Basque, Indo-European and R1b

[Maliclavelli]

Bernard Secher has posted on Rootsweb: “A recent PhD thesis of Arnaud Etchamendy: "Euskera-Erderak: basque et langues indo-européennes : essai de comparaison" from Pau University 2007, suggests that basque can be an Indo-European language”.
Anatole Klyosov on hurry to say the obvious: “I wonder, what do you expect us to do with such information which you gave on passing, that someone "suggested" something three years ago, which linguists apparently did not even bother to notice? Just think that linguists have been studying the Basque language for the last 150 years at least, there is a clear consensus that it is a non-IE language, a non-classified language, some linguists view it a Sino-Caucasian language, and nobody considers it a IE language”.
And it is very strange that, among eminent linguists, Etchamendy doesn’t cite Alfredo Trombetti, the first who demonstrated in “La lingua basca” (1925) the link of Basque with Caucasian languages.
The work merits to be read. You know that I have supported from many years the link of Indo-European languages with Etruscan-Rhaetian-Camun and their origin from the Italian refugium like haplogroup R1b and its subclades.
If there is a link among Etruscan-IndoEuropean-Basque etc. of course there is at the Nostratic level or even before, at the Nostratic-SinoTibetan-NaDenè etc, then very ancient, and it isn’t said it isn’t so.
 Etchamendy writes: “On a cru un temps que l’univerbation et donc la préverbation étaient ignorées de l’indo-européen. Mais l’exemple de *nizdó- n’est pas seul à prouver le contraire : grec. ὄζος (ózos), arm. ast, germ. *asta- “rameau” remontent à un /*ozdo-/ qui suppose un préverbe /*o-sed-/ “être situé ensemble”// bsq. HOSTO “feuille”, HOSTAIL “rameau” ».
Ie. *nizdo- and *ozdo- presuppose the root *sed- « to sit » and if Basque “hosto” (but it means “leaf” and not  “branch”, which is “hostail”) was related, we could think to an ancient loan from a very ancient phase of IndoEuropean, and also this would be very interesting.
Anyway if there were ancient links amongst these languages, we should think to the  haplogroup R1b in Europe as more ancient than Vizachero, Klyosov etc. are thinking, at least the Late Paleolithic/Younger Dryas.

 

[Maliclavelli]

Trombetti explains the Basque word “hosto” in a very different way:

173. hos-to, presso Oihenart ors-to, bisc. orri foglia.
a)   Con hos-to cfr. Nuba M. kossi (Chamir χas-a Agaum. χas--i ) foglia; con ors-to da *χors- cfr. Nuba D. korse foglia.
(branch is (h)abarr in Basque)
(Alfredo Trombetti, Le origini della lingua basca, 1923-25, p. 129).

[secherbernard]

That's the english abstract of Etchamendy's thesis:

"Since the 19th century, the basque language has been renowned as the sole
ancient language of Europe with non-european origins: a language without
parentage, an orphan language or the remnant of an extinct family of
languages. Its vocabulary would be largely borrowed from other sources,
especially from latin and roman, but its grammar along with a core cluster
of words, would be specific. However, no exhaustive study comparing the
basque language with indo-european languages has been carried out. In our
opinion its description is incomplete and sometimes equivocal. Our thesis is
an essay analysing euskera using the comparative method between basque and
reconstructed indo-european grammar (tome I) as well as the basic elements,
around 4000 of them (tome II). It appears that the supposed specificities of
the basque language (ergative syntax, nominal predicate, absence of gender,
morphology, etc.) were caracteristics of indo-european before its
hypotetical division into groups, and its archaic aspects are beginning to
emerge (Martinet, Vaillant, Laroche, C.Tcheckoff). Finally, the core lexical
cluster proper to euskera --if we take it to mean without common roots--has
not surface so far."

You can read more about Etchamendy 's work (in french) on his web site: http://www.etchamendy.com/

[rms2]

It would indeed be interesting if Basque turned out to be an early offshoot of Indo-European. Why not?

That might in part explain why the Basques are so overwhelmingly lactase persistent and also so overwhelmingly R1b1b2.

[Maliclavelli]

Etchamendy writes: “On a cru un temps que l’univerbation et donc la préverbation étaient ignorées de l’indo-européen. Mais l’exemple de *nizdó- n’est pas seul à prouver le contraire : grec. ὄζος (ózos), arm. ast, germ. *asta- “rameau” remontent à un /*ozdo-/ qui suppose un préverbe /*o-sed-/ “être situé ensemble”// bsq. HOSTO “feuille”, HOSTAIL “rameau” ».
Ie. *nizdo- and *ozdo- presuppose the root *sed- « to sit » and if Basque “hosto” (but it means “leaf” and not  “branch”, which is “hostail”) was related, we could think to an ancient loan from a very ancient phase of IndoEuropean, and also this would be very interesting.
Anyway if there were ancient links amongst these languages, we should think to the  haplogroup R1b in Europe as more ancient than Vizachero, Klyosov etc. are thinking, at least the Late Paleolithic/Younger Dryas.

It has been enough to consult the “Etymological Dictionary of  Basque” by R.L. Trask posted by Maju on his site for falsifying this interpretation.

horri (L), orri (B Sout L) n. ‘leaf’, orri (G HN) ‘large leaf’. TS ****{‘page’}. 1562. CF
(h)orr-.
OUO. CF by W**{2.1}.
horbel (**), orbel (B **) n. **** + *bel ‘dark’ (M. 1961a: 63).
hosto (L LN Z), osto (G HN S R), orsto (old LN), horsto (**), ostro (HN) n. ‘leaf’.
1643. In G HN this is specialized to ‘small leaf’, with orri (above) for ‘large leaf’. +
-zto dimin. {Not in The Dictionary.} *** The fifth form shows an unusual metathesis.

Then "hosto" is from "horsto" and -zto is the diminutive. The word for "leaf" is "horri/orri".
Nothing to do with IE.