Re: Pre-IE languages in Europe

At 5:32 pm +0000 10/1/99, Charles wrote:
>Raymond A. Brown wrote:
>
>> There have been attempts to show that Etruscan is of IE origin, usually by
>> those scholars who attempt to show that nothing non-IE existed in Europe
>> before the FennoUgric migrations into Finland & Hungary.  Their motives, it
>> seems to me, are more to do with outmoded (and IMHO now discredited) racial
>> theories than to do with linguistics.  I just cannot see how what we do
>> know of Etruscan can possibly be of IE origin.
>
>Weren't the IndoEuropean groups basically people with horses?
>And the Sea People (1300 BC??) a very different group?
Definitely.

The 'Sea People' or 'People of the Sea' is a name given in contemporary
Egyptian accounts to peoples who raided the Nile Delta towards the end of
the 13th cent Bc and the early tears of the 12th cent.  They were repulsed
by Merneptah in 1219 BC.

They came from western Asia Minor, which seemed to be in turmoil at this
time, and it seems to me a great leap of faith to connect the much later
Etruscans with these peoples, though the Egyptian _Trsh_ may denote
Tyrsenians who _may_ be related to Etruscans; also among the 'Peoples of
the Sea' we find _Lk_ (Lykians?), _Shrsh_ (Sicilians?), _Shrdn_
(Sardinians??) and _Ikwsh_.  The latter have been identified by some as
Akhaian Greeks, but this is unlikely.  These raiders seem, indeed, to be a
mixture of races/ peoples, which is quite likely from asian Minor.  They
probably banded together because things were troublesome back home & Egypt
was an attractive place to raid.


>With horses it is possible to spread (nomadically?) quickly,
>but regular commerce by sea is much faster and perhaps
>qualitatively different. What I'm really speculating is
>that language families spread by sea-faring (Malayo-
>Polynesian) tend more to overlapping Sprachbunds than
>to splitting-off of family trees; though IE certainly
>exchanged influences with neighboring languages also.
>So, Etruscan might originally have been a far-flung colony
>of any culture within 5000 miles ...
Who knows?   :)

> and then blended with
>the local tribes. Could be UFOs too, I suppose; why not?
Once UFOs come into the equation, then anything's possible!

Ray.