Buber's Basque Page: Celestial Names

I've been able to do some more research on my list of celestial names and offer the following for comment/assistance/revision, mesedez

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petusek at tiscali dot cz
06-May-2006 18:52 #2997

I suggest that you either contact John Bengtson yourselves (he's quite open to discussions) or, at least, follow this link: http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/mt26s.html In my opinion, there are some good arguments on both sides, however, the isolationist view cannot be maintained anymore. Trask's methodology, to tell the truth, is by no means flawless - which at first, I admit, might not be apparent to everyone, since Larry Trask was an excellent rhetor. For example, insisting on a "purely internal" reconstruction is very much like taking all folk etymologies for granted - that all just because of a single arbitrary premise: a weird hypothesis that Basque is incomparable to anything. The evidence, if only preliminary, is far more than just typological. Paying attention to the arguments of a single side has never helped the justice. Regular and recurrent sound correspondences (including the non-trivial ones), lexical (especially in stable range) and morphological cognates of an increasing number might be too little to some orthodox scepticists, yet many comparisons, now widely accepted, have arisen in the very same way. Bengtson's system of correspondences might not be perfect, but nothing is, and it's only a beginning. Certainly, to great extent, the correspondences between the individual branches of the Macro-Caucasian subgrouping of the Dene-Caucasian macrophylum are both predictive and productive. Petusek

blas at buber dot net
04-May-2006 11:28 #2984

Hi Angus, I again agree that orthodox views are not always right. But I also know that in my field (physics) more hypotheses are discarded than replace the current "orthodox" view. I'm definitely not a linguist, not even an amateur one, so I really can't argue things very well. But, I've always felt that Larry was, if nothing else, very thorough and only read into the data what one could safely read into it. It seems to me that the comparison of Basque and Iberian with Italian and Latin is unfair. With knowledge of Italian, one could at least understand, to a great extent, Latin. It is my understanding that, even once the Iberian script was deciphered, Basque was of no use in understanding Iberian. The only thing they have in common is a common geography. As for the Caucasian hypothesis, I really can't say much. Again, I'm no expert. But, in reading the discussions between Larry and others on the Nostratic list (http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A1=ind9902&L=nostratic&D=0), his arguments for why the Causasian hypothesis was not very sound are very convincing to me. In the end, I don't know enough to really argue any more than just say "Larry says...". Which isn't fair to you or John. I personally am not convinced by either the Caucasian or Iberian hypotheses. I suggest that if we wish to continue this discussion, though, we move into the forum (http://www.buber.net/Forum/), which is more appropriate for a dialog of this type. Blas

ANGUSJHUCK at aol dot com
03-May-2006 19:23 #2980

Blas, John can, of course, speak for himself, and I take something of a risk by attempting to speak for him. What I certainly can say with complete safety is that John does not take the view that Basque is demonstrably related to Dene-Caucasian because all the languages in this phylum are historically ergative. In fact, comparative grammar plays only a very minor part in his work. John has analysed a very substantial number of Basque words (some 300, at the latest count), and has demonstrated (to my satisfaction, at least) that the great majority of these have cognates elsewhere in Dene-Caucasian. He has also shown that Proto-Dene-Caucasian phonemes shift in regular ways when they are reflected in the various daughter languages, such as Basque, North and East Caucasian, Burushaski, Sino-Tibetan, Na-Dene, etc. Do recall that the very same linguists who deny a connection betwen Basque and Dene-Caucasian also deny a link between Basque and Iberian, which is a bit like maintaining that there is no relationship between Latin and Italian. Basque linguists may have impressive academic credentials, but they are wrong when they maintain that Basque is a "language isolate". In science, orthodox views are not always right. With best wishes, Angus

blas at buber dot net
02-May-2006 14:17 #2975

Hi Angus, I agree that theories come and go and that those that were once viewed as fringe sometimes become the accepted view. However, I think that more often than not, fringe theories just disappear as data doesn't support them. I haven't seen John's work, but my understanding of the main reason people believe that there is a Basque-Caucasian link is that both are ergative languages. However, 25% of the world's languages are ergative, so that is likely just a chance coincidence. Also, you mention that the linguists of the past didn't have access to the same data to draw the same conclusions. But it seems to me that there aren't any modern linguists who specialize in Basque that support the Caucasian hypothesis. I know Trask didn't (though I think you feel he was a bit stubborn and out of date on this), but it seems that the others I know of don't either. So, it's not that modern linguists see this data and reach the conclusion that Basque is related to the Caucasian languages. Rather, it seems, most still don't accept that view. However, I'll caveat all of this by saying I'm not a linguist, so I could be wrong about this. Blas

ANGUSJHUCK at aol dot com
24-Apr-2006 16:33 #2937

Blas, When you say that a view is not accepted, or not widely accepted, what you really mean is that certain individuals do not accept it. That doesn't mean that the view is wrong. Indeed, it was once accepted, nay widely accepted, that the Earth is flat! What we need to do is examine the data for ourselves and make our own judgments. We listen to experts - on all sides and none - but the decision as to what is right and what is wrong is ultimately ours. I am not myself an expert in Dene-Caucasian (my interest is principally in Iberian and the linguistic pre-history of Europe). The preeminent Dene-Caucasian specialist - following the death of Sergei Starostin - is John Bengtson, of "Mother Tongue" (a journal published by Harvard University). John has produced lists of Dene-Caucasian etymologies and tables of regular sound correspondences (which I have here on my desk). Not all of John's proposals are equally convincing (in my opinion - and no doubt his as well), but taken as a whole the case is a very powerful one, I believe. I would also point out that Vasconists of the past (say, Michelena backwards) had no access to much of the relevant data, some of which has been uncovered only in the last 20 years (viz some of the more recent CIL archives). Angus

blas at buber dot net
23-Apr-2006 19:21 #2932

Angus, You seem to be implying that Basque is part of the Dene-Caucasian group of languages, but to my understanding that is not a widely accepted view on the origins of Basque. I'm not a linguist, but my understanding is that the accepted view of the origin of Basque right now is that it is still essentially unknown and that the Dene-Caucasian hypothesis has not stood up to further research. I'm guessing you have a different view? Blas

ANGUSJHUCK at aol dot com
23-Apr-2006 16:36 #2928

When the Professor offers his opinion that EGUZKI "sun" means "day", I take it he is analysing it as *EGUR-SKI, EGUN "day" being a N/R stem, N shifting to R in compounds? But the true word for "sun" is surely EK(H)I (mainly Northern dialects), which is IKI in Bardos, Basse-Navarre? In Iberian, the word is IKE, which is a frequent compound element in personal names (eg, IKEANER, BINIKEBIN, etc). (Basque initial E- usually becomes I- in Iberian, while final -E normally becomes -E.) Elsewhere in the Dene-Caucasian phylum, we can compare Proto East Caucasian *HwiqV and Proto Yeniseian *xiga. Angus J Huck

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