No Proto-Celtic?

[Ante Aikio]

On Sun, 29 Apr 2001, David L. White wrote:

>         Two words or expressions are being thrown around here in a way that
> makes me a little uncomfortable.  The first is "lingua franca".  This has
> (if we are not case-sensitive) three meanings:  1) a real language, "Lingua
> Franca", which is (or was) a sort of Mediterranean Romance semi-creole, 2)
> an international business or trade language characteristic of a certain
> place/period, as for example Akkadian, and 3) something in the pidgin/creole
> range.   Meanings 2 and 3, though they can overlap, do not necessarily do
> so, and due to inherent ambiguity the expression "lingua franca" is probably
> best avoided, as considerable confusion is likely to be sown.

I fully agree. In my original mail, I only used the term "lingua franca"
because this is the term that the "Anti-Uralists" use. Indeed, it is
somewhat unclear what exactly is meant by their "Uralic lingua franca",
but at any rate it is some kind of pidgin / creole. On the other hand,
from the writings of Kalevi Wiik etc., one receives the impression that
Proto-Uralic is considered non-uniform, i.e. a group of languages (pidgins
/ creoles?) which resemble each other more or or less closely, because of
convergence. I believe that the term "lingua franca" was chosen because
according to Wiik, (Proto-)Uralic arose as communication medium of the
hunters of large game (e.g. mammoths) of the periglacial zone.

Regards,

Ante Aikio