Re: R: Shelta, Polari, and my project "Nadsat 2000"

> Date:         Mon, 17 Jul 2000 18:54:15 +0200
> From: Mangiat <mangiat@...>
> D. Wier wrote:
> > (For the record, Etruscan is considered by some to be a possibly
> > Nostratic offspring, but is not generally identified as a relative of
> > Basque, Pictish or Aquitanian.)
>
> *Really interesting  : - )
A late followup, but I didn't have time to answer Danny's original
message. I found an old posting from the Nostratic list, which I'll
just quote instead of trying to summarize:

 From owner-nostratic@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu  Thu Jan 22 23:04:35 1998
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 From: mcv@wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
 To: umgord10@cc.UManitoba.CA
 Cc: nostratic@mcfeeley.cc.utexas.edu
 Subject: Re: Neolithic and Nostratic
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 umgord10@cc.UManitoba.CA wrote:

 >[mcv]
 >> ...that would be significant.  Suppose IE were closest to Uralic, then
 >> that would favour the S.Russian hypothesis, while, say, an
 >> IE-Kartvelian subgroup of Nostratic would be much to Renfrew's liking.
 >
 >      I can see close IE-Uralic connections (linguistically speaking)
 >but I don't understand the other suggestions of IE-Etruscan connections
 >or IE-Kartvelian connections. What linguistic evidence would suggest IE
 >has closer ties with THOSE language groups? (ex: Uralic at least has
 >pronominal suffixes like IE, but Etruscan conjugates a verb with seperate
 >pronouns)

 Nobody really knows how Etruscan conjugated its verbs (all we know is
 that 3rd.p. sg. apparently was like 3rd.p. pl. [as in Lithuanian, I
 might add]; there is little evidence for other persons, although it
 has been suggested that -(u)n may be a 1st.p. sg. ending: inpa
 thapicun "which I curse[d]" [Hitt. 1st.p.sg. praet. -un].

 There is plenty of grammatical evidence that Etruscan is very close to
 IE (without it *being* IE, though):

 gen. -s (< *-si)
 gen. -l (< *-la), as in Hittite pronominal decl.
 dat./loc. -i
 acc. [pronouns only] -n
 ptc.praes.act. -nth
 ptc.pf.act. -thas(a), -anas(a) [cf. IE prc.pf.pass. *-to-, *-no-]
 1st.p.pronoun: mi (acc. mini, mene)
 demonstr. pronouns: ika-, ita- (Hitt. kas, IE *to-)
 postfixed conjunction ("and"): -c, -m (IE *-kwe, Hitt. -ma)

 There is also a reasonable amount of lexical evidence (given the
 little we know about the Etruscan lexicon).

 There is no doubt in my mind that Etruscan, fragmentary and little
 known as it is, is the closest relative we have of IE.


 As to IE and Kartvelian, I wasn't seriously suggesting a close
 connection.  But it has long been noted that the systems of ablaut in
 IE and Kartvelian are very similar indeed.  I am not aware of any
 lexical or morphological evidence (apart from the old chestnut Geo.
 mk'erdi "breast" ~ IE *kerd- "heart", and a few coincidences in the
 declensions, which for all I know [which isn't much when it comes to
 Kartvelian historical morphology] may be just that, coincidences: Geo.
 gen. -is, ins. -it, abl. -dan [IE *-s, -it [Hitt.], *-d]).

 =======================
 Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
 mcv@wxs.nl
 Amsterdam

Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn@...> (Humour NOT marked)