30 October 2010

Iberian anthroponyms

Even before complete decipherment of the Iberian scripts was achieved by Gómez Moreno in 1922, the structure of the Iberian anthroponyms had been known since the finding of the Ascoli's Bronze Plate near Rome in 1908. This is a list of Iberian soldiers which formed the Turma Salluitana (an auxiliary horse troop which fought to the side of Pompeius Strabo in the Allies' War) and to whom Roman citizenship was granted. The names appear in the form of praenomen (first name) and cognomen (last name): X son of Y.

Although this inscription allowed epigraphists to identify personal names in Iberian texts as soon as they could been read, it's far from being an equivalent of the Rossetta stone1. Most Iberian anthroponyms are compounds of two members, either two nouns or a noun and an adjective. This structure is similar to the one of Celtic or Germanic anthroponymy, whose speakers were also warfare aristocracies of the Iron Age2.

Examples of Iberian anthroponyms:
Baise-bilos, Bilos-baiser 'Solitary Eagle'
Balke-bilos 'Eagle's Eye'
Bando-nius 'Chief's Horse'3
Biu-nius 'Chief's Mare'
Iskeŕ-adin, Adin-iskeŕ 'Old Hand'
Nios-iskeŕ, Iske-nius 'Chief's Hand'
Sakaŕ-iskeŕ 'Big Hand'
Sosin-adin 'Old Bull'
Sosin-bilos 'Bull-Eagle'4
Sosin-biuŕ 'Bull-Mare'

The apparent similarity of Iberian anthroponym elements with Basque words has fueled countless amateurs to support the discredited Vasco-Iberist theory, which in its most extreme form equates Iberian with an ancestral form of Basque, so the modern language can be confidently used to translate Iberian  texts5. This approach is absolutely unscientific and rejected by serious specialists. The hard truth is that Basque alone is of little help to understand Iberian.

However, with the aid of external comparison and a patient research we have been able to open a breach on what it was an impenetrable wall for many. The first Iberian word whose etymology can be surely stablished is adin 'mature, old' (PNC *=VdʑV 'to grow'6 + participle suffix *-nV).

Iberian glossary
adin 'mature, old' ~ Basque adin 'age; judgement'
baiser 'solitary' (Aquitanian baese-)7 
balke 'eye' < PNC *ʡwilʡi 'eye'
bando 'horse'8 ~ Basque mando 'mule'9
biki 'cow' ~  Basque behi 'cow'10 
bilos 'eagle, bird of prey' ~ Latin mīluus 'kite'
bi-o-s 'heart' ~ Basque bi-ho-tz 'heart'11
bi-uŕ 'mare' ~ Basque be-hor 'mare'12 
is-keŕ 'hand'13 ~ Spanish garra 'claw'
niś 'girl'14 ~ Basque nes-ka 'girl' (Aquitanian nes-ka-to).
nios, nius 'chief'15                                                               
śani 'boy' ~ Basque sehi, sein 'boy, servant'16
sakaŕ 'big' ~ Basque zahar 'old' (formerly 'big')17
saldu 'horse' ~ Basque zaldi 'horse'18
sosin 'bull (Aquitanian soson) ~ Basque zezen 'bull'
tautin 'noble' ~  Aquitanian hauten 'noble', Basque hauta 'election, elite'19
_________________
1 Unfortunately, bilingual texts are very scanty and often incomplete due to breaking of the material support (ussualy stone).
2 This is a quite different picture from the one commonly found in schoolbooks, which present Iberians as peaceful traders.
3 Found in the Latinized form Mandonius.
4 Found in the Latinized form Sosimilos.
5 Good examples of Vasco-Iberist crackpots in Spanish literature are Juan Luis Román del Cerro and Jorge Alonso García.
6 The native Basque output of this root is hazi 'to grow; seed'.
A compund from *wa- 'this' < PNC *ʔu (˜ *hu) 'demonstrative pronoun (that)' and  *-idʑV 'self, oneself'.
8 Iberian ortography doesn't differentiate between /b/ and /m/.
9 Borrowed from Celtic *mandu 'young animal; horse', an Altaic Wanderwort.
10A West Europe substrate item *bekko < PNC *bHe:mtɬɬɨ (˜ -u,-i) 'deer, mountain goat'. 
11 PNC *jerk’wi 'heart'. 
12PNC *q’ɦweɫV:/*q’weɫɦV: 'large female domestic animal (cow, mare)'.
13 The first element is from *tsHə 'one'.
14 PNC *nusA (˜ -o-) 'daughter-in-law'.
15 PNC *nɨwts(w)A: 'prince, ruler; bride-groom'.
16 PNC *ts’ænʔV 'new'.
17 PNC *tʃǝqwV 'big'.
18 PIE *g(w)Ald- 'foal, young of an ass', with assibilation (palatalization) of the initial velar. 
19 Celtic *toutā 'people'.

28 comments:

  1. "is-keŕ 'hand'13 ~ Spanish garra 'claw'"

    Shouldn't it be Spanish izquierda, Cat. esquerra, Basque ezker, etc.? It seems a very consolidated pan-Iberian word.

    Also adin correlates well with Basque aditu ("learned, venerable"), possibly worth mentioning, and other words as adimen (wisdom, understanding) and in the same etymological line as adin (< adi: attention). I see this as more likely that your PNC correlate "to grow".

    Sakaŕ can have better etymology in zakar (rough) than zahar (which I'm quite sure never meant "big", though it may have meant "bad": zar, txar).

    Anyhow, why do you say that Vasco-Iberism is "discredited"? Precisely you are showing here a list of Iberian words that are in most cases clearly Vascoid, what would seem to rebuke your argument. Also, why would Vasco-Iberism and Vasco-Caucasism be in contradiction?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Shouldn't it be Spanish izquierda, Cat. esquerra, Basque ezker, etc.? It seems a very consolidated pan-Iberian word.

    No, this is a case of homophony. The 'left (hand)' has a very different etymology, probably from the IE root *(s)kel- 'bent, crooked'.

    Also adin correlates well with Basque aditu ("learned, venerable"), possibly worth mentioning, and other words as adimen (wisdom, understanding) and in the same etymological line as adin (< adi: attention). I see this as more likely that your PNC correlate "to grow".

    No, Basque adin was borrowed from Iberian with a logical semantical shift from 'mature' to 'wisdom', as these things are correlated (e.g. 'wisdom thooth').

    Sakaŕ can have better etymology in zakar (rough) than zahar (which I'm quite sure never meant "big", though it may have meant "bad": zar, txar).

    The original meaning of zahar was 'big', which still survives in the toponym suffix -zar, e.g. Mendizar 'big mountain'. The word 'bad' is a palatalizated variant of -gar, -ger.

    Anyhow, why do you say that Vasco-Iberism is "discredited"? Precisely you are showing here a list of Iberian words that are in most cases clearly Vascoid, what would seem to rebuke your argument. Also, why would Vasco-Iberism and Vasco-Caucasism be in contradiction?

    Because Iberian can't be translated ONLY with the help of Basque. But in the framework of the Vasco-Caucasian hypothesis, things become easier, but only from extreme to great difficulty.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I don't see first and second (they don't withstand the Occam's Razor of etymologies - IMO: ezker is not IE, there's an obsession with false IE roots among some linguists) but guess I can conceded the third point as a possibility (zar meaning maybe big, large, instead of just old and bad).

    "Because Iberian can't be translated ONLY with the help of Basque".

    If you had fossil German texts and live Portuguese as reference, for instance, you'd be never able to do that either. You can't translate Lezgian with Basque either.

    If Iberian and Basque are related they must be so since either Neolithic (4000 years before Iberian texts and 6000 from modern Basque) or earlier (Paleolithic, some 8-10,000 years). A lot of time: comparable to Indoeuropean or Afroasiatic, depending on which time-frame, though neighborhood (sprachbund) surely attenuated drift and non-expanding language conservatism somewhat.

    They are not the same language but may be related, they probably are. What is wrong is to think Basque as a mere Iberian dialect.

    "But in the framework of the Vasco-Caucasian hypothesis, things become easier, but only from extreme to great difficulty".

    I hope it's the case. But I have to disagree again in using PNC as identical to PVC: PNC, if real, should be a branch out of two (or several), Basque or Vasco-Iberian should be a branch on its own right. People has not traveled much between the two European corners using non-IE languages since at least 6000 years ago, which is the whole age of IE.

    What you're doing is like trying to describe Tamazhig using Semitic as base. Too simple: it won't work well enough. Tamazhig (Berber) is a distinct branch in a larger set, same for Basque, Iberian or Vasco-Iberian in the Vasco-Caucasian theory.

    ReplyDelete
  4. IMO: ezker is not IE, there's an obsession with false IE roots among some linguists.

    But Basque has lots of IE loanwords, both Celtic and non-Celtic, due to prehistoric language contact.

    If you had fossil German texts and live Portuguese as reference, for instance, you'd be never able to do that either. You can't translate Lezgian with Basque either.

    This is why Vasco-Iberists keep translating iskeŕ as 'left' or adin as 'wisdom', for example. :-)

    If Iberian and Basque are related they must be so since either Neolithic (4000 years before Iberian texts and 6000 from modern Basque) or earlier (Paleolithic, some 8-10,000 years). A lot of time: comparable to Indoeuropean or Afroasiatic, depending on which time-frame, though neighborhood (sprachbund) surely attenuated drift and non-expanding language conservatism somewhat.

    I think the Vasco-Caucasian from which Basque and Iberian descend were brought by the Neolithic farmers which came to Europe from the Near East. As for the time depth involved compare for example Iberian adin 'mature, old' with Basque hazi 'seed; to grow', both related to PNC *=VdʑV 'to grow'.

    But I have to disagree again in using PNC as identical to PVC: PNC, if real, should be a branch out of two (or several), Basque or Vasco-Iberian should be a branch on its own right. People has not traveled much between the two European corners using non-IE languages since at least 6000 years ago, which is the whole age of IE.

    Given the big differences among North Caucasian languages, it looks like Starostin's PNC is actually older than commonly thought and thus closer to the actual PVC, which it also would include Burushaski. PNC is thus the best aproximate we've got for comparative purposes.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Of course that Basque has Latin and maybe even Celtic borrowings, most are obvious but surely some are arguable too. But this one you make it derive directly from a IE root, what is impossible unless mediated by Latin, Celtic or maybe Greek or Germanic (much less likely). In any case the intermediate words from the hypothetical PIE root *(s)kel- should be clear. Most IE loanwords in Basque are Latin or Romance and those should be easy to identify.

    "This is why Vasco-Iberists keep translating iskeŕ as 'left' or adin as 'wisdom', for example".

    And why is that wrong? I mean: it can be somewhat wrong and maybe your reading using PNC is better.

    I'd say that adin and aditu both from adi in Basque (by addition of infinitive endings -n and -tu) is pretty much straightforward, what typically is the best etymological solution (not always but most of the time).

    In the other case, I cannot trace a Basque etymology for ezker (and Ib. iskeŕ) but it's clear that they must be both pre-IE as this voice only exists in Iberian languages, be them IE or not. Possible correlates are of course esker (thanks, to thank) and, if so, also esku (hand) and eskuin (right hand) but there are issues with z/s phonetic changes. So I'm not sure where it comes from but the IE root looks even much more forced.

    ...

    ReplyDelete
  6. "I think the Vasco-Caucasian from which Basque and Iberian descend were brought by the Neolithic farmers which came to Europe from the Near East".

    From the West Balkans to be precise. While obviously the triggering of Neolithic in Greece and the rest of the Balkans is of diffuse West Asian origin, Balcanic Neolithic(s) is a pretty much autonomous affair with no clear specific roots anywhere in West Asia.

    As you may know, there were two main Neolithic waves in Europe: one into Central Europe (from Hungary and ultimately Greece) and the other along the Mediterranean from the Adriatic Balcans and also with some less clear connection with Greek ancestral Neolithic (Otzaki).

    However, while the Central European wave looks a lot like a demic colonization, the Mediterranean wave does not, except in punctual cases. For instance in all SE France only two locations near Nice are true colonies, the rest are assimilated locals (Cardium Pottery Neolithic with local Epipaleolithic toolkit). Almost the same happens in Iberia with a few colonies, specially near Alacant, and all the rest being assimilated natives.

    In the case of the Basque Country and Aquitaine there's not even Epicardial but wholly local Neolithics, as happens in most cases in Atlantic Europe, where neither wave really penetrated and were only gradually "neolithized".

    This neolithization, in the Basque Country specifically includes migrants from the Mediterranean at the Ebro valley (La Hoya specially) but not in most of the country.

    So it's difficult to assess how new languages could penetrate. However, as languages are not genes, that may have happened anyhow.

    I find it difficult really because I can spot words in Basque that are clearly Neolithic in origin but are also abnormal: ahari (ram, compare with Greek aries), (h)iri/uri (town, found in many toponyms in the Mediterranean, correlates in Sumerian, uru, and even up to India). These and surely others are no doubt Neolithic or Bronze Age loanwords that no doubt arrived from the Mediterranean via Iberian or Ligurian languages.

    That kind of words however do not have possible Basque etymologies or correlates. But a lot of other stuff in Basque is too self-consistent to suggest a creole language, which would be no doubt if it had been first absorbed by Mediterranean Iberians and later gradually penetrated into Basque-Aquitanian lands.

    So I tend to think, on grounds of general Basque self-consistency (i.e. non-creole nature) that the language (and by extension Iberian and probably Ligurian too, as well as other lost languages spoken, per Venneman, in all West and Central Europe) can well be Paleolithic by origin, in which case Iberian would be a derivate and not the root. Caucasian languages (NE Caucasian specifically) would then derivate from the Eastern branch, plausibly spoken in Eastern Europe in Gravettian times and up to IE invasions - the Hurro-Urartean branch is explained by Zarzian culture, which is, AFAIK, of East European derivation.

    I'm not sure but it's my best hunch. This would explain why the Basque-NEC connection is so tenuous: because we are dealing with a divergence of almost 30,000 years (Gravettian culture): more than twice the time estimated for Afroasiatic. The lack of expansiveness could explain that some traits are still apparent (no creoles: only direct drift from the 'Gravettian' PVC).

    ...

    ReplyDelete
  7. ...There is yet another possibility: that Vascoid languages (maybe excluding Iberian?) would be nothing but the main language spread by Megalithic "culture", which is very tightly related with the appearance of Neolithic in all Atlantic Europe (but also extended to parts of Central Europe, North Africa and Italy). But this is an explanation that would not be able to discern if it's a Paleo or Neolithic language and would still demand some sort of creolization, as happens with the basic Neolithic hypothesis. As proto-Iberians were mostly non-Megalithic, this would hardly explain an expansion towards Mediterranean Iberia. So rather not.

    Additionally to the issue of creolization, a problem to the Neolithic origin hypothesis is that it would not explain the Vasconic area of Venneman and such (not that I agree in every detail with him but I do think he is essentially right in the description of the Vasconic area, which fits best a Paleolithic or Megalithic scenario).

    "Given the big differences among North Caucasian languages, it looks like Starostin's PNC is actually older than commonly thought and thus closer to the actual PVC, which it also would include Burushaski. PNC is thus the best aproximate we've got for comparative purposes".

    There's a lot of people who disagrees with a single North Caucasian language family, right? It seems that NW Caucasian languages (all in risk of extinction) have such strange sounds that are most difficult to compare. However I have read some of the direct Basque-NE Caucasian comparisons and, even if tenuous, they do seem real. So personally I'd go for finding the proto-Vasco-NEC first of all.

    Not sure what to think of Burushaski. My little incursions into statistical linguistics appear to relate Sumerian, Hurro-Urartean, NEC and Basque but not the others. HU-NEC is a known family proposal and Sumerian being related should be expected because Sumerians originated from the HU area of the North Zagros (archaeology dixit), which is also the Zarzian culture area. What really surprised me was that Basque came next in the apparent range of connections. I knew of Vasco-Caucasian before but that pretty much persuaded me - however it's not exactly the version you manage because I could not include NW Caucasian.

    (Sorry for the long text).

    ReplyDelete
  8. Iberian iskeŕ can't be the same word than Basque ezker 'left (hand)' because it doesn't make sense as a compound member of personal names. However, it DOES it if we translate it as 'hand'.

    Notice that the Iberian word is actually a compound of two words: a fossilized demonstrative *is and *keŕ 'hand'. Basque esku has a similar structure: a fossilized demonstrative *es and *ku 'hand'.

    ReplyDelete
  9. "Iberian iskeŕ can't be the same word than Basque ezker 'left (hand)' because it doesn't make sense as a compound member of personal names. However, it DOES it if we translate it as 'hand'".

    And why can't "left" mean "hand" in ancient Iberian or why what means "left" in Basque (and Iberian Romances) cannot have been (also) generic "hand" in Iberian?

    "Basque esku has a similar structure: a fossilized demonstrative *es and *ku 'hand'".

    True if the assumption is correct but eskuin (right is just a variant of esku: esku duin?), what means that iskeŕ/ezker can also be. Iberian is not Basque even if related: don't you find yourself discovering new meanings and etymologies for Romance words as you try to use them in English? I do every day: my instinct is to use them and think of their meaning as in Spanish but often it is different in English (and the culprit is also often French).

    You shouldn't anyhow use PNC to decipher Iberian (or even Basque) directly either. Because if using Basque is complicated using a conjectural proto-tongue is even more complicated. After all Starotsin may have been wrong in all or parts of his reconstruction. PNC is not a real reference but a hypothetical one. Use with caution.

    ReplyDelete
  10. And why can't "left" mean "hand" in ancient Iberian or why what means "left" in Basque (and Iberian Romances) cannot have been (also) generic "hand" in Iberian?

    I'm affraid this doesn't make sense. They must be homonymous words.

    True if the assumption is correct but eskuin (right is just a variant of esku: esku duin?), what means that iskeŕ/ezker can also be.

    Basque eskui(n), eskoi(n), eskubi, eskoa, eskuma is a compound of esku and on 'good'.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Hand and left/right are homonymous, as left/right refer to hands primarily (and this is obvious in Basque 'eskuin'). That's what I think at least: not less than hand and paw (garra).

    You see anyhow weirder changes in this type of words like, sinistra to sinister or right (hand) and right (law) (same in Romances). It's also very possible that left did not have a negative meaning before IE or even Latin influence (for instance you say in Spanish: "mano izquierda" as something positive, delicate, not merely blunt).

    "Basque eskui(n), eskoi(n), eskubi, eskoa, eskuma is a compound of esku and on 'good'".

    Doubt it but doesn't really matter for the discussion. O>I is not really possible. You are dealing with several different suffixes here, even if they are just dialectal variants.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Hand and left/right are homonymous, as left/right refer to hands primarily (and this is obvious in Basque 'eskuin'). That's what I think at least: not less than hand and paw (garra).

    No, 'homonymous' means 'not related'.

    You see anyhow weirder changes in this type of words like, sinistra to sinister or right (hand) and right (law) (same in Romances).

    This is because the meaning 'bad' (in a moral sense) is often associated with 'bent' (='left'), as opposed to 'straight' (='right').

    This is why Basque -gar, -ger, txar 'bad' derives from PNC *=ig(w)Vr 'to bend, fold'. From this root also derive Spanish zurdo 'left handed' and churro (slang) 'bad thing; name applied to the Aragonese-speaking inhabitants of the Kingdom of Valencia'.

    "Basque eskui(n), eskoi(n), eskubi, eskoa, eskuma is a compound of esku and on 'good'".

    Doubt it but doesn't really matter for the discussion. O>I is not really possible. You are dealing with several different suffixes here, even if they are just dialectal variants.

    Not really. In *esku on we've got here a vowel contact [uo] not allowed by phonotaxis (=phonetical syntaxis) and which evolved in various forms.

    You shouldn't anyhow use PNC to decipher Iberian (or even Basque) directly either. Because if using Basque is complicated using a conjectural proto-tongue is even more complicated.

    I'm affraid there's no other way, although more bilingual texts would be of great help.

    After all Starotsin may have been wrong in all or parts of his reconstruction. PNC is not a real reference but a hypothetical one. Use with caution.

    Yes, it's true that not all the protoforms reconstructed by Starostin are equally reliable, by this is the better we've got at the moment (and probably for the forthcoming decades).

    Without the help of PNC I couldn't have dreamed to find the possible meaning of Iberian orti, a hapax found in La Serreta lead. Do you guess what it means?

    ReplyDelete
  13. "No, 'homonymous' means 'not related'".

    My bad, sorry. :(

    I thought that was "homophone" but seems 'homonym' also means that.

    Still, both paw and left/right are similarly related to the concept of hand. And 'ezker/esquerra/izquierda' are clearly closer to 'iskeŕ' phonetically, they are not explained by any other etymology I know of and they are words peculiar of the Ibero-Aquitanian geography.

    So it makes perfect sense to consider that they derive from a PIE word in that geography, and hence that Iberian 'iskeŕ' is probably related.

    "This is because the meaning 'bad' (in a moral sense) is often associated with 'bent' (='left'), as opposed to 'straight' (='right')".

    But how is this concept multicultural? I have always understood it is a Latin (or otherwise IE concept). In Basque you do not have any sort of left=wrong right=correct association. The words used are those for twisted, bent (oker) and straight (zuzen) but not for left/right. That was also my point when I mentioned the Spanish phrase "tener mano izquierda", which is positive in the sense of sensibility and intelligence (or cunning if you wish).

    "In *esku on we've got here a vowel contact [uo] not allowed by phonotaxis (=phonetical syntaxis) and which evolved in various forms".

    Certainly /uo/ is cacophonous in Basque (cannot exist, except with intermediate H taking the place of another lost phoneme, typically R) but I still see no evidence to support the "-on" suffix hypothesis. I suspect this reasoning, like others, is conditioned by the Latin logic of implicit meanings for right/left, which are imported IMO.

    "I'm affraid there's no other way"...

    What I'm implicitly suggesting is to consider a proto-Vasco-Caucasian instead, in which the Caucasian branches are just one or two of a larger family. There's no particular reason to think Basque arrived from the Caucasus (of all places).

    "Without the help of PNC I couldn't have dreamed to find the possible meaning of Iberian orti, a hapax found in La Serreta lead. Do you guess what it means?"

    No idea, of course. First I'd need a context (rest of the text, type of inscription) and then also be more knowledgeable of Iberian (I know something but I won't claim I'm any expert).

    Unless it's a reference to the sky god Urtzi/Ortz or to teeth ((h)ortz), with a possible extended meaning for weapons or sharp rocks (or meteorological phenomena). Alternatively "horri" (to that one). The ending in -i is suggestive of a IO (dative, "nori") declination to me.

    But admittedly I am using "Vasco-Iberianist" logic here and that may be wrong.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Still, both paw and left/right are similarly related to the concept of hand. And 'ezker/esquerra/izquierda' are clearly closer to 'iskeŕ' phonetically, they are not explained by any other etymology I know of and they are words peculiar of the Ibero-Aquitanian geography.
    Sorry, but I don't think they's any relationship.

    But how is this concept multicultural? I have always understood it is a Latin (or otherwise IE concept). In Basque you do not have any sort of left=wrong right=correct association. The words used are those for twisted, bent (oker) and straight (zuzen) but not for left/right.
    But Basque oker IS related to -gar, -ger 'bad'. This is my point.

    That was also my point when I mentioned the Spanish phrase "tener mano izquierda", which is positive in the sense of sensibility and intelligence (or cunning if you wish).

    Unfortunately, this has nothing to do with Basque. That is, it's a false analogy.

    Certainly /uo/ is cacophonous in Basque (cannot exist, except with intermediate H taking the place of another lost phoneme, typically R) but I still see no evidence to support the "-on" suffix hypothesis.
    Not a "suffix" but a compound word. And if you've got a better theory, I'd glad to hear it.

    There's no particular reason to think Basque arrived from the Caucasus (of all places).

    As I said before, NEC languages, although geograhically close, have diverged for several millenia. And if you include NWC, the chronology would be still deeper. This whay Starostin's PNC is closer to the actual PVC than you might think.

    No idea, of course. First I'd need a context (rest of the text, type of inscription) and then also be more knowledgeable of Iberian (I know something but I won't claim I'm any expert).
    You can find it easily on the Internet by search for "La Serreta". It's a lead foil engraved on both sides, thus 2 different texts.

    ReplyDelete
  15. "Sorry, but I don't think they's any relationship".

    It's straightforward but fair enough if you just can't see it.

    "But Basque oker IS related to -gar, -ger 'bad'".

    Is -gar/-ger proto-Basque or proto-NC or what? I'm trying to guess which words use these suffixes and can't think but oker and maybe those in kel- (keldo, etc.) if anything. Bad is txar (< *zar), which is probably related to zahar (old) and zakar (rough) (k>h). Which words are you thinking of?

    "Unfortunately, this has nothing to do with Basque. That is, it's a false analogy".

    Maybe but my point was not just Basque but Iberian iskeŕ (and Catalan esquerra and Castilian izquierda by extension), so it's not an argument about Basque but about SW European pre-IE or at least pre-Latin culture. I say because I'm quite certain that the left/right = bad/good dichotomy is not pre-IE.

    "And if you've got a better theory, I'd glad to hear it".

    I did not have a theory yesterday but I chew on it and now I'm rather thinking in the common suffix -in, meaning actor, doer (said to be a contraction of egin/ekin). That would only apply to eskuin and eskoin (obvious mere dialectal sound variants). Eskubi and eskuma must have some other etymology probably too colloquial to be found easily. As for eskua, that's "the hand" (nom.) normally and I'm even surprised to see it listed as meaning right hand (must be somewhere where they make the nominative with -e).

    "As I said before, NEC languages, although geograhically close, have diverged for several millenia. And if you include NWC, the chronology would be still deeper. This whay Starostin's PNC is closer to the actual PVC than you might think".

    I understand this. EC and WC are so different that not everyone even admits they are related at all, so their divergence must be older than than Afroasiatic (and hence older than Neolithic or rather Epipaleolithic).

    I mean: Afroasiatic identity is clear enough to be consensual, even if also tenuous enough to raise some 'protests' now and then, but the family must be at least older than Capsian and Kebaran cultures (both Epipaleolithic/Mesolithic cultures). And I'm considering only the northern branch here.

    If there is a NWC-NEC connection, it must be from that age or older. That's definitively older than would be for a connection with Basque and Iberian, if Neolithic. So Basque and Iberian would be best explained then from proto-NEC (as it seems closer), the same that Spanish and French are best explained from (Vulgar) Latin rather than PIE.

    This raises the issue of why would be the oriental branch the one influencing the West, rather than the occidental one, believed to have got presence in Anatolia (Hattic). But well...

    However if the Basque-NEC (or Basque NC) connection is older, as suggested by several elements, then NC is a branch and not the original thing. If this is correct, then your method is like explaining French based on Sanskrit or Tocharian: it has some relation but it's not the root.

    That's why I think that in order to do what you try to do (something I do appreciate in spite of the differences) it'd be necessary first to reconstruct a proto-Vasco-Caucasian and not just assume that PNC is it. (And, if the Neolithic hypothesis is correct, then proto-NEC should be better reference anyhow).

    "You can find it easily on the Internet by search for "La Serreta". It's a lead foil engraved on both sides, thus 2 different texts".

    Ok, I knew that one but only one side. But I found a copy with both sides and I will take a look.

    ReplyDelete
  16. I have already transcribed it (on this online carbon copy) and I'm not sure the word is ORTI (or rather OŔTI) because my first impression was ORITI.

    Anyhow, it happens as with another Ibero-Jonian text (El Cigarralajo) which I transcribed into Basque alphabet (i.e. making Ś=Z and Ŕ=RR) many years ago and showed to a native speaker friend from Ondarru later on. He read it and said half-jokingly: "not from Ondarroa (his home town) but from Lekeitio (the nearby town where Basque is spoken totally different) maybe".

    A lot of words, including verbs, clearly look Basque but the whole is not Basque - or at least not modern Basque. Dedin (dadin), dudan, ildu, enai (anai probably), zakar izkea (rough speech/dialect? - in the lateral text), dadula (dudala?), buistineri (bustinari: to the we wet one?), bagadok (badok? badogu?), baśero (bezero? or ba zara?), baida (bait da?) idike (idi+suffix?), baseŕokaŕ (not sure but sounds to basa and baserritar, but also seems to have oker instead...), belagasikaur (almost sure bela gazi(-ka) ur: black salty water or salty water of the raven), kidei (kidei: to the friends), gaibigait (maybe gai bi gaitz: two wrong matters).

    But I cannot figure out what can be OŔTI (or ORITI). If the letter T was used also to write TZ (notice the lack of TZ, TS, TX sounds in written Iberian) or Iberian lacked them and had subsumed all them into a simple T, then OŔTI can well be Ortzi (Urtzi, Ost), a god of sky (maybe even the same as Greek Uranus) that shows up specially in week day meteorological phenomenons' words (ortzadar, osteguna...) but is also mentioned by Medieval French pilgrim and writer Aymeric Picaud, who left written "et Deus vocant Urcia" (the call God 'Urcia').

    I could not find much from context because the surrounding words are all strange to me, however the T meaning sometimes TZ was suggested by another phrase in the text, the one boldfaced above.

    Could it be a votive text? A prayer? When the people of Ondarru has difficulties sometimes understanding those of Lekitto, who live just a few kilometers away, you can imagine how difficult it can be to understand ancient Iberian, even if "recently" related. I can imagine that there was nothing like an standard Iberian either (or not much of it at least).

    ReplyDelete
  17. Is -gar/-ger proto-Basque or proto-NC or what? I'm trying to guess which words use these suffixes and can't think but oker and maybe those in kel- (keldo, etc.) if anything.
    Sorry, I should have to mention -gar, -ger is only found as second member in (fossilized) compounds, not as a independent word. Examples: lan-gar, lan-tzar, lan-tzer 'drizzle', oz-ker 'sour wine'.

    Bad is txar (< *zar), which is probably related to zahar (old) and zakar (rough) (k>h).
    No, it isn't. This is actually the palatalizated form of -gar/-ger (see above).

    I did not have a theory yesterday but I chew on it and now I'm rather thinking in the common suffix -in, meaning actor, doer (said to be a contraction of egin/ekin). That would only apply to eskuin and eskoin (obvious mere dialectal sound variants). Eskubi and eskuma must have some other etymology probably too colloquial to be found easily. As for eskua, that's "the hand" (nom.) normally and I'm even surprised to see it listed as meaning right hand (must be somewhere where they make the nominative with -e).
    I disagree. I should also have said that the word 'good' (modern on) was either bon or hon in Proto-Basque (no asterisk, as they're attested in Aquitanian inscriptions), so IMHO these words would reflect an old compound *eśku-(b)on.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Anyhow, it happens as with another Ibero-Jonian text (El Cigarralajo) which I transcribed into Basque alphabet (i.e. making Ś=Z and Ŕ=RR)
    Please remember that the Ionian script actually reverses s/ś and r/ŕ, that is, śin the Ionian script corresponds to s (=Basque /z, tz/) and
    ŕ to r (=Basque r/)

    But I cannot figure out what can be OŔTI (or ORITI). If the letter T was used also to write TZ (notice the lack of TZ, TS, TX sounds in written Iberian)
    No, it wasn't. Actually it's Iberian t/d which corresponds to native Basque tz/z in some words, so in phonetical grounds alone the correspondence between Iberian orti and Basque ortzi could be possible. But I'd prefer 'silver' (PNC *ɦerVtswi > Etruscan hursi) for that matter.

    zakar izkea (rough speech/dialect?
    No, this is the personal name Sakaŕiskeŕ, also found in other inscriptions. It probably corresponds to the sender/owner of the document.

    baseŕokaŕ
    This is a verb e-ŕok-, possibly 'to send', also found in ga-ŕok-an. Iberian verbs have some similarity to the Basque ones, even including the e- prefix, but they're also very important differences. It looks like Iberian personal agreement marks are PREFIXED when Basque has them SUFFIXED. Iberian also lacks an ergative, so it uses PASIVE voice in transitive phrases, with the main verb along the auxiliary 'to be' an, ar.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Ok, I think you make sense for most of the stuff, after all. I take notice.

    I have some lesser issues with your interpretation of phonetics in Iberian but that's I guess normal, as nobody ever listened to a native Iberian speaker.

    "But I'd prefer 'silver' (PNC *ɦerVtswi > Etruscan hursi) for that matter"...

    It seems to me impossible unless it is a direct Etruuscan influence (what also seems most unlikely). A word for silver conserved through a Neolithic without silver? It does not make sense.

    Additionally, there are two other variants for silver registered in the Atlanto-Mediterranean arch for which Iberia is pivotal: the most native looking is zilar/silver, which Venneman thinks Vasconic. The other one is Greek argyros, and derivates.

    So Etruscan hursi looks like the Anatolian/Caucasian version, zilar/silver is the Atlantic version.

    Cheers.

    ReplyDelete
  20. "But I'd prefer 'silver' (PNC *ɦerVtswi > Etruscan hursi) for that matter"...
    It seems to me impossible unless it is a direct Etruuscan influence (what also seems most unlikely). A word for silver conserved through a Neolithic without silver? It does not make sense.


    Good point, you're suggesting this could be a Wanderwort. Unfortunately the word is a hapax, its only occurence being on this text, so further inferences are hampered by lack of data.

    Notice also that we can't hardly expect a mention to a thunder god like Ortzi in what presumably is a trade document.

    Additionally, there are two other variants for silver registered in the Atlanto-Mediterranean arch for which Iberia is pivotal: the most native looking is zilar/silver, which Venneman thinks Vasconic.

    I'm affraid Vennemann's "Vasconic" is nothing more than rubbish. The word 'silver' has a clear Semitic (probably Phoenician) etymology, as a compound from the roots *ɬ’rp- 'to burn, to smelt, to refine' and *brr- 'clear, pure, white'.

    The other one is Greek argyros, and derivates.
    This derives from the IE root *H2erg´- 'white', which is also the source of Basque argi 'light'.

    ReplyDelete
  21. "Good point, you're suggesting this could be a Wanderwort".

    Guess so, IF it means silver, what is only your conjecture.

    Why would the second word in the text be silver? You say it's probably a trade document but, excepting BAŚERO, the possible "bezero" (customer), which could be something else (ba zara = you are (emphatic or conditional), or even something related to the wild lands (baso/-a), as in BASEŔOKAŔ (but different S/Ś and Ŕ/R, admittedly).

    For a trade document in any case, I miss numbers: not one I can identify.

    Personally I am quite convinced that Vasconic is for real, even if Venneman has shortcomings in the understanding. It's not just silver/zilar, but, in English only, words like kill/ill (cf. il(-du)), ash (cf. auts) and others (once I even read a linguist who argued that 'a hundred' was a deformation of ehun, though IMO that's very far fetched). You also have toponimy, professional suffix -er/-ero (< -ari < ari(tu) <> arin) and even Latin preffix bi-, which obviously is not IE. Venneman misses a lot of stuff and maybe exaggerates the importance of things that are quite dubious like the infamous "ganibet" but he is clearly on the right track anyhow.

    Another issue would be if Vasconic is Paleo- or Neolithic ("Megalithic" by reason of its spread area) but it existed almost for sure. Otherwise there'd be too many homonyms meaning almost the same thing as they do in Basque in a too wide area.

    And of course another issue is if and how Vasconic is related to Caucasian languages, which I think it is (at least NEC).

    "This derives from the IE root *H2erg´- 'white', which is also the source of Basque argi 'light'".

    Again this is a poorly thought etymology because you are not providing a possible vehicle, which must be a Western IE language, either Celtic or Italic (Latin, Romances). AFAIK neither of these, nor Greek either, uses any derivative of *H2erg´ for white, bright or light, and it's always counter-intuitive that Basque would lose such a basic word in favor of an import that is not even plausible.

    IMO the opposite may be correct in fact: Greeks were doing business (and maybe politics) in the "far west" (Iberia, SE France, probably even the Atlantic) since the Mycenaean period (with the void of the Dark Ages, in which the Phoenicians replaced them). Even before Greeks existed as such probably Eteocypriots (and maybe Eteocretans) were already were surely in contact with Iberia and its mineral resources (specially tin). It is possible that they borrowed the word from Basque/Iberian/Ligurian: the natives meant "bright", "shiny" but the traders adopted it as meaning silver.

    That's my opinion in any case. Another word I suspect Greeks borrowed from "Hesperian" languages is keltos (Celt), which I think derived from keldo (dirty, miserable) but this would be later, in the context of Phocaean colonialism, when Catalonia was (re-)Iberized right when Massilians founded Emporion (notice that Greeks had no colonies in Celtic territory, only in Ligurian and Iberian ones, suggestive of Celtic hostility and some sort of alliance between Phocaeans and Ibero-Ligurians).

    [Note: why do I include Ligurians in all this? Because it's highly convenient to explain Vascoid toponimy in parts of Italy and also the pattern of Phocaean-Iberian relations. Anyhow, I'm quite sure they were not "Celtic" or otherwise IE, as they are continuous with Neolithic cultures in archaeological terms].

    One related question: I know of no actual IE word meaning white or similar that could related to *H2erg´, so where does this reconstruction come from?

    ReplyDelete
  22. PS- But you might be right about silver (AND hence zilar too) being of Phoenician origin. However there are too many Rs and too few sibilants in those two proto-Semitic words - so totally unsure. It'd be nice if we knew how Phoencians said silver in order to accept or discard that alleged etymology.

    ReplyDelete
  23. I'm checking around and actually silver looks very genuinely IE (or at least of the Northern European ancient Sprachbund area): similar words exist in all Germanic, Slavic and Baltic languages. Nowadays Celtic words for silver are Latin-derived (in the argentum line) but it's possible they used silver-like ones in the remote past and hence it was borrowed by Basque as zilar, replacing whatever word was used earlier.

    Alternatively it could be an Atlantic PIE word, of course, as Scandinavia was once part of that cultural area but there's no way to prove or reasonably argue this line. So I'm now leaning towards a North/Central/NE European origin and hence not Semitic nor clearly pre-IE (could be IE or could be from a pre-IE of that area).

    ReplyDelete
  24. Why would the second word in the text be silver? You say it's probably a trade document but, excepting BAŚERO, the possible "bezero" (customer), which could be something else (ba zara = you are (emphatic or conditional), or even something related to the wild lands (baso/-a), as in BASEŔOKAŔ (but different S/Ś and Ŕ/R, admittedly).

    No, no. We've got here a verb e-ŕok-, possibly 'to send'.

    Again this is a poorly thought etymology because you are not providing a possible vehicle, which must be a Western IE language, either Celtic or Italic (Latin, Romances).

    You forget Celtic *argjo- 'white, snow'.

    One related question: I know of no actual IE word meaning white or similar that could related to *H2erg´, so where does this reconstruction come from?

    I'd suggest you take a look to any decent PIE etymological dictionary.

    I'm also affraid your other etymology proposals are crackpot ones, in the same way than Vennemann's "Vasconic".

    It'd be nice if we knew how Phoencians said silver in order to accept or discard that alleged etymology.

    Unfortunately, they don't live any more to tell us. But there're some other words in Iberian and Basque of probable Phoenician-Punic origin.

    I'm checking around and actually silver looks very genuinely IE (or at least of the Northern European ancient Sprachbund area): similar words exist in all Germanic, Slavic and Baltic languages.

    But only as a cultural Wanderwort. Vennemann has now changed some of his theories, and now he proposed a Phoenician adstrate in Proto-Germanic. The etymology of silver is undoubtedly Semitic.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Ok, thanks for the discussion. I don't think I can add much more to it. Cheers. :)

    ReplyDelete
  26. Why would the second word in the text be silver?

    A possible (high tentative) translation could be:

    iŕike For this (document)
    orti silver
    ga-ŕok an will be/is sent to us

    Possibly I'll write something about La Serreta's lead foil, so we could continue this discussion later.

    ReplyDelete
  27. I've learned some Punic in the meanwhile. The Punic word for "silver" is "chasf" (compare Hebrew "keseph", Akkadian "kaspum"). I suppose it's not very useful.
    Greetings
    Marco

    ReplyDelete
  28. Yes, this is the Semitic word for 'silver'. But what's interesting the word silver is a Wanderwort *silVbVr- whose origin can be traced to the Iberian Peninsula. This can be analized as a compound whose second member is the Afrasian root *bir(r)- 'metal' (e.g. Amharic bərr 'coin, silver').

    I'm not so sure about the first member, but I think it could mean 'bright' or 'to shine'.

    ReplyDelete