Quote:
>[interesting stuff deleted]
>>Heinz Faehnrich has published a list of over 200 possible
>>Sumerian-Kartvelian cognates, at least a few of which (e.g.
>>Sum. duk, Geo dok "jug"; Sum lik, Krtv lek'w/lak'w "dog")
>>might hold up to scrutiny.
>Do you notice a similarity between Sum. lik, Krtv. lek'w/lak'w "dog" and
>IE *wlkp-/*lukp- "wolf" > lat. lupus, gr. lykos, ingl. wolf, ...?
T. Gamkrelidze & V. Ivanov [Indoevrop. jazyk i Indoevropeicy, II, 492]
reconstruct PIE *wl-k0 [0 = {*filter*}lization] & *wl-p as two early IE
derivatives from *wl-/wel "tear, damage" (cp. latin vello "I tear").
Probably a taboo-formation: "the tearer/destroyer" = wolf.
Gamkrelidze is a native speaker of Georgian and an accomplished
Kartvelologist. He also has worked on Sumerian. If he doesn't see
a similarity of the sort you propose, I, at least, am unwilling to
gainsay him -- unless some very compelling evidence to the contrary
is forthcoming.
Quote:
>If I remember well, south caucasian languages were put into the Nostratic
>group, and Sumerian has been proposed to be related, in turn, to Dravidian
>and to Uralo/Altaic (again belonging to Nostratic).
The question of South Caucasian being genetically related to IE (as
opposed to sharing typological similarities and borrowed lexemes
due to contact with
early IE, Semitic, perhaps also Sumerian or its ancestor) remains open
and I remain skeptical.
Quote:
>I would add one personal observation: it has been said, somewhere on this
>newsgroup, that Etruscan should be regarded as a relic of sino-caucasian,
>like Basque; but it has been pointed out by prominent scholars such as
>Pallottino (perhaps the greatest authority on Etruscology) and others that
>Etruscan should be classified as "peri"-IE.
>The problem with Etruscan is that we know too little words to do any serious
>comparative study; but nevertheless, just for curiosity, consider the first
>numerals in Basque, Etruscan and IE:
[numeral lists deleted]
I have little to say about Etruscan, which I haven't thoroughly studied.
In my previous letter I simply pointed to work done by others
on the question of Etruscan-Caucasian lexical correspondances.
I don't know what you mean by "Sino-Caucasian" -- is this a misquote,
or some new mega-family spawned by Shevoroschin, Starostin, Ruhlen or
their ilk?
One more thing -- the alleged Etruscan number words come from a die
with words instead of dots on its facets, no? As I recall there are
grounds for uncertainty concerning the mapping of words to numbers,
or indeed whether they denote numbers at all.
Salut,
Kevin Tuite, UMontreal