Furnée and the Pre-Greek substrate (updated)

In order to characterize Pre-Greek loanwords in his own Etymological Dictionary of Greek (2010)¹, the Dutch Indo-Europeanist Robert Beekes used his compatriot Edvard Furnee's PhD disertation Die wichtigsten konsonantischen Erscheinungen des Vorgriechischen (1972), a pioneer work later followed by Vorgriechisch-Kartvelisches. Studiem zum ostmediterranen Substrat nebst einem Versuch zu einer neuen pelasgischen Theorie (1979) and Paläokartvelisch-pelasgische Einflüsse in den indogermanischen Sprachen. Nachgewiesen anhand der spätindogermanisch-griechischen Reflexe urkartvelischer Sibilanten und Affrikanten (1986).

In these later works (thoroughly ignored by Beekes²), Furnee develops the theory Pre-Greek/Pelasgian was a Paleo-Kartvelian (an older stage than Proto-Kartvelian) language. For example, Greek kháos 'abyss, chasm'³ < Pre-Greek *kʰáw- can be linked to PK *qew-/*qaw- 'ravine' (Old Georgian qev-i, qev-n-i, Georgian xev-i, Megrel xab-o)⁴, where PK q ~ Pre-Greek kʰ'⁵.

In my opinion, these and other correspondences between Pre-Greek and Kartvelian would be evidence of language contact rather than a genetic relationship⁶, as they include borrowings into the opposite direction. For example, although PK *tor- (Georgian tor-i, torn-i 'harness, armour')⁷ corresponds to Greek thôraks (Ionic thôrēks, Mycenean TO-RA-KE) 'cuirass; trunk, chest'⁸ < Pre-Greek *tʰur-āk-, it's clear the source can't be Paleo-Kartvelian.

This would be an Eurasiatic root found in Latin corium 'skin, hide, leather', cortex 'bark, shell', Sanskrit cárman-, Avestan čarǝman- < PIE *s-ker- 'bark, skin'⁹, PK *tser- (Laz cara) 'rough infertile earth', Proto-Uralic *tɕarV 'hard', Proto-Altaic *tSarV 'snow, snow crust', Proto-Dravidian *tSara- 'rough on surface', and whose protoform is reconstructed by Dolgopolsky as *tɕ(ˀ)arV/*tsˀarV 'hard/firm, hardened crust, hard surface' (ND 311). The initial sibilant affricate was centumized into a velar stop¹⁰ (palatalized in Indo-Iranian) in IE but it gave a dental stop in Pre-Greek.
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¹ Which is part of the so-called Indo-European Etymological Dictionaries Online (IEDO) project, a series of etymological dictionaries of IE languages edited by Alexander Lubotsky from Leiden University. Until some years ago, preliminary versions of them were available online for free under the label Indo-European Etymological Dictionary (IEED), but unfortunately now they are of restricted access, as copyright is owned by publisher Brill. 
² He regards Pre-Greek as a uniform non-IE language "with no recognizable cognates", thus ignoring most recent research on the subject. 
³ On the other hand, the related kháũnos 'slack, porous; vain, frivolous' < Pre-Greek *kʰáw-n-o- derives from a suffixed variant of the same root. Beekes' allusion to a possible parallel in Germanic and Baltic 'palate' is totally ungrounded. See R.S.P. Beekes (2010), op. cit., p. 1614.
⁴ E.J. Furnée (1979), op. cit., §57.
⁵ Notice, however, the possible link (already observed in Varro's De lingua latina) between the Greek word and Latin cavus 'hollow' < PIE *kouH-o- by Thurneysen-Havet's Law. See L. Horton-Smith (1895): Establishment and Extension of the Law of Thurneysen and Havet, The American Journal of Philology, 16, pp. 444-467.
⁶ In fact, the Kartvelianist and Indo-Europeanist Thomas Gamkrelidze accepted some of Furnée's correspondences, relating them to the argonauts. See T.V. Gamkrelidze & V.I. Ivanov (1995): Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans, p. 799-804.

⁷ E.J. Furnée (1979), op. cit., §16.

⁸ R.S.P. Beekes (2010), op. cit., p. 569.
⁹ Please notice Greek kôrykos 'leather sack' is unrelated. See R.S.P. Beekes (2010), op. cit., p. 816.
¹⁰ Not *sk- as thought by Nostraticists, because *s- (called "s-mobile" in the literature) is a fossilized prefix.

Aragonese paniquesa 'weasel' (updated)

Aragonese paniquesa, Gascon panquèra, panquèsa 'weasel (Mustela nivalis)' is a diminutive form (with the Romance suffix -ella) which underwent a folk etymology from pan y queso 'bread and cheese'¹. This word shows the idiosyncratic treatment of -ll- in Pyrenaic², similar to the one of West Asturian, which has a voiceless retroflex africate [tʂ].
 

This is an Eurasiatic root found in Eskimo-Aleut *paniɣ 'daughter', Altaic *p^hjun[e] ‘a small wild animal’ (Tungusic *pün´- 'jerboa, flying squirrel, mole; weasel; hedgehog', Mongolian *hünegen 'fox', Turkic *enük (~ *ünek) 'young of a wild animal, puppy'), which I'd link (through labialization of the initial labiovelar) to Caucasian *ɦnǝ:qq’wǝ: (~ *ɦqq’wǝ:nǝ:) 'mouse, rat'³, Yeniseian *ku:n´ (~ g-) 'wolverine', Balto-Slavic *keun- 'marten'.

Possibly also related are Latin cunīculus (a Paleo-Hispanic loanword) and dialectal Basque untxi (HN, R), entxe (HN) 'rabbit', all them diminutive forms.

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¹ Hence the Basque calque ogigaztae (B) 'weasel', from ogi 'bread' and gaztae 'cheese'. For other names of 'weasel' in Basque, see here.

² An extinct Romance language spoken in the High Middle Ages and which gave loanwords to Aragonese and some Pyrenaic Gascon varieties, especially Bearnese. 

³ The metathesized variant is related to Uralic *n´ukk- 'fox', Dravidian *nakk- 'fox, jackal'.

Basque sagu 'mouse'

Basque sagu, sat- 'mouse' is a word found in compounds such as satandera (B, G), satandre (S, R) 'weasel' (and(e)re 'lady'), satitsu (G, HN) 'shrew' (itsu 'blind'), sat(h)or 'mole' (second member unknown) and saguzar (B, G) 'bat' (zahar 'old'), and which has cognates in Afrasian: Akkadian šikkû 'mongoose', Amharic ǝkokko (aškokko, ǝškokko) 'rock hyrax', Ge'ez sˁǝkˁ^wǝnkˁ^wǝn, sˁǝkˁ^wǝskˁ^wǝn 'field mouse; a kind of lizard'¹, Central Chadic *Sakw- 'squirrel; dog'², Omotic *sakw/*sikw 'chameleon; bat'. Also related are Kartvelian *tsiqˀw- 'squirrel, mouse' (Georgian ciqˀwi 'squirrel'), Dravidian *tśikk- 'mouse'.

Also related are Etruscan seχ 'daughter'³ and Old Turkish čekün 'young of marmot', Tungus čekše 'tarbagan (Marmota sibirica)'. Caucasian *tʃˀæku/*tʃækˀu 'young (of animals), boy' would also belong here.

Although Bengtson links the Basque word to Caucasian *tsa:rggwɨ:(~ -ǝ:,-a:) 'weasel, marten' (see here), from which Starostin thinks the Kartvelian word was borrowed, in my opinion this is a genuine Eurasiatic root which in some languages (Kartvelian⁴, Dravidian, Altaic⁵) conflated with a phonetically similar word 'small'⁶, probably for tabooistic reasons. 

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¹ Quoted by Dolgoposky (ND 310a). See also W. Leslau (2010): Concise Dictionary of Ge'ez, p. 226.

² Where S is an unspecified sibilant.
³ Also spelled as sec, śec, śeχ. 

⁴ Kartvelian *tśˀukˀ- (Georgian cˀukˀ-an-a 'very small', Megrel čˀukˀ- 'mouse').

⁵ Altaic *tʃhjà:khe(~ -u) 'small'.

⁶ For which Dolgopolsky (ND 334) reconstructs a separated root, which he considers to be phonosymbolic. 

Crackpots in action

In historical linguistics, the term crackpot is applied to people (no matter whether academic or amateur) who defend absurd theories (and also to the theories themselves).  Crackpots should be differentiated from pseudo-linguists, people with none or little knowledge of linguistics who engage themselves in the subject with catastrophic results (e.g. Edo Nyland or Polat Kaya).

I'm going to list the crackpots I've got acquainted with in my own career¹. The first one is the French Arnaud Fournet, who has posited an "Proto-Exo-African" [sic] super-family to replace Nostratic. Not only he considers Basque and Etruscan to be remnants of a Paleo-European substrate², but he also claims Yenisseian is an IE language, and has "discovered" several imaginary IE substrate languages in present-day France. Recently, he has written with the Nostraticist Allan Bomhard a paper on the supposed relationship between IE and Hurrian.

The Canadian Glen Gordon is known for his Indo-Aegean hypothesis relating IE and Etruscan³. Being a sui generis Nostraticist, he's a Bomhard's fan but a harsh critic of Starostin⁴. He also likes to "nip in the bud" his rivals' theories.

The German Theo Vennemann is an academic scholar who believes OEH isn't related to IE but to Basque, constituting a "Vasconic" substrate. He also posits an "Atlantidic" substrate akin to Semitic in the Atlantic fringe⁵.

The Italian Mario Alinei is the champion of the so-called Paleolithic Continuity Theory (PCT) of IE origins, which states that IE languages were already spoken in their respective historical homelands since the Mesolithic. The Valencian Jesús Sanchis is one of his supporters.

Last but not least is Michel Morvan, an unortodox French Vascologist who posited a genetical relationship between Basque and Eurasiatic in his doctoral thesis Les origines linguistiques du Basque (1996).

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¹ I should notice that some of them have criticized my own work, even to the point of making personal attacks and censoring me in their own blogs/lists.

² In his own words, Basque and Etruscan "never moved an inch".

³ In the same line than the Spanish Indo-Europeanist Rodríguez Adrados, but a more sophisticated approach.

⁴ Even mentioning the name Starostin makes him angry.
⁵ According to Wikipedia, he now has replaced this theory with a Punic superstrate in Germanic.

More about pigs (updated)

Basque urde 'pig' is a Neolithic Wanderwort also found in NEC *wHa:rttɬ’wǝ 'boar, pig' and IE *pork´-o- 'young pig, piglet' and whose ultimate origin is Austronesian *beRek 'domesticated pig'.

On the other hand, there's the isolated Roncalese form ti, apparently similar to Albanian thi < IE *suH- 'pig'¹.

Basque herauts 'male boar', herause, heusi, iñaus, iraus(i), irusi, i(h)ausi 'heat of sow' is a compound *ena-uśi whose second member is probably related to Kartvelian *eʃw- 'boar, pig' and possibly also to Berber *kus- 'pig'², ultimately deriving from a Vasco-Caucasian root 'ungulate' (see this post).

This word has been the object of a confusion as regarding the Aquitanian theonym HERAVSCORRITSEHE. Although the German linguist Hugo Schuchardt correctly proposed its first element to be related to Basque errauts, erhauts 'cinder, dust' (a compound from erre 'burnt' and hauts 'dust'), he changed his mind afterwards and linked it to herauts, being unaware of the variants which point to a nasal in Proto-Basque.

This mistake, resulting from a poor understanding of the ortographic conventions of the Aquitanian inscriptions (in Latin), which employed -R- to represent the thrill rhotic (Basque <rr>) instead of the flap one (Basque <r>), as well as laziness for reconstructing the protoform of the Basque word, has been copied down by Vascologists to this day².

This root is also found in Sardinian irrussu 'little boar, whose first member is related to IE *(w)eper-o- 'boar', an interesting Neolithic word linked to Arabic ʕifr-, ʕufr- 'pig, boar; piglet', ultimately deriving from an Eurasiatic root 'ungulate' also found in IE *kapr-o- 'male goat' and Arabic ɣafr-, ɣufr- 'young of deer or goat, goat kid'.

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¹ Which should be reconstructed as *suq- in account of Celtic *sukk-o-. 
² This is the source of Asturian gocho, Basque (Zuberoan) kutxu, Catalan cotx, Aragonese cochín, Spanish cochino, French cochon 'pig'. 
³ Gorrochategui: Estudio sobre la onomástica indígena de Aquitania (1984), pp. 330-331. 

Sea meadows

Although considered by Vascologists to be a borrowing from Latin sŏlum¹, Basque sor(h)o 'cultivated field; meadow'² is actually an Iberian loanword related to PNC *dʒʒǝlV 'plain, plateau'³ whose native counterpart is the archaic Lapurdian zar(h)o 'meadow'. This means PNC *ddʒ corresponds to an apico-alveolar sibilant /ś/ (Basque <s>) in Iberian but a lamino-alveolar /s/ (Basque <z>) in Vasconic.

This root is related to Eurasiatic *TSolV 'steppe, valley, meadow', reflected in Slavic *selo 'arable field' but which in other IE languages underwent a shift meaning to 'sea, lake'⁴: Greek hélos 'wet meadow, marsh', Old Indian sáras- 'lake, pond, pool'.
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¹ Borrowed into Basque zoru 'ground, floor'.
² With the Biscayan variant solo (B) 'field (prepared for sowing)'.

³ Bengtson proposed a different etymology from PNC *tʃʃHæɫu 'earth, ground, sand', which semantically doesn't fit.

⁴ For people grown up inland, large water extensions look like meadows.