Newsgroups: sci.lang
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!udel!gatech!howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!petrich
From: petrich@netcom.com (Loren Petrich)
Subject: Re: What are Scythians?
Message-ID: <petrichCzo1Gy.FGp@netcom.com>
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
References: <rsavageCyt0CM.5L7@netcom.com> <sarimaCzE1yE.2w7@netcom.com> <3aen6l$g6b@pilot.njin.net> <sarimaCzJ9tp.n4C@netcom.com>
Date: Tue, 22 Nov 1994 11:05:21 GMT
Lines: 60

In article <sarimaCzJ9tp.n4C@netcom.com>,
Stanley Friesen <sarima@netcom.com> wrote:
>In article <3aen6l$g6b@pilot.njin.net>, Hubey <hubey@pilot.njin.net> wrote:
>>sarima@netcom.com (Stanley Friesen) writes:

>No, as Kartvelian is NOT a subgroup of the Caucasian languages,
>but a seperate major family.  There is *no* trace of any Kartvelian
>language outside of the Caucasus as yet.

>The Caucasian Family as it is recognised today is what used to
>be called the North Caucasian group.  Hurrian-Urartian is
>assigned to one branch of this group (?the old Northeast?).

	There are three readily identifiable groups of languages in the 
Caucasus: the Kartvelian, the Northeast Caucasian, and the 
Abkhazo-Adyghian. Hurrian-Urartian is proposed by Diakonov and Starostin 
to be related to NE Caucasian, and I've seen Etruscan related (about half 
of the interpretable vocabulary). Of NEC and AA, the Russian linguist 
Nikolaev (the xUSSR has long had a macro-linguistics school) propose that 
they are related, and he has come out with an etymological dictionary of 
North Caucasian (any translations other than Vitaly Shevoroshkin's 
publications?).

	I'm sure that many linguists will want to take an attitude of
"I'll believe it when I see it" on N Caucasian relationships, since doing 
comparisons of these langs. is rather difficult, some of the diffculties 
being the superabundance of consonants and the varying root shapes (NE 
Caucasian: CVC(V)-, AA: CV-).

>As far as I am concerned, the oldest good evidence for IE speakers
>in Anatolia is Troy II, which has a megalon style building.  This
>at least *suggests* that the IE speakers entered Anatolia from
>the Balkans.

	I presume that this is analogy with Mycenaean megarons. One
problem is that there do not seem to be many megarons to be found in the
north-of-the-Black-Sea steppes. It would be interesting to see if 
megarons were common in putative early-IE sites in the Balkans.

>A steppe tribe in that area would not necessarily be fully aware
>of the Black Sea for what it was, since they would live mostly
>furhter indland.  However, it is *not* clear that PIE had no
>word for sea: its various words for a body of water all have
>complex histories, obscuring the original meanings.  Both
>*mori and *laku are possible candidates for "sea". (Although
>the age of *mori is doubtful).

	Another question: how big was the body of water being referred 
to? Was it one where the other shore was too far away? Or was the other 
shore reachable?

	I'm trying to think of some distinction relevant to someone who 
loved long before big sailing ships, let alone engine-driven boats/ships 
and airplanes.

-- 
Loren Petrich, the Master Blaster
petrich@netcom.com                   Happiness is a fast Macintosh
lip@s1.gov                           And a fast train

