Re: Kris Hirst's page on Why Don't We Call Them Cro-Magnon Anymore? updated

J.LyonLayden wrote:
On Feb 13, 8:04 pm, Tom McDonald <kilt...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

<snip>

Why Basque?

Because I believe they are the oldest surviving indigenous culture in
Europe, and many of their words may be unchanged since the ice-age.
They may be the last people to have seen cro-magnons and neanderthals.

Cro-Magnon appears to be the first H.s.s. in Europe. If Basques are indeed the, or one of the, oldest surviving indigenous populations in Europe, they are most likely *descended* from Cro-Magnon stock. IOW, they would not have *seen* Cro-Magnon folk, they would have *been* Cro-Magnon folk (in the loose terminology that Hirst argues against, but seems to have used, in the past anyway.) I'd be interested in the DNA evidence wrt Basques.

But with that caveat, I am not unhappy with the idea that the ancestors of the Basques could have seen, and possibly interacted with, Neandertals.

However, in your story, you appear to want your shorty grain harvesters to use Basque words. By this I take it that the shorties are intended to be descendants of Cro-Magnon, in my construction of their ancestry (see above). If you grant that, then who are the giants? A relic h/g population also descended from C-M?

If so, how do you propose that the h/g's language diverged so radically from your notional Proto-Basque?* Particularly since the h/gs' language is more likely to be conservative than the proto-farmers' language. Sedentism based on exploitation of cereal grains and other resources available from two or more adjacent ecological zones would inevitably require the introduction of many new words.

For instance, you used the word 'scythe' (which I would suggest you change to 'sickle', FWIW). H/gs who did not regularly exploit cereal grains would not be likely to have a separate tool for that purpose. Yet farmers (or sedentary gatherers) would; and would need a new word for it. The same principle would apply more broadly in the sedentary proto-agriculturalists vs h/g language issue.

You might want to consider either having the big guys be the ones who use Basque-derived words; or you might want to consider having the biggies and the shorties discover that they have the same, or obviously similar, words for the same things--for which you could use Basque, if you chose. I can see some interesting plot developments based on this idea.

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ASIDE: Wikipedia has this to say about Basque:

"While being a heavily-dialectalized language (especially when compared to the rather small distribution range), it has been standardized and updated by the end of the 20th century by means of its Batua version. This one is mainly used in the Spanish Basque country, and not so much by French speakers."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basque_language

This suggests to me that Basque has had a long tenure in Southwestern Europe; and also that you might have to look for common words in the various dialects, rather than using, for instance, the standardized version.
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* I am uneasy about the idea that the Basque language contains elements that have not changed since the Ice Age. The most recent Ice Age lasted a long time, ending canonically ca. 10,000 ybp. While some words might have survived unchanged in 10,000 years, and I wouldn't argue too strongly against it for your fictional purposes, I am wary of such sweeping ideas about the conservative nature of the Basque language. It smacks too much of Edo Nyland's nonsense:
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"Welcome to the Edo Nylands' Linguistic Archaeology website.

"This page contains links to a number of documents dealing with some new ideas about the origins of many of the languages of the world.

"* Until Orthodox Christianity arrived in Europe everyone spoke Basque, including the early Irish Gnostic Christian missionaries.

"* All Indo-European languages in Western Europe were invented by Benedictine linguists.

"* All Indo-Europeanists will tell you that Basque is a language isolate. Dravidian linguists have proven that the Dravidian languages are closely related to Basque. Ainu (spoken in Japan) also belongs to this ancient family."

http://www.islandnet.com/~nyland/
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BTW, I'm still interested in learning about your intended audience/genre; the nature of 'magic' in the story; and the spatial and temporal setting of your story.
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