"six" and "seven" Mediterranean

[ECOLING at aol.com]

In a message dated 10/3/99 3:19:52 AM, mcv at wxs.nl writes:

>I don't think it's a Gascon borrowing, but surely there's more
>than just chance resemblance between the numeral names for "6"
>and "7" as found all over the Mediterranean:

>Egyptian:       sjsw (*sds-)            sfxw (*sp'3-)
>Berber:         sd.is                   sa (*sab-)
>Akkadian:       s^is^s^et (*s^id_s^-)   sebet (*sab3-)
>Indo-European:  swek^s ~ s^wek^s        sep(h3)tm
>Georgian:       ekwsi                   s^vidi
>Etruscan:       s^a                     semph
>Basque:         sei (*s^ei)             zazpi (*sasbi)

These are language families which for the most part are
thought to be unrelated or unrelatable, except for the first
three which are parts of Afro-Asiatic.

Agreed, this seems to be far beyond chance.
though any individual resemblance, when looked at in isolation,
may be reasonably taken as possibly just chance.

What are currently the standard accounts of these facts?

Borrowings?  in which directions and at what dates?
Plausible if trade was promoted by certain traders
at certain times, I guess.  Mycenaean?  Egyptian?  Phoenecian?
Predecessors of any of these?  Who?
Even for basic numerals????  It is known to happen.
Yucatec at least, among the Mayan languages,
retains numerals only up to 5, after that it is Spanish.

Or
Ultimate common origins,
     despite the fact that proto-languages are not yet constructible
     to relate all these four language families?

A mixture of the two explanations above?
Some additional explanations?

Lloyd Anderson
Ecological Linguistics