mei?i a netr allar n?o, geiri vnda?r . . . a ?eim
mei?i, er mangi veit, hvers hann af r?tom renn." (H?vam?l 138)


From g_sandi at hotmail.com  Fri Mar 30 07:37:10 2001
From: g_sandi at hotmail.com (Gabor Sandi)
Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 07:37:10 -0000
Subject: Munda in Early NW India
Message-ID: <FRI.30.MAR.2001.073710.0000.>

I would like to offer my support to your suggestion of a "possibility" that
a Munda substratum might have contributed to the survival of voiced
aspirates in the majority of Indian IE languages.

If you look at the non-IE languages of the Indian subcontinent, you can see
that (1) Dravidian languages lack aspirated stops altogether (unless some
have them in  Sanskrit loanwords); (2) the Tibeto-Burmese languages, if they
have aspirates at all, have only voiceless ones; and (3) in some
Austro-Asiatic (i.e. Munda) languages they have the same set of voiced and
voiceless aspirates and non-aspirates as Sanskrit and Hindi.

>From the library of Indian "tribal language" grammars I accumulated during
my stay in New Delhi, I offer the ff. concrete evidence:

Dravidian: none have aspirates. The reconstructed Proto-Dravidian phonemic
system (see T. Burrow and M. B. Emeneau (1984): "A Dravidian etymological
dictionary") lacks aspirates as well.

Tibeto-Burman: Angami, Hmar and Purki all have voiceless and voiced
unaspirated stops (b/p d/t g/k) as well as voiceless aspirates (ph th kh).
The language Mising is missing (sorry for the pun) aspirated stops.

Austro-Asiatic: Bhumij has p/b/ph/bh t/d/th/dh etc. Mundari, on the other
hand, has no aspirated stops.

So if any substratum contibuted to the continued presence of aspirates, and
in particular, of voiced aspirates, it would have to be an Austro-Asiatic
one. According to Masica (1991): "The Indo-Aryan languages", the
Austro-Asiatic languages had a much stronger presence in eastern India in
relatively recent times - during the 1st millennium AD, much of Bengal and
Orissa would still have been speaking languages belonging to this family,
for example.

The main question, however, in my opinion is the original nature of the
voiced aspirates in IE languages. When IE was introduced into the
subcontinent, it would have had to have a set of stops corresponding to the
Brugmannian set {bh dh gh gwh}, distinct from both {b d g gw} and {p t k kw}
(forgetting about the palatals {k^ etc.} for now). Some linguists do not
like to postulate this voiced aspirate set, mostly on typological grounds
(absence or rarity of the corresponding voiceless set). The question is:
what other reasonable reconstructions can we make? The main authorities on
Greek (Sturtevant and Sihler are the ones I am most familiar with) all agree
that Classical Greek phi, theta and chi represent the voiceless aspirates
/ph th kh/, so simple devoicing of voiced aspirated stops can certainly
account for them. Outside of India there is no evidence of aspiration
elsewhere, but Italic /f f h/ can certainly be derived from the changes *bh
 > *ph > *f etc. Germanic, Celtic and Balto-Slavic all show lack of
aspiration, easily explainable with the changes bh > b etc. (although
Germanic did not merge the unaspirated and aspirated voiced stops, for it
devoiced the unaspirated set first).

To resume: if there were no voiced aspirates in PIE, then what? Voiced
fricatives  (IPA beta, delta, gamma) are one possibility, but if there were
no corresponding voiceless fricatives (IPA phi, theta, chi) at the same
time, the same typological objections can be made as for {bh dh gh}. Other
suggestions, rather outlandish in my opinion, have been made, but they all
depend on postulated changes in later IE that are hard to justify (e.g. *b >
*bh). So, in the end, Occam's razor leads us to keep the PIE set {bh dh gh
gwh}.

Any comments?

Best wishes,

Gabor Sandi
g_sandi at hotmail.com

[ moderator snip ]


From epmoyer at netrax.net  Thu Mar 29 09:23:59 2001
From: epmoyer at netrax.net (Ernest P. Moyer)
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 04:23:59 -0500
Subject: Soap
Message-ID: <THU.29.MAR.2001.042359.0500.>

I have a question:

Has anyone on this list studied the works of Saul Levin, "The Indo-European and
Semitic Languages?"  And so on.

He made many astute observations.

"The phonetic and morphological resemblances of H to G(reek) or S(anskrit) make
H an aberrant Semitic language."

"Knowing all too well the fascination that pre-history holds out to us, I have
hitherto declined to draw from the correspondences between H and G and S any
genetic inferences beyond the inescapable one that such correspondences could
not have originated independently and without contact."

In speaking of the remoteness of Arabic from IE connections, he remarks:

"Arabic therefore affords little basis for a convincing comparison with the IE
languages."

And so on.

Ernest

[ moderator snip ]


From philjennings at juno.com  Fri Mar 30 22:48:56 2001
From: philjennings at juno.com (philjennings at juno.com)
Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 16:48:56 -0600
Subject: Lactose Intolerance
Message-ID: <FRI.30.MAR.2001.164856.0600.>

Thanks all for your interesting and informative responses (as my theories go
down in flames.)  The Epic of Cheese apparently goes back all the way to the
neolithic and early neolithic at that.  I will look elsewhere for reasons why
the doughty Indo-Anatolians were able to prevail against the Khirbet Kerak
folk, if indeed that's what happened.

For what it's worth I was clear and not muddled about the distinction between
total lactose tolerance, and the earlier use of milk products by the lactose
intolerant.  I did, however, naively imply that a hundred Swedes could beat up
a hundred Frenchmen, which, if they did, not everyone would attribute to
greater Swedish lactose tolerance.

Likewise, I've been careful not to claim that all the lactose-tolerant
populations of the world are related.  The great IE glory ride, if ever such it
was, was hardly all-compassing.  Renfrew parsed it into a series of smaller
glory rides, and explained some of them as due to the discovery of the nomad
life-style.  As he located the Anatolians in situ in Anatolia, he had no need
to explain their expansion.  I was trying to do so in my prior email, without
getting into theories of mere natural superiority over the Khirbet Kerak
.people.  But whatever I'm looking for, lies elsewhere.