Etruscan / Pelasgian

[JoatSimeon at aol.com]

I think it might be productive if we were to avoid building mighty theories
on a couple of place-names and ethnonyms.  The fact of the matter is that
"Pelasgian" is a hypothesis, and that the pre-IE, pre-Greek linguistic
history of the Aegean lands is unrecoverable.

All we have are some common place-names in Greece and western Anatolia.
They're subject to multiple interpretation, and none of the interpretations
is falsifiable -- which is to say, they're all meaningless.

It's irritating, but entropy does destroy information.  We can do a great
deal with archaeology, and with comparative/historical linguistics, but
ultimately one runs out of evidence.

After that, it's all wheel-spinning.  We should avoid hubris and simply say
"we don't know, and failing new evidence, we never will".