Could R1b have moved from the Black Sea to Portugal to found the Beaker Culture ?

[Knovas]

Interesting Kardu. I'm not much versed in those haplogroup clusters, but knowing that R1b subclades are very widespread along West Eurasia, I think all possibilities are open xd

 

[Kardu]

It's just funny that he groups with Germans instead of Armenians or Turks TMRCA with Germans 6000-7000 years. WIth Armenians 10 000...

 

[Taranis]

And what about some basque-patronimical terms related to horse-riding and charriot technology?

The Basque word for chariot is "guda-gurdi", which is a compount word of guda- (from "gudu", "combat") and "gurdi" (cart, wagon). In any case, the Basques certainly didn't have chariots until the iron age.

I come back, be carefull (but don't fear!) 1- for absence of F- in previous celtic, it seams to me that it don't prove anything about local tendancies because F- was almost or totally absent of first I-E (Taranis could tell us?) - in occident it seams being an italic evolution on I-E *BH-, *DH(W)- et *GwH- or late germanic evolution on I-E *P- my first post was not an attempt to affirm than all the Iberia peninisula languages and dialects have the same sbstrate: it was the contrary if you read the part concerning french and latin iberian dialects - again, but look at French Gascons and South Poitevins: partly old Aquitania... good evening

The sound /f/ is completely absent in all of the "old" Celtic languages. It is only developed in Old Irish (from the Proto-Celtic sound *w). It should be noted that although Welsh orthography has the letter "f", the actual sound is a /v/, and not a /f/.

Mosean is otherwise completely correct regarding the development of *f in Italic (though it should be added that the Sabellic languages also had developed *f at medial positions, whereas Latin only developed it for initial *bh, *dh and *gwh) and in Germanic (from *p).

 

[sparkey]

It should be noted that although Welsh orthography has the letter "f", the actual sound is a /v/, and not a /f/.

Welsh is a bad example, I would think, because it has another letter "ff," which has the /f/ sound. For example, "hoffi," "to like," is pronounced with the /f/ sound. (Of course, your point stands, regardless.)

 

[Taranis]

Welsh is a bad example, I would think, because it has another letter "ff," which has the /f/ sound. For example, "hoffi," "to like," is pronounced with the /f/ sound.

Yes, but I think that this /f/ sound only exists in loanwords, for example Welsh "ffin" (boundary) from Latin "finis", or "ffael" (fault, failure).

(Of course, your point stands, regardless.)

Indeed. Also, the /v/ in Welsh corresponds with (depending on position) intervocalic /b/ or /m/ in Proto-Celtic.

 

[zanipolo]

other f examples in ancients

English meaning: brother
German meaning: `Angehöriger der Großfamilie, Bruder, Blutsverwandter'
Material: Ai. bhrā́tar-, av. apers. brātar- `Bruder'; osset. ärvád `Bruder, Verwandter'; arm. eɫbair, Gen. eɫbaur ds.; (*bhrātēr, *bhrātrós); neuphryg. βρατερε `frātrī'; mys.-phryg. braterais = φράτραις?,

gr. φρήτηρ (ion.) ἀδελφός Hes., att. φρά̄τηρ, φρά̄τωρ `Mitglied einer φρατρία (Sippe, Brüderschaft)';
ven. vhraterei `frātrī';

lat. frāter `Bruder', osk. fratrúm, umbr. fratrum, fratrom `frātrum' usw. umher späteslat. frātruēɫis s. WH. I 542);

Where Venetic would have VH ( modern venet still uses fratei), while another is vhos for river ( modern its fos )

latin would have been BH , but on celtic...i am unsure

 

[Segia2]

The Basque word for chariot is "guda-gurdi", which is a compount word of guda- (from "gudu", "combat") and "gurdi" (cart, wagon). In any case, the Basques certainly didn't have chariots until the iron age.

We don't even know where basque-speakers were during good part of the iron age, not to mention bronce age. Their presence in Spain is first attested by a few roman era scarce anthroponyms.

Mitxelena's studies on basque language support a dialectal unity in the Early Middle Ages, something really strange for a language wich has supposedly been spoken in Spain/France for several millenia. Neolithic basques? Maybe... but probably not in south-western Europe.

With some words about horses and charriots occurs the same that with metal-working terms. If there are "patronimical" words in both cases, we should at least valorate the possibility that have been "generated" by analogue processes.

In northern Spain, bronce metallurgy and charriots are first attested in second half of II millenium.

 

[Taranis]

We don't even know where basque-speakers were during good part of the iron age, not to mention bronce age. Their presence in Spain is first attested by a few roman era scarce anthroponyms.

In my opinion this argument does not hold up, since you might as well argue the same about the Celtic-speaking peoples of Iberia: we do not have any evidence for Celtic languages in Iberia before the Roman era*, because nothing was written down. Yet we normally assume they were already there.

*it should be elaborated that the bulk of the Celtiberian written material, even in the Iberian script, comes from the Roman period (2nd century BC), too.

Mitxelena's studies on basque language support a dialectal unity in the Early Middle Ages, something really strange for a language wich has supposedly been spoken in Spain/France for several millenia. Neolithic basques? Maybe... but probably not in south-western Europe.

I agree that the Basque language area in Antiquity was more northern and eastern than it's present-day position, and that only the eastern part of the present-day Basque country was actually Basque in Antiquity. But, the premise that the Basques are not native to there, and only immigrated to the location we know in Antiquity opens a cans of worms of problems: are we to say that the Celts somehow are native where the Basques are not? For the Celtic languages, we find related languages (read: other Indo-European languages) as far east as the Indian subcontinent (Indic languages, attested first with Sanskrit) and the Tarim Basin (Tocharian). For Basque, we have no definite relationship with any other language, other than Aquitanian, which closely resembles what has been reconstructed for Proto-Basque. We do not know how long it takes for two languages no longer being recognizable as being related, but given how we have for example the Afro-Asiatic and Uralic language families (both which are clearly Neolithic in age), this certainly reinforces the idea that Basque is an ancient language.

It should also be added that it is sensible to assume that the Basques had no contact with speakers of Indo-European languages until the bronze age, or possibly even the iron age (note that Basque has a native word for iron, but it's just as possible that the word originally just meant generalized "metal", and not explicitly "iron"), due to the fact that there is only a tiny number of Celtic loanwords into Basque.

With some words about horses and charriots occurs the same that with metal-working terms. If there are "patronimical" words in both cases, we should at least valorate the possibility that have been "generated" by analogue processes.

In northern Spain, bronce metallurgy and charriots are first attested in second half of II millenium.

What is unclear is the connection of Basque with the Iberian language, which after all was spoken across a wide arc from the Roussillon to eastern Andalusia. What is agreed upon is that there appears to be a common pool of shared vocabulary, either through language contact (Basque loanwords into Iberian, or vice versa), or because the two languages belong to the same family. The former appears to be more likely, due to the fact that Basque has been of little help in the decipherment of Iberian. In any case, the Iberians were (seemingly) autochtonous on the Iberian peninsula.

I have to ask however, what exactly do you mean by "patronymic" words?

 

[Segia2]

Obviously basque isn't helfpul to translate iberian: we lack "rosetta stones" in iberian language (latin-iberian, only a few brief and uncompleted scriptions) and there is an important chronological difference between writen basque and iberian. Imagine Europe is a semitic-speaking continent and there's only one non-semitic language left: dutch, a very "contaminated" one . However, archaelogists have discovered a language near the zone where some dutch speakers live. It is called "middle french", and it's a very fragmentary language. Those archaelogists have also discovered a few names in the dutch-speaking area who resemble current dutch. There are certain paralelism between both dutch names and middle french ones. Do you think middle french could be translated using current dutch? I don't think so. Coincidences between both languages are matter of mutual loanwords.

I know we can't establish a clear relationship between basque-aquitanian and iberian through our scarce data. Some aquitanian and iberian names:

	AQUITANO ÍBERO ILLURBERRIXO iltur-ber'i HARBELEX ar's-beles' BAESERTE baiser BELEXCON-IS beles'-kon ENNEBOX en(a)-bos' LAURCO laur'-kon TARBELLI (tribe) tar'-beles' TALSCON- talsku ERGE DEO -erker DANN-ADINN- tan?-atin
Strabo, who wasn't a linguist, wrote that aquitanians differed much from gauls in look and language, being similar to iberians (in both issues) To me, there are signs that show aquitanian and iberian resemblances aren't product of plain word-loaning.

 

[Taranis]

Obviously basque isn't helfpul to translate iberian: we lack "rosetta stones" in iberian language (latin-iberian, only a few brief and uncompleted scriptions) and there is an important chronological difference between writen basque and iberian. Imagine Europe is a semitic-speaking continent and there's only one non-semitic language left: dutch, a very "contaminated" one . However, archaelogists have discovered a language near the zone where some dutch speakers live. It is called "middle french", and it's a very fragmentary language. Those archaelogists have also discovered a few names in the dutch-speaking area who resemble current dutch. There are certain paralelism between both dutch names and middle french ones. Do you think middle french could be translated using current dutch? I don't think so. Coincidences between both languages are matter of mutual loanwords.

I know we can't establish a clear relationship between basque-aquitanian and iberian through our scarce data. Some aquitanian and iberian names:

Strabo, who wasn't a linguist, wrote that aquitanians differed much from gauls in look and language, being similar to iberians (in both issues) To me, there are signs that show aquitanian and iberian resemblances aren't product of plain word-loaning.

Let me say this, you have a valid point, especially regarding the absence of a "rosetta stone", but I would be cautious regarding the last statement. Please note that I'm not ruling out the possibility of a common ancestry of Basque and Iberian, it's not that easy. If Aquitanian and Iberian were as similar as the examples given above, and Basque and Iberian sounds to correspond to each other, then Basque (or reconstructed Proto-Basque) should be indeed useful for the decipherment of Iberian, moreso than your hypothetical example of Dutch and Middle French. Since this however isn't the case, the relationship must be more complicated than that.

By the way, where did you get these examples from?

 

[MOESAN]

Yes, but I think that this /f/ sound only exists in loanwords, for example Welsh "ffin" (boundary) from Latin "finis", or "ffael" (fault, failure).



Indeed. Also, the /v/ in Welsh corresponds with (depending on position) intervocalic /b/ or /m/ in Proto-Celtic.

ff/f/ exists in Welsh as in other brythonic languages, even in truly celtic words (I guess) BUT AS YOU SAY not in the initial position in word - this -F sound occurs in old implosive -PP or -RP if I dn't mistake (it's not my first 'dada'): "hard spiration" (the same for -CH << -KK or - RK, -TH << -TT or -RT (and more?) - this final -F is dropped down very often in colloquial welsh -
I'm very sad Welsh people choosed F for /v/ and FF for /f/ - look at the old writing (VIII?XIX?) and DD for DH (symetric to TH)
before: korf - now >> corff + trev >> tref (it was easier for a breton or a cornish speaker)

 

[Segia2]

Let me say this, you have a valid point, especially regarding the absence of a "rosetta stone", but I would be cautious regarding the last statement. Please note that I'm not ruling out the possibility of a common ancestry of Basque and Iberian, it's not that easy. If Aquitanian and Iberian were as similar as the examples given above, and Basque and Iberian sounds to correspond to each other, then Basque (or reconstructed Proto-Basque) should be indeed useful for the decipherment of Iberian, moreso than your hypothetical example of Dutch and Middle French. Since this however isn't the case, the relationship must be more complicated than that.

By the way, where did you get these examples from?

http://webs.ono.com/documenta/ib8b_sp.htm

Reconstructed basque is very problematic because we don't have known languages to compare, is a very internal process. That's why I put the dutch example. We do know "lots" of IE languages, but what if we didn't know them? We'd be as skeptical on it as in the basque/iberian case.

I have to leave now, I'll continue later.

 

[Taranis]

http://webs.ono.com/documenta/ib8b_sp.htm

Well, from what I can tell, it more or less says what I've been trying to say all along, doesn't it?

But the problem is: what happens with those Aquitanian words clearly interpretable by the Basque language? There is no Iberian equivalence for CISON, ANDERE or NESCA. Only the Iberian base s'an(i) may be related with SENI and SEMBE (this probably from *'sen-be'). Also worth noting is Gorrochategui's remark that whereas those Aquitanian words that resemble Basque adjectives (such as ILLUN 'ilun' "dark" and BERRI 'berri' "new") do are attested in adjective position (that is, as second member of compound), the presumed Iberian "equivalents" iltun and ber'(i)don't observe that rule!!. So, although the data on Aquitanian language resemble that on Iberian, probably they are not closely related. Aquitanian is Old Basque, but Aquitanian is not Iberian; they are two different languages.

Reconstructed basque is very problematic because we don't have known languages to compare, is a very internal process.

I disagree on your statement that the reconstruction of ancient Basque is "very problematic". While it is true that this was done through internal reconstruction (because the comparative method fails here, since, as you said, we have nothing to compare Basque against), it doesn't mean that this method is flawed. On the contrary: if you look at the Latin and Romance loanwords into Basque, it is clear that these are changed according to Basque sound laws. From there we can go and see how native words should be changed according to the same sound laws. The crucial part, however, is that it is actually possible to verify the accuracy of these sound laws with Aquitanian names, and it turns out that the reconstructed Proto-Basque forms are most of the times virtually identical to what little is attested of Aquitanian.

The only aspect which is really problematic of the above method is when this "Proto-Basque" was spoken. Since we are using Romance and Latin loanwords, this can only give us the stage of the Basque language around 2000-2100 years ago.

That's why I put the dutch example. We do know "lots" of IE languages, but what if we didn't know them? We'd be as skeptical on it as in the basque/iberian case.

As for your hypothetical example if we had fewer Indo-European languages to compare against, well there is a good counter-example that it is actually still possible. If you look at the Uralic languages, a language family that is much smaller, much more disconnected than Indo-European (and also possibly older!), it is still possible to reconstruct common Proto-Uralic.