Talk:Paleo-European history overview

The discussion is now open. Have fun! --WeepingElf (talk) 07:25, 22 January 2018 (PST)

This is very interesting! For real!

- About the Etruscans, I found this map [1], I believe that the Aegean-Tyrrhenian languages could be from a Macro-Mithian group, together with Kartvelian and possibly Sumerian.

- In point 6, "Danubian" refers to Danubian? would be a relative of the main language of the Cardial-impresso culture (this family would be extended along with other minority groups presumably)?

- Also in the point 6, I usually believe that Iberian is not a homogenous language, maybe not even a family, surely it was a lingua franca of origin that was extended with Greek and Phoenician trade, but from a family from the north that arrived with [2], while the Basque would be Pyrenean, the Proto-Iberian family would be "Alpine" presumably from the Massif Central. It is my theory. It would be a Paleo-atlantic language, and it ends up displacing the Paleo-Mediterranean languages originating in the Iberian peninsula (6 or 3 families more or less) like this [3]. So it seems no known representative of Paleo-mediterranean, in the LLL would be Eteonoric or as you proposed before, possibly Basque and other relatives.

- Do you think that a branch of Afro-Asiatic languages could have developed in Europe as in this theory: [4]? I think at least two, one from the Balkans and the Middle East and another from the Iberian Peninsula.

--Spinovenator (talk) 15:26, 24 January 2018 (PST)

As for Etruscan, it may indeed be related to Kartvelian, which may be a Macro-Mitian offshoot, though I am sceptical of that, it is just one pronoun that seems to match, as I consider the most likely place for Proto-Mitian somewhere near Lake Baykal.

The Danubian page you ask me about needs to be rewritten! I shall do that within the next few days. The way it is, it dates back to the time when I entertained the Europic hypothesis, according to which the languages of the LBK and Vinča cultures were related to PIE, and which I have abandoned again because it was untenable in light of archaeological and genetic evidence against it. Also, I no longer think that the Vinča symbols were writing. The only items that look like early writing are the Tartaria tablets, and these are utterly atypical and probably spurious.

TaylorS's Alpic conlang is in turn based on the assumption that Etruscan was a Europic language, which I already had abandoned back then. Taylor was inspired by Glen Gordon's ideas, which I consider misguided.

I don't see why Iberian shouldn't be a single language or group of closely related languages. The inscriptions seem linguistically quite homogenous, though details are not known as nobody understands them.

What regards Basque, one would guess that it descends from the language of those Neolithic farmers from which the Basques seem to descend. I.e., it is the last surviving Cardial-Impresso language. But other scenarios are possible, for instance, a neighbouring hunter-gatherer tribe may have established themselves as rulers over the ancestors of the Basques and imposed their language. There is not a long way from a hunter to a warrior, indeed a shorter one then from a farmer to a warrior. At least, a hunter knows how to kill living things. And it is of course well-known that genes and languages do not always travel together.

As long as we don't understand the Iberian inscriptions, we cannot say whether Basque and Iberian are related or not. There seem to be a few similarities between Iberian and Old Basque, but these may be due to contact, or entirely spurious, and have not proven helpful in understanding Iberian. After all, the same word shape may occur in unrelated languages, especially if one disregards meanings, which are unknown on the Iberian side.

The idea that Afro-Asiatic languages were spoken on the European Atlantic coast, perhaps by the "megalith culture" (put in quotes because these do not really constitute a coherent archaeological culture!), is old; it dates back to the theories of a Semitic substratum in Insular Celtic, but that one is based solely on the fact that both Insular Celtic and Semitic are VSO, and hardly any linguist takes it seriously anymore. It is now championed by Theo Vennemann, but his evidence is shotty.