Re: Judean-Sanskrit/Bantu/Austronesian?

Hi Matt: Nice to hear from you!

I really like what you wrote about the Micmac and the Basque trans-Atlantic
contacts.  I wonder if the influence was even greater.  The Micmac had a
written language, which apparently had they invented, I do not know the
mechanics of it whether it was pictographic representation, syllabary, or
alphabetic.  Since things seldom come ex nihilo, could it be possible that
Basques carrying some Castilian texts or a Latin missal, may have inspired
some Micmac to envision his/her own language in pictorial representation?  And
the reverse, it possible that some Micmac gloss was borrowed and carried back
to Iberian peninsula, and possibly even exists today?

Just open musing!

Ulfie

<< The most interesting 'real life' case of language contact that I know
 about involves the (now extinct) Algonquian language Micmac, which was
 spoken (IIRC) in what is now New Brunswick and/or Nova Scotia on
 the East Coast of Canada.  Linguists have documented the existence of
 several Basque loanwords in Micmac, relics of the 16th century, when
 Basque fisherman, who had sailed from Spain to Newfoundland in search
 of cod, would winter among the Micmac.

 With the exception of the Vikings, the Basques were among the first
 Europeans to make contact with the inhabitants of North America.  What if
 the Basques had taken over, instead of the English and the French?  :-)

 Matt. >>