Subject: Basque and Dene-Caucasian
Dear John,
If I may, I will take up where I left off yesterday:-
The -amo/ama suffix
Now, is this a suffix which is found in Bizkaian (but
not other Basque dialects) and also North-West Iberian?
Possibly.
Consider the place-name, Lezama, which is in
Bizkaia. According to Aulestia, this means "place of an abyss or
chasm".
While Aulestia is unquestionably right about the first
part of the compound, he may well be guessing as to the second.
If we return to North-West Iberia, there is a mountain
deity, Jupiter Candamius, recorded in a Roman era inscription
at Mount Candanedo in Leon, and there are a number of
contemporary toponyms in the North-West of the peninsula which appear
to contain the same element.
I suspect that Candam-ius is a compound of the
-amo suffix and a word cognate with the first element in the
Basque toponyms Gandiaga and Gandarias which,
according to Aulestia, means "pasture", and may well have
meant "high pasture", the word being a derivative of gain
"above".
Another element which may be common to Bizkaian and
North-West Iberian is neba "brother of a woman".
There is a deity, Nefa, recorded in a Roman era inscription
at Monte Louredo, Galicia.
Could these words be the same? And note this in the
context of the oft-made assertion that there is no f in
Basque (or Iberian).
*beda
This word appears in the Roman names for two
mountain-ranges, Idubeda (the south of Rioja) and Orospeda
(in the South-East) (b assimilates to p after s).
Note that both names appear to relate to the ranges, rather
than individual peaks. Then in the Aralar range of Gipuzkoa we have an
individual peak named Ubedi. And there is also a deity, Ilurbeda,
recorded in two Roman era inscriptions in the Coimbra area of
Portugal, and an Ilarbeda in the Salamanca region.
De Kerexeta lists bede "entrance
hall" and bedagin/bedegin "witch".
Do these have anything to do with the mounting names?
Perhaps.
We know that mountain peaks were associated with
deities, especially in the North-West (Mari still is associated with
Anboto). Possibly mountain tops were regarded as places
where the souls of the dead entered the next world. If so, that would
explain the use of the word to refer to mountain peaks, which in two
cases became extended to entire ranges. Ilurbeda would mean
"snow peak" (Basque initial e usually becomes i
in Iberian). Ilarbeda could be "mountain where peas
grow", or simply Ilurbeda misheard.
If this is right, bedagin/bedegin makes sense.
This would be an unrecorded chthonic deity who controlled access to
the next world, very similar to Ataecina
"gate-keeper". On Christianisation, the deity would have
been demonised and her name would have come to be used to mean
"witch". (The Noddy guides say that Ataecina is Celtic, but
this is transparent rot.)
I would be interested to hear your comments on this.
Does *beda have any cognates elsewhere in
Dene-Caucasian?
And, yes, the River Coquet in Northumberland
was known in Roman times as Cocuveda. This could mean
"gateway of the soul", which would be consistent with the
notion that rivers were seen as pathways to the next world.
*idu
This element is associated with mountain peaks, and I
mention it because it is found in Idubeda. It is also found
in two other mountains, to my knowledge: Idubaltza in Bizkaia
and Idocorry in Navarra.
I am confident that this has nothing to do with idi
"ox", because idi is found in Iberian with the
final i, not u: Idisko "ox
calf"?, leader of the Edetani, and Idiatta, a deity
recorded in a Roman era inscription in the Upper Garonne.
So what is *idu? Has it anything to do with
Mount Ida in Crete? Given the context, it really has to mean
"peak".
*kules
This is an element found in Iberian personal names: eg Kulesisker
and Kulesbelaur.
While most Iberian personal name elements are
explicable when compared with Basque, *kules defies analysis.
One would expect the cognate word in Basque to be gulitz
or golitz, but no such word exists. goli "song"
exists, but this may be a loanword from Romany, where gili =
"song" (Bulgarian Romany). Iberian *abis "song"
occasionally appears in Iberian personal names (and may be the name of
Habis, King of Tartessos).
Have you any answers?
It might be an idea to put your Dene-Caucasian
comparisons on the web, to inform, and to counter the propaganda from
Trask and the crackpot stuff from the likes of Edo Nyland.
With best wishes,
Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2002
Subject: Basque and Dene-Caucasian
Dear John,
A number of corrections and amplifications re:
my previous e-mail:
When I stated that the Proto-Celtic word for
apple would have been *abal, I intended to stress the fact that
the a in the second syllable is distinct from the e in
the second syllable of Abel(l)-io.
Statements in Noddy guides usually originate
from something which an eminent scholar once said - like the claim that
Basque has no generic word for "tree" (it does).
Presumably, an academic linguist somewhere
failed to spot and account for this lacuna.
I was not exhaustive when I said that the ilar
in Ilarbeda could be "pea" or ilur misheard.
It could also, and more plausibly, be "heather" (Basque el(h)ar).
ilur could also be ilurri
"hawthorn" (a variant of elorri originating perhaps
from a Navarese dialect now long gone and equivalent to the normal Iberian
form). "Snow" seems to me to be more appropriate.
With regard to *beda, perhaps bedats
"spring (season)" is a derivative (the "gateway" to
summer). bedats is found in Northern dialects where I am not
aware of *beda being found in toponyms - or is it?
As we know, much of the scholarly work on
Basque has been done in ignorance/denial of Iberian and Dene-Caucasian
(even, in Trask's case, to the extent of ignoring the Ascoli bronze
plate). Theories about historical sound-shifts are pretty much based on
speculation.
For instance, the theory that intervocalic
single r represents an earlier l is only partially true
(ie supported by evidence which Vasconists generally ignore). The Iberian
evidence points to interchangeability, which is also present in Basque
itself.
A striking feature of Basque is the general
absence of initial t in native words.
A clue to why this is so, I suggest, is the
fact that the few exceptions are words which are generally only used as
suffixes (tegi, toki, talde, tanda, tartean).
If we look at the toponymic evidence, we find
that in Roman times, toponyms with initial t existed in the
Basque Country, and throughout Spain.
So what happened?
I would suggest that initial t became
s.
A few "suffix" words were
protected from this, since they rarely occurred at the beginning of the
word. Also, a few words acquired additional anterior vowels, which
protected the initial t (like i-turri - Ptolemy refers
to Roncesvalles as Iturissa, while other writers have it Turissa,
so we can surmise that this change is much older than the shift from t
to s).
So we need to identify those word now
exhibiting initial s which prior to the sound-shift exhibited
initial t.
sart-alde "west"
Iberian Tartes (Tartessos).
zurda "mane"
Iberian Turdetani/Turduli (a tuft of hair, worn by warriors, is
depicted in art and mentioned by Strabo).
txori "bird" *tori
is a stem widely distributed throughout world languages, but I can
find no certain example from Iberian sources.
zur "wood"
Turtumelis, a personal name found on the Ascoli bronze plate,
being turtun "twig" (Basque zurten/zurtoin)
and melis "robust" (Basque malats). (We learn
this way that the various "tree" words beginning with zu- have
nothing to do with zur "wood".)
zakur "dog"
The Yeniseian cognates all exhibit initial t. If you are right
about udagera "otter", the initial t (now d)
has been protected by an additional anterior vowel.
zaga-tu "to move oneself"
The River Tagus (a river which "moves itself"). The tagisgarok
on the Alcoy lead tablet may mean "travellers" or even
"nomads".
There are other examples which I do not have
time to list. The above is merely a selection.
Trask's assertion that Basque words exhibiting
initial k can never be native is a bit odd, since k and g
are so similar, and these letters were almost interchangeable in Iberian
(witnesses the inscriptions in the Ionian script, where g can
even occur finally). Does Trask says that kide
"companion" is not native? After all, this word appears several
times in Iberian inscriptions. Surely kide preserves its initial k
because in Basque it is used almost exclusively as a suffix? And gide
is also found.
Sweeping assertions are very dangerous in
science, especially when they are declaimed with magisterial authority (a
la Trask).
You yourself appear to have clashed with
Vasconists over historical sound-shifts.
For instance, you dispute the received wisdom
that m did not exist in Proto-Basque. And you do so correctly, in
my opinion. m existed in Iberian, and the words in which it did
so have recognisable Basque cognates - m(o)star "reapings",
m(a)dara "pear", m(u)gei "to the
boundaries", Oskum(e) "wolf cub" (personal name), (u)m(a)r
"boy", m(a)i "inscription" (the same
word as Basque mai "table"). (Some scholars get
themselves into a mess by failing to spot that the m-sign is
multi-aspect and can incorporate any vowel, before or after, hence the
brackets.)
Even seme "son", which
Trask insists represents an earlier *senbe, is found intact in
the deity name Semnocosus (*semeno coso "beloved
nephew" ? - coso is a common epithet, cognate with Basque gozo
"sweet").
I would be interested to hear your views on
any of the above.
With best wishes,
Angus J Huck
Sent: Tuesday, November 12, 2002
Subject: Basque and Dene-Caucasian
Dear John,
I note that when I listed examples of Basque
words exhibiting initial s which I believe once exhibited initial
t, I left out one of the most important, which is sama/zama "throat,
neck, ravine". As *tama, this stem may possibly be
found in river-names such as Thames, Tame, Tamar, etc, which are
widely distributed across Europe (Tamar may be based on the
plural, *tamar "ravines"). I think the meaning
"throat" is primary, since tama "throat" is
found in Turkic (a distant cognate, or a borrowing?).
A further example of a Bizkaian word which
shows up in North-West Iberian is amil "ravine, chasm,
gorge". The only ancient instance I can find in the Iberian peninsula
is Amallobriga (Despoblado de la Ermita?), somewhere in the
North-West. This would be a hybrid name "briga above the
ravine"? Interestingly, a possible alternative spelling is Abulobrica,
suggesting that the intervocalic m was vulnerable, just as
it is in the modern language (though less so in Bizkaian and the Iberian
of the North-West) - Larry Trask please note when you insist that one
instance of senbe on an ancient inscription proves that seme
did not originally have an intervocalic m.
amil may well appear in Britain, in
the Hampshire river-name Hamble (Hamele 901), which runs
into the Solent just east of Southampton.
Incidentally, in 1996, an amateur
metal-detector found a Roman execratio in the Hamble which
was addressed to Neptune and to Niskus, apparently a local deity
associated with the river. Niskus seems to me to be the same as
Basque neska, and may once have been the name of a water nymph.
Not for the first time, Romans have given a female native deity a
masculine ending.
Are there any Dene-Caucasian cognates for
Basque bost "five"? As bos, boist, borst(e), this
word is found with high frequency in Iberian inscriptions. Not because
Iberians did everything in fives, but because, I suggest, it had a
secondary meaning "many", just as it does in Basque. So sali
bos means "many transactions", ikesira borst(e) means
"many escapes" and boist il igis did means "I have
seen many moons (ie, I have lived a very long time)" - did Iberians
count in months rather than years, I wonder?
I have previously expressed my scepticism as
to the oft-made claim that Basque has no native word for
"king". What about bakaldun/bakardun, which is
generally held to mean "having solitude" (does it really mean
this?).
I suspect bakaldun is ancient, and
not a neologism. There is a deity, Vagodonnaegus, recorded on a
Roman era inscription at La Milla del Rio, somewhere in North-West Spain.
This seems to me to be *baga(r)dun aigi "exalted king"
(the r having been assimilated to the following d).
There is also a Bcantunaecus, somewhere. The bagarok of
the Alcoy lead tablet may mean "people of Baga" or possibly also
"community of kings". Could it?
Those who assure us that Basque has no native
word for "king" must be unaware of this material.
Another curious word is gotzon
"angel", which Aulestia tells us is a neologism, though it is
difficult to see how it has been constructed.
A coin, found in Navarra (?) bears the name of
a magistrate Arsakoson. The first element is presumably *ars
"bear", plus a added for euphony. koson, I
suspect, is the same as the cusun in Cusuneneaecus, a
Roman era deity recorded on an inscription found at Burgaes, Portugal.
This would appear to mean "the exalted one of Cusun's
house". Maybe koson/kusun means "supernatural
being", and is cognate with Proto-Yeniseian *gu'us "idol"
and Proto-Nax *kust "figure, appearance". Could this be
so?
Another troublesome word - maite
"love". The only ancient instance I can find is Maiduna, a
deity recorded on a Roman era inscription at Avila, Spain. This could
conceivably be *maite dun "having love". Are there any
Dene-Caucasian cognates?
With best wishes,
Sent: Wednesday, November 13, 2002
Subject: Basque and Dene-Caucasian
Dear John,
When I listed possible examples of fossilised anterior noun
classifiers in Basque, I omitted to mention lu-, as in lagun
"friend, companion" and lapur "thief".
Is it not possible that lu- is the same as Sumerian lu,
which is the noun classifier for men?
May lu- in fact be loi "body", with
the diphthong reduced in the compound? (The oi diphthong is
occasionally reduced to o. Note Iberian *gon/kon for
Basque goien and Iberian *son for Basque soin.)
loi
shows up in at least one Iberian inscription, which is the
Sinarcas stele (Province of Valencia). The full text is as follows
(barring the series of abbreviations in the headnote):
Baisedas Ildudas ebanen. Baise(r)das (and?) Ildudas,
in here.
m(a)i seldar ban m(a)i. Inscription. This tomb.
Inscription.
berbein ari edukiar m(a)i. Once again, it is containing.
Inscription.
gatu ekasko loi te. And it has our charcoal bodies.
gari edukiar seldar ban. This tomb is containing us.
m(a)i Basibal Garm(a)bar m(a)i. Inscription. Basibal
Garmabar. Inscription.
ie, Basibal Garmabar (one or two persons?) erected the stele. (mabar
is a Levantine variant of nabar.)
The above appears to me to contain an unequivocal example of loi
"body" in the Levantine Iberian of the immediate pre-Roman
period.
Baise(r)das "according to good fortune"?
Ildudas "according to the highway"?
Basibal "golden forest"
Garmabar "brightly coloured flame"
The first two are arbitrary couplings, the second two have actual
sensible meanings. Iberian personal names fall into both categories. A
useful job for scholars is to tell us why this is so.
For those interested in ancient religion, the word berbein
"once again"? seems to suggest a belief in reincarnation, which
the Romans did not share.
*ekas "charcoal"? would seem to be cognate with
Basque ikatz "coal". The anterior vowel may be part of
the stem. Otherwise, what is there to distinguish the word from the word
for "salt", which was probably *kas, as in Castulo
"salt pit"?
m(a)i "inscription" or "imprint" is
the same as Basque ma(h)ai "table". Note that the
meaning shift is exactly the same as in the Latin (and English) word for
"table". Occasionally m(a)i appears as nai
(the n sign is non-syllabic, so the a is revealed). This
is a result of the confused interchangeability between initial m
and n in the Levantine region, also reflected in m(a)bar/nabar
and in Basque in nerabe/mirabe. Indeed, in the Liria ceramics, nabar
is actually written nm(a)bar, a clear expression of the
prevailing confusion.
Note, too, the habit of peppering mai throughout
funerary inscriptions, in the same way that iu is littered
throughout the Castellon execratio, perhaps as a sort of mantra.
A mystifying feature of Basque is the absence of initial d in
stems, though it is perfectly acceptable as a verb marker (and in
onomatopoeic words). o-dol "blood" and i-dor
"dry" seem to be examples of a former initial d
protected by anterior additional vowels.
The one major exception is dei-tu "to call".
This is recorded in at least one ancient source, the scene in the Liria
ceramics depicting a river battle. The caption reads gudua : deistea
"the battle, the command", a perfect description of what is
going on in the picture.
Have you an explanation for the survival of dei-tu in
modern Basque?
Right at the tail end of the Alcoy lead tablet, and written over
previous text, are the words Ar(i)nai : Sakarisker. Now, Sakarisker
is a personal name "apple thanks"?. Ar(i)nai, I
suggest, means "magistrate". This is confirmed by the words Iride
Setabir(e)n Arnai, written at the end of another text found at
the Alcoy sanctuary. This seems to mean "the Kingdom of Saetabis'
magistrate".
There is also a deity, Aernus, recorded in a number of
Roman-era inscriptions in the west of the peninsula.
The Basque cognate may be ernai "sentinel".
I would be interested to hear your views on any or all of the
above.
With best wishes,
Angus J Huck
Sent: Friday, November 15, 2002