Europa Vasconica-Europa Semitica Theo Vennemann, Gen. Nierfeld, in: Patrizia Noel Aziz Hanna (Ed.), Trends in Linguistics, Studies and Monographs 138, Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin, 2003, pp. xxii + 977

In this review article we evaluate Theo Vennemann's provocative theories on the role of Afroasiatic & Vasconic (e.g. Basque) languages in the pre-historic development of Indo-European languages in Europe as presented in the volume Europa Vasconica-Europa Semitica, a collection of 27 of Venn...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Lingua 2006-12, Vol.116 (12), p.2183-2220
Main Authors: Baldi, Philip, Page, B Richard
Format: Article
Language:English
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:In this review article we evaluate Theo Vennemann's provocative theories on the role of Afroasiatic & Vasconic (e.g. Basque) languages in the pre-historic development of Indo-European languages in Europe as presented in the volume Europa Vasconica-Europa Semitica, a collection of 27 of Vennemann's essays. First, Vennemann argues that after the last ice age most of Central & Western Europe was inhabited by speakers of Vasconic languages, the only survivor of which is Basque. These speakers formed a substrate to the later-arriving Indo-Europeans. The primary evidence for the presence of Vasconic throughout much of Europe is drawn from the Old European hydronyms originally identified by Hans Krahe as Indo-European & reanalyzed by Vennemann as Vasconic. Second, Vennemann maintains that Afroasiatic speakers colonized coastal regions of Western & Northern Europe beginning in the fifth millennium BCE. According to his theory, these speakers formed a superstrate or adstrate in Northern Europe & had a profound impact on the lexical & structural development of Germanic. In the British Isles the language of these colonizers, which Vennemann calls "Semitidic" (also "Atlantic"), had a strong substratal influence on the structural development of Insular Celtic. In this essay we examine the evidence for & against Vennemann's theories & his methodology. References. [Copyright 2005 Elsevier B.V.]
ISSN:0024-3841
DOI:10.1016/j.lingua.2005.03.011