Re: Bronze age British languages

Hallo!

On Tue, 2 May 2006 08:49:17 +0100, Peter Bleackley wrote:

> staving Jörg Rhiemeier:
>
> [...]
>
> >I know that tale, but weren't it the ancestors of the *Britons* that came
> >from Troy according to that legend?  But frankly, this is just a tall tale,
> >probably inspired by the myth that Rome was founded by descendants of
> >Trojan refugees, without a grain of truth in it.
>
> Indeed, and I was implying that the idea that Bronze Age British languages
> were Afro-Asiatic was equally likely.
> ;-)
I wouldn't say it's impossible, and I even considered making the language
of the British Dwarves an Afro-Asiatic one, but I don't think I'll do that
- it seems too unlikely.  One would expect traces of Afro-Asiatic in the
area between Morrocco and Britain (e.g., in Basque) - and there are none.
And as we have discussed several times here, the Insular Celtic languages
aren't that similar to Afro-Asiatic languages at all.  It is also that
Afro-Asiatic, in the form of Berber, arrived only rather late in Morrocco,
I think, not earlier than perhaps 1000 BC.  And the "Pidgin Punic" theory
which has been discussed here a few years ago is of course utter nonsense.

Besides, I don't think I can do a plausible Afro-Asiatic conlang (at least,
I cannot do it *well*).  I know too little about that family.

> >And what regards the language of Troy: we don't know, but many scholars
> >assume that it was an Anatolian IE language closely related to Hittite.
> >Thre are other suggestions, though (such as that their language was
> >related to Etruscan).
> Isn't there an inscription on a mountain pass somewhere, commemorating an
> allince between Troy and some other power? What language is that in?
> (Presumably the language of the ally, rather than Troy itself).
I don't know about that one, but tablets inscribed in Luwian (a sister
language of Hittite) have been found at Troy.  That, of course, doesn't
prove that the Trojans spoke Luwian, only that they had correspondence
with Luwians.

... brought to you by the Weeping Elf