Atlantic (semitic) languages
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The Atlantic languages of Semitic origin are a disputed concept in historical linguistics put forward by Theo Vennemann. It has no wide acceptance, being based on sparse evidence.
According to him, Semitic seafarers settled the European Atlantic coast. They are associated with the European Megalithic Culture. They left a Semitic superstratum in the Germanic languages.
Vennemann bases his theory on the claim that Germanic words without cognates in other Indo-European languages belong very often to semantic fields that are typical for loanwords from a superstratum language, such as warfare, law and communal life. Likewise, he proposes Semitic etymologies for words of unknown or disputed origin; for instance he relates the word bee to Egyptian bj-t or the name Éire, older *īwerijū to *ʔj-wrʔ(m), ‘island (of) copper’, as in Akkadian weriʔum ‘copper’.
Other evidences he adduces for a Semitic superstratum are a Semitic influence on the Germanic form of the Indo-European ablaut system and similarities between Germanic paganism and Mesopotamian mythology, for instance the parallelism between Freyja and Ishtar, goddesses of war and love.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Alfred Bammesberger, Theo Vennemann: Languages in prehistoric Europe. Winter, Heidelberg 2003, 319-332. ISBN 3-8253-1449-9
