Hallo!

On Sun, 25 Jul 2010 21:01:07 +0100, R A Brown wrote:

>  Jörg Rhiemeier wrote:
>  >  Hallo!
>  >
>  [snip]
>  >
>  Yes.  Glen Gordon calls it "Indo-Aegaean", earlier he
>  [snip]
>  >
>  >  And using "Aegaean" for the putative language family
>  >  Etruscan belongs to is in itself speculative.
>
>  Speculative and probably misleading.

Indeed.  So far, only the Lemnos stele seems to have anything
to do with Etruscan; beyond that and some ancient tales, there
is no evidence that Etruscan has anything to do with the Aegaean
area.

>  >  It is not
>  >  yet established that Etruscan originated in the Aegaean
>  >  (we already discussed the weakness of the Stele of Lemnos
>  >  argument), and there is no evidence that Minoan and
>  >  Eteocretan, or the elusive "Pelasgian" substratum
>  >  language of Greece, have anything to do with Etruscan!
>
>  True.  Some of the early would-be decipherers of Linear A
>  looked towards Etruscan for possible clues. The unprejudiced
>  found none.  Nor have the very few Eteocretan inscriptions
>  shown any resemblance to Etruscan. Both Minoan/Eteocretan
>  (assuming the two are related, which is not certain) and
>  Etruscan remain enigmas.

Indeed, we don't know whether Eteocretan was a descendant of
Minoan or not.  It may well be that it entered Crete after the
Minoan era, perhaps as a part of the invasion of the "Sea
Peoples".

What regards these languages, we can only hope that more
evidence will be found.  Perhaps there is a substantial
Eteocretan/Greek bilingual waiting to be unearthed somewhere
on Crete; and don't the ancients say that some Greek texts
have been translated into Etruscan?  Perhaps we will eventually
find a codex containing the Etruscan translation of a known
Greek or Latin text - or even a grammar of Etruscan written by
a Roman scholar in Latin.  But as for now, all these languages
are known too poorly to say anything about their relationships.

>  ================================================
>
>  David McCann wrote:
>  [snip]
>   >
>   >  Basically, I don't expect to convince you, or Ray. I work
>   >  on the basis that all languages are ultimately related,
>   >  since we are all descended from one woman.
>
>  I think this is likely to be so.

I think so, too, but that is not proven yet, and not really
useful in comparative linguistics, because it doesn't tell you
anything about the various *degrees* of relationship.  Also,
this is the "Holy Grail" of historical linguistics, unattained
and perhaps unattainable, and it is not legitimate to say that
language X was related to language Y because "all languages are
related to each other".   This is utterly meaningless.

>   >           I
>   >  don't compare Latin and Swahili, Greek and Malay (as poor
>   >  old Swadesh was prone to do)
>
>  I was not suggesting that anyone did. I gave the examples
>  only as cautionary warnings.

I think you were clear enough about that.

>   >  If
>   >  you want to conduct linguistics in a vacuum, or with
>   >  arbitrary methodological constraints,
>
>  I have no wish to conduct linguistics in a vacuum nor to use
>  _arbitrary_ methodological constraints.

As I have said in my reply on David's post, real-world comparative
linguistics is not conducted "in a vacuum", nor are its
methodological constraints "arbitrary".

>  I'm sorry this thread has taken on a personal tone; I am
>  just a wee bit weary at the emails I've had over the years
>  from those who 'know' what Etruscan is connected with and
>  cannot accept my cautious approach, which wants firm
>  evidence.  So I bow out now.

I think everything that was worth saying has been said anyway.
Nobody says that Etruscan cannot be related to anything else; it is
just that we don't know yet what it is related to.  That is an
important difference.

--
... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
http://www.joerg-rhiemeier.de/Conlang/index.html