I am very interested in pre-IE languages in Europe. There has been some debate on the validity of even discussing those, because Europe was fragmented into hundreds of tribes and there are no direct written sources of course (cf. Donald Ringe vs. Theo Vennemann). That seems fair enough. But I think there is a notable exception, which relates to Early European Farmers (EEFs). I understand that they were relatively homogenous (G2a2a and G2a2B - from the Eupedia article). Also the neolithic expansion was relatively short by linguistic standards (~6000-5000 BCE). It's not unreasonable to assume they spoke the same non IE-language (divided into dialects). Question is: can we identify remnants of this language (we can dub it Danubian)? Here are the few candidates I found:
(1) Aquitanian (Basque) - Strongest candidate. Basque Country is overwhelmingly R1b (DF27), not G2, but R1b IE invaders would have adopted the indigenous language spoken by the EEF women (cf. Maciamo Hay posts on the Basque forum). Why did it happen only in the Basque Country? There is an extensive study (Iñigo Olalde, 2019) that shows that Basque people were genetically isolated after 1000 BCE and so not much impacted by the Celtic wave. Between the beginning of IE invasions and the Celtic invasion (2700-1000 period), there could have been several cultures where non-IE languages were spoken. But the Celtic wave was the final blow to non-IE languages (except Euskara).
That being said, if "Danubian" is Basque, there should be remnants in toponomy/regional substrates elsewhere. I am not sure what has been found on this. I haven't anything in that sense in French toponymy books.
(2) Pre-Greek (non IE substrate to ancient Greek). There is a remarkable book by Pr. Beekes where he lists 1,100 Greek words with Pre-Greek origin (Iris, Gê, Thalassa etc.). One of the two main branches of the Neolithic expansion being the Cardial Culture (6400-5500), which came to Europe through Northern Greece, that's also a strong candidate.
(3) Minoan. The Minoan culture was founded separately from the Cardial culture and seems more associated with the J2 haplogroup. The amount of vocabulary is very limited, making the research difficult.
(4) Nuragic, the old language of Sardinia. Also a strong candidate. Sardinian male population has the largest percentage of G2a haplotype, especially in the center of the island. There is actually a fair amount of identified pre-Sard, toponymic words (Massimo Pittau, Luoghi e Toponimi della Sardegna). A comparison with Basque and Pre-Greek would be interesting.
(5) Etruscan. Old debate: were Etruscans indigenous to Italy or Iron age immigrants from Asia? The most recent genetic study (Max Planck Institute 2021) seems to go in favor of the indigineous theory. In that case, the Etruscan language could be a candidate. The available glossary is limited in size. M. Pittau does some comparison between Nuragic and Etruscan.
(6) Goidelic substrate (based on Gaelic words with no Indo-European roots). Another strong candidate: as Ireland was isolated. But, unlike the languages mentioned above, we only know a handful of hypothetical words. Probably because the EEF population was wiped out.
(7) German substrate. Unlikely candidate in my opinion, based on geography and genetics.
(8) European toponyms. A certain number of them (in particular hydronyms and oronyms) can't be explained through ancien or modern languages and some roots are present accross large geographical (*car- meaning "rock"). There have been many debates as whethere these toponyms come from pre-Celtic, Indo-European substrates (i.e. languages spoken between 2700 and 1000) or from pre-Indo-European languages.
Any thoughts?
(1) Aquitanian (Basque) - Strongest candidate. Basque Country is overwhelmingly R1b (DF27), not G2, but R1b IE invaders would have adopted the indigenous language spoken by the EEF women (cf. Maciamo Hay posts on the Basque forum). Why did it happen only in the Basque Country? There is an extensive study (Iñigo Olalde, 2019) that shows that Basque people were genetically isolated after 1000 BCE and so not much impacted by the Celtic wave. Between the beginning of IE invasions and the Celtic invasion (2700-1000 period), there could have been several cultures where non-IE languages were spoken. But the Celtic wave was the final blow to non-IE languages (except Euskara).
That being said, if "Danubian" is Basque, there should be remnants in toponomy/regional substrates elsewhere. I am not sure what has been found on this. I haven't anything in that sense in French toponymy books.
(2) Pre-Greek (non IE substrate to ancient Greek). There is a remarkable book by Pr. Beekes where he lists 1,100 Greek words with Pre-Greek origin (Iris, Gê, Thalassa etc.). One of the two main branches of the Neolithic expansion being the Cardial Culture (6400-5500), which came to Europe through Northern Greece, that's also a strong candidate.
(3) Minoan. The Minoan culture was founded separately from the Cardial culture and seems more associated with the J2 haplogroup. The amount of vocabulary is very limited, making the research difficult.
(4) Nuragic, the old language of Sardinia. Also a strong candidate. Sardinian male population has the largest percentage of G2a haplotype, especially in the center of the island. There is actually a fair amount of identified pre-Sard, toponymic words (Massimo Pittau, Luoghi e Toponimi della Sardegna). A comparison with Basque and Pre-Greek would be interesting.
(5) Etruscan. Old debate: were Etruscans indigenous to Italy or Iron age immigrants from Asia? The most recent genetic study (Max Planck Institute 2021) seems to go in favor of the indigineous theory. In that case, the Etruscan language could be a candidate. The available glossary is limited in size. M. Pittau does some comparison between Nuragic and Etruscan.
(6) Goidelic substrate (based on Gaelic words with no Indo-European roots). Another strong candidate: as Ireland was isolated. But, unlike the languages mentioned above, we only know a handful of hypothetical words. Probably because the EEF population was wiped out.
(7) German substrate. Unlikely candidate in my opinion, based on geography and genetics.
(8) European toponyms. A certain number of them (in particular hydronyms and oronyms) can't be explained through ancien or modern languages and some roots are present accross large geographical (*car- meaning "rock"). There have been many debates as whethere these toponyms come from pre-Celtic, Indo-European substrates (i.e. languages spoken between 2700 and 1000) or from pre-Indo-European languages.
Any thoughts?