Re: Basque, where did they come from?
Allan Dunn (adunn@sun.lclark.edu)
18 Aug 1995 02:49:59 GMT
Allan MacKinnon (x93shg@juliet.stfx.ca) wrote:
: On 12 Aug 1995 thedavid@clark.net wrote:
: > Bryan Cowan (loquismo@aimnet.com) wrote:
: > :
: > : As I understand it, the Basque language is in a different language family
: > : (I once read it was a *Na-Dene* language or something like that).
: > ^^^^^^^^^^
: >
: > To me the Dene people are the "Navajo." Very curious...Explain? I'm lost!
: >
: >
: > David
: >
: >
: >
: >
: I don't believe that it was a Na-Dene language as that was native to
: North America, along with Amerind and some other language. The language
: that the Basque speak is supposedly of the same language family as
: Sumerian and Etruscan which I think was comtemporary with Na-Dene and
: Indo-European.
I don't believe that Sumerian and Etruscan are any more related to
Basque, than Na-Dene (although there is more of a possibility of the
diffusion of some vocabulary). I believe they are all the mystery
languages that don't fit into either the indo-european/semetic languages
of Europe or of the Middle East. Also, what do you mean by contemporary?
The Athabascan (among the other languages related to Na-Dene) possibly
came over the bridge at an earlier date than the IE speaking peoples,
probably long before either language could even be identified as such.
As to whether either of these proto-proto speakers ever mixed, who can tell?
AD
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