Nors Josephson's Theory about a linguistic and cultural influence of Ancient Greek on East-Polynesia

[Ralf-Stefan Georg]

>I should like to know some scholarly opinion about N. Josephson's theories
>concerning a presumptive linguistic Greek influence on Pacific area (ex. gr.
>cf. N. Josephson, Greek Linguistic Elements in the Polynesian Languages,
>Universitaetsverlag C. Winter, Heidelberg, 1987; or Idem, Eine
>archaisch-griechische Kultur auf der Osterinsel, Universitaetsverlag C.
>Winter,
>Heidelberg, 1999 ).

The Universitaetsverlag C. Winter, once well-reputed, got bankrupt a few
years after the publication of the first of the abovementioned titles (only
the name is continued by the new possessors).
I see a connection.

(Another nail in that publishing house's coffin was Mufti: Die
Sprachwissenschaft des Tscherkessischen, also from the 80s, championing the
theory of Adyghe *as* Indo-European)

St.G.

PS: This is of course only my personal opinion, and very likely to be not
more than my usual reluctance against scholarly breakthroughs paired with
bad manners, but there are reviews of this work, such as B. Nothofer: Die
historisch-vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft und die Hypothese einer
Verwandtschaft des Griechischen mit den polynesischen Sprachen, in: Die
deutsche Malaiologie: Festschrift I. Hilgers-Hesse (edd.: K.-H. Pampus et
al.) Heidelberg: Groos 1988, 77-89.
I vaguely remember a review in Die Sprache/Indogermanische Chronik,
uncertain date or number (1992 at the latest, I'd say) by M. Peeters, I
think, maybe someone knows better. It was very laconic and, as one might
expect, devastating.

Stefan Georg
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