Talk:Proto-Basque language

Nasality

The *n to /h/ change is really odd, esp. considering the contrary *b to /m/. Is there any speculation how this happened, or what the intermediary steps were? kwami (talk) 11:46, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

If I remember rightly, it only applies to intervocalic n and goes something like this: VnV > VV (two nasal vowels) > VhV insertion of h to break up the vowel group > modern loss of h in Western Basque takes us back to square one. So you get *bini 'tongue' > *mini > *mĩĩ > mihi > mii/mi. Akerbeltz (talk) 00:20, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Neato! Are the nasal vowels retained in any dialects? Is *b > m related to this, or is it unconditioned? kwami (talk) 00:32, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Interestingly, Portuguese has gone through a very similar development. Unfortunately, while it is tantalising to suspect a historical connection between the sound change in Basque and in Portuguese, I cannot see how it could be established even in principle, seeing as the territories are separated by those of Asturian-Leonese and Castilian, which do not even exhibit anything like that as far as I'm aware. But at least, the typological parallel stands (and if the sound changes in question are entirely independent of each other, that may even be more interesting). --Florian Blaschke (talk) 03:07, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Except that in Basque this was over by the 11th century, so they couldn't be related even in theory.. This loss of intervocalic */n/ is apparently termed "Mitxelena's law" and didn't usually operate on morpheme boundary at all, and was a part of a general trend of loss of nasality (which itself later arose by some other means) which happened in different dialects in different periods with different outputs..

The change of */b/ to */m/ is apparently a simple assimilation by nasality */bVn/ > */mVn/, and must have happened prior to the aforementioned sound change (because of *bene > *mehe example in the table). In case of *un-be > *ume we're dealing with assimilation by place of articulation *unbe > *umbe and simplification of the resulting cluster *umbe > *ume.

It's all in the Trask/Wheeler dictionary.. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 06:24, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Except that we don't know when exactly the loss of intervocalic /n/ in Old Portuguese happened – it could well have been contemporaneous with the loss of intervocalic /n/ in Basque, see p. 180 bottom. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:11, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

Loss of /n/ and "loss of nasality" are two DIFFERENT stages. The first one was due to assimilation, as surrounding vowels became nasalized. For example, proto-Basque *s'eni became *s'ei~ in the High Middle Ages. Then became loss of nasality: *s'ei~ > sehi, segi. But in some cases fro this nasal vowel a new /n/ was generated: *s'ei~ > sein. These stages are well represented in Galician-Portuguese: (1) nasal vowels in Portuguese (e.g. ma~o 'hand'), (2) complete loss of nasality in Eastern Galician (e.g. mao), and (3) regeneration of /n/ in Western (now standard) Galician (e.g. man). In Basque, stage (1) is PARTLY conservated in the Easternmost dialects, Zuberoan and Roncalese (which is now extinct).

IMHO, the common opinion that intervocalic -m- arises from a *-nb- cluster is the result of an incorrect analysis of linguistic data. Definitely, /ume/ doesn't come from **unbe but from *unne (*uNe in Mitxelena's notation), as in /ahuña, ahüñe/ (Biscayan /aume, auma/) 'goat kid' < *an-unne, the /m/ resulting from LABIALIZATION of /n/ after /u/. This is also the case of /zume/ 'osier' < *sunne (PNC *ts’s’wǝ:nHe: 'reed, cane'), which some idiot has proposed to be a compound from zu- 'wood' and mehe 'slender'. The cases of /ama/ 'mother' < *anna and /eme/ 'woman' < *enne are rather peculiar because there's no /u/ to explain labialization.

The reason for the absence of *m in Proto-Basque is rather simple, as it simply merged with *n. For example, Basque zehe 'palm (measure); line' < proto-Basque *sene (PNC *tʃ’VmħV 'span') corresponds to Roncalese (t)xeme 'span of thumb and index finger'. Talskubilos (talk) 12:26, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, they're two different stages. The problem with your interpretation of intervocalic -m- though is that we have the attested form of Aquitanian VMBE > ume. Not suggesting it couldn't be the result of -nn- > -m- either but it's hard to argue against an attested form. What's PNC? Akerbeltz (talk) 12:51, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Whoa, relax, I'm not having a go. Yes, you're right, the attested form is VM.ME - sorry, I was doing this from memory and seem to have gotten it mixed up in my memory with SEMBE. Still not sure what PNC is. Akerbeltz (talk) 21:11, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

PNC stands for Proto-North-Caucasian, a language reconstructed by S. Starostin & S. Nikolayev in their North Caucasian Etymological Dictionary (NCED). See North_Caucasian_languages article. Talskubilos (talk) 21:24, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

OR by some layperson based on tortuous interpretation of ambiguous evidence (where the layperson even admits that there is evidence that contradicts his hypotheses and that he himself can't explain, though omitting the even more awkward example seme) and Vasco-Caucasian fantasies, and contradicted by RS written by actual (sceptical, not credulous) experts like Trask (who has refuted attempts to link Basque with Caucasian languages himself), is irrelevant. The ancient forms SEMBE- and OMBE-, VMME are clear enough, and disprove the baseless reconstruction **uNe.

Also, mao > man makes no sense and the magical reappearance of the nasal previously lost without trace is impossible – the obvious solution is that Old Portuguese mão /mã.u/ simply yielded Modern Standard Portuguese (based on southern dialects) mão /mɐ̃w̃/, Eastern Galician mao and Western Galician man /maŋ/ directly. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:11, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

Reply to botteville deletions

Well hello there Mr. Austroneser. I don't miss the point. I haven't got to the point yet. However you are clarifying a few points for me. The first point is the meaning of the proto-suffix. In comparative lingistics, you can't have a protolanguage without comparison of daughter languages. You can internally compare all you want but you will not arrive at a proto-language, which is the common reconstructed language of multiple languages. What you deleted was as yet unreferenced. I can open any basic linguistics book and come up with any reference to cover it. But, you brought up an interesting point, which is what Michtelina was trying to do. In essence he was comparing the dialects of modern basques. Some scholars on the Internet claim that they were not dialects but on the standard of mutual comprehensibility were different languages. Otherwise you have the comparative method with nothing to compare. I'm saying, proto- by the dialect comparison or internal method is not the same as proto- by language comparison. But, it isn't for me to ignore the respected Michtelina. We ought to follow your advice and present his method as he presented it or others describing it rightly. But, we cannot ignore the discrepancy in proto-s. I've been looking at Blevins, and she makes a point of using proto- by "traditional comparative methods." Others want to gloss over the dialects by using standard Basque. Blevins' daughter languages are modern Basque, Aquitanian, and a some historical Basques. So, it seems to me the direction in which we want to go is to clarify the meaning of proto giving the so-called internal method with pros and cons and also the comparative method. So. You don't get to just hack out what I am doing out of the blue. I'm not going to restore it right now though. I've been around long enough to do things the proper way. Here is what I will do, but, I'll listen to any suggestions. We want to clarify proto as it has been used by the Basque linguists. I'm going to open up a sandbox page and put in the material you deleted. Then I am going to finish it up, but I will have to change direction to present both meanings of proto. I suppose we are talking quite a bit of literary investigation, as there in not much of it in the article. It already has a tag on it. I invite you to participate freely. I suppose we will be on this for some time. I will put another tag on the article up front. This article so far wants to cover the internal proto. But, the latest linguists have gone back to the comparative proto, relying on the discovery of new material. To me that is an imbalance. There is plenty of time here, no rush. Let's get it right, "right" being no tags. I'm going to set it up now. Ciao.Botteville (talk) 23:56, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Sandbox for article

I created a sandbox for development of the article according to the previous discussion. It is at :User:Botteville/mysandbox protobasque. You don't expect ME to go through the personal combat of deletion/counterdeletion threat/counterthreat insult/counterinsult do you? No thanks. In the sandbox I write what I think is best and you are free to change it or comment on it. It does not have to be up to standard at any given time. Ever worked on sandbox before? There's more freedom of expression because nothing there is official yet. Eventually we will put it in the article but not until all the issues have been hashed over. We don't HAVE to do anything until we are ready. See there if you are so inclined. Meanwhile I will not be changing this article except for non-controversial things like bibliography and format..Botteville (talk) 00:23, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

I have no idea if you're talking to the world at large here or yourself, but can you slow down please? A lot of what you write is hard to follow, even with the best of intentions, and often in a very unencyclopedic style. I think it would be better if you avoided everything-on-top-of-each-other edits and also tried for a style more suited to Wikipedia, so there's less to tidy up and to give people a chance to digest what you're trying to say. Akerbeltz (talk) 09:13, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Mr. Akerbeltz, it appears as though I am talking to you. I must say I am delighted to do so, you have such a great paper background. The rest of it I daresay you sound as though you are not acquainted with (can't be). It is what you might call notification. Let me slow down a bit. Sequence: I attempt to develop an article online. Next event: it is stopped - indeed deleted - by someone who wants to see the whole thing polished right now. There is an editorial crisis here. I can't go any further online. I'm stopped. How can I procede? Wikipedia provides for this. The provision is called a sandbox. The sandbox allows me the leeway to develop this article and for the other editors to broach their comments and misgivings. Now, in the sandbox, the creator either abandons the article, or he goes ahead and develops a polished article. Once that is available the whole editorial picture changes. I give notification that I have a polished article to drop in. If no one responds I drop it in, complete with references. No one deletes that without proper reason. If someone tries it I revert it with cause. If after all that the drop-in proves unsuitable for the article in a late notification then I start another article with it. In this way if you are trying to block anything I do for reasons of your own you fail, I succeed. Have you never heard of this or have you never done it? So, I look forward to seeing you in the sandbox if that is what you decide to do. The big problem about this article is the reference, just as the tag says. No development, no references. The thing is a total linguistic muddle as far as I am concerned. But, I see there are some good online books for me to get through. So, I am moving slow if that is what you mean. I see on your site you are often unhappy with wikipedia editors. I must say I do not blame you. So am I. But, we have to go forward here, do we not? We have to make the best decision we can at the moment. Damn the torpedos, full speed ahead, said Admiral Farragut. I find your celtic background really quite interesting. I had a great uncle who learned Scottish Gaelic at his mother's knee. Over here he found no one to speak it with so he let it go. Colloden, you know. No one now remembers it or the culture. Anyway this is fortuitous speaking to you. After I finish with the Basques and the Iberians I am going on to - you guessed it - the Celtiberians. If you don't like my plans i invite you to stop me if you can. Otherwise I will see you in the sandbox. Ciao.Botteville (talk) 10:43, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Answering to both sections, I should emphasize that it's not just a matter of lack of sources or this being a work in progress. I don't agree with lecturing our readers with personal opinions about the correct use of the prefixes proto- and pre- in historical linguistics. This is unnecessarily pointy and also in parts plainly incorrect. You can do this in a personal publication or website, but not in an encyclopedia based on reliable sources.

Yes, most proto-languages are the product of reconstruction based on the regular sound changes in a set of mutually related languages or dialects. But somewhat different uses of the term "proto-" do exist in the literature, and this includes the work by Michelena, Lakarra and also Blevins for "Proto-Basque" applied to a linguistic isolate. Proto-Basque is not just the result of comparing Basque dialects, but integrates the phonetic changes that are visible in loanwords from Latin or Common Romance, which allows to back-project these sound changes also to non-borrowed material. Further, internal reconstruction makes use of synchronically opaque morphophonological rules, which must have been the result of regular sandhi rules (and other phonetic rules) at an earlier stage. Again, results of this analysis can be extended to root-internal sounds.

And if we're lucky enough to find actual written attestations of this reconstructed stage, nothing stops scholars from labelling this attested material as being a sample of "Proto-X". Proto-Norse is a prime example of this.

As for pre- being only applicable to earlier unattested languages that were supplanted by an intrusive language, this is just one side of its usage. Who says that Lehmann is "wrong" when using "Pre-Indo-European" for the internal reconstruction of an earlier stage of Proto-IE beyond the stage that is immediately ancestral to its daughter languages (thus "pre-Proto-IE" in more common parlance), and who says that Beekes is "right" when using "Pre-Greek" for the autochthonous non-Greek languages that were supplanted by Greek?

So let's not redefine "Proto-Basque" and the scope of this article based on what we might think this term should mean, but what it actually refers to in the works of Michelena, Lakarra, Trask, Gorrochategui, Hualde, Blasco Ferrer etc. I'll be happy to see this article expanded based on the relevant literature, by reflecting them faithfully and without being driven by pre-conceived notions of what the study of the thing called Proto-Basque "should" be about. –Austronesier (talk) 19:29, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Improper reversion by Akerbeltz

This user has given up any pretence for a legitimate reversion. His only reason for doing so, he says, is me personally. This is an attack on my person that verges on libel and certainly is not according to Wikipedia policy. I do not know who you really are, Akerbeltz, but your approach is totally wrong and is not allowed. Please stop. My reason for this change is as follows. Additional reading as a section does not go before the references, but is after. I do not mind if you keep the term additional reading. In the rewrite I plan to use it as a repository for harvnb references. The main tag asks for references. Regardless of what we accept for a rewrite, harvnb might apply to any refs anyone csres to put in. Austronesier's critique at least made some sense, which is why I decided to use the sandbox. You stepped into this situation bringing insults and arbitrary reversions. I don't think Wikipedia leaves me no defense against people like you. We will find out. You have one reversion. The count is not in your favor. I would expect your apology if not some cooperation in what I am trying to do, which is provide a sensible referenced article. I got no idea who you think you are to behave like this but as I say, it isn't according to policy.Botteville (talk) 13:59, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

suggestions of austronesier

Thank you Mr. Austronesier. I don't disagree with your comments. "Expansion along the current lines" seems pretty good. Whatever is in the sandbox for now you can ignore as being too undeveloped. It will be a while before I can make it start to make sense. You might be interested in what brought me to this article. As you may or may not know, a while ago some of the university linguistics departments got together and decided to work on Wikipedia articles. I appreciate the work they did but their whole method it different from ours. They style is different. Their work is usually quite condense and relies on the reader already knowing a great deal about linguistics. Their audiences are professional linguists. The upshot is, we have a lot of linguistics articles that look good to linguists but have a tag at the top saying, "this article is incomprehensible ...." To make these articles comprehensile we can't make the same assumptions about what the reader knows or thinks. To a large degree we have to spell it out. What struck me about the Internet literature I can find is the use of "proto-Basque." Credible authors don't mean the same thing by it. The usual definitions didn't seem to apply. The current article although I am sure is valid at its own level does not help us much. We can't just assume the student can spend his own midnight hours trying to come up to speed in linguistics on the few bread crombs thrown out by the experts. Now, I'm not unacquainted with linguistics. My field (classics) overlaps on it and I did take a course under Watkins when he was alive and at Harvard. Maybe he should have stayed there. But, you know, if this article is difficult for me, how do you think it is for the great majority of readers? So, in this expansion, I will be wanting to define terms, explain concepts, give historical milestones, give sources of information, and trying to make things clearer for the less exalted readers. Otherwise, what good is a people's encyclopedia if the people can't even read it? By the way, the linguists quit trying to write the encyclopedia. There is a rule here anyway, professionals can't use WP to present their material. You have to already be published. Well I got to go now. Don't put too much reliance on that sandbox until I am able to get going on it. Thanks for your critique. It was in fact a useful one. No doubt you will be following this. You seem a bit more professional than the others. Ciao.Botteville (talk) 15:02, 25 May 2024 (UTC)