Talk:Proto-Ionians

Comments

the claim that there was a Greek elite installed at Troy in the 13th century is almost mainstream (see Alaksandus). Not "accepted", but "possible, no problem". Since it is undisputed that Greeks were all over the place by 1400 BC, and widely accepted that there may have been a Ionic-Mycenean split by that time, this goes nowhere towards establishing Ionians in the 3rd millennium, let alone the early 3rd millennium. Keep the claims separate. "Greeks were in Troy", fine. "Ionians in 3000 BC", different animal. dab (ᛏ) 13:28, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

But what Faucounau really cares about is that Ionians were in the Aegean in 1700 BC or so, so that his decipherment is not impossible. The business about 2900 BC is intended to prove that - and enlist the archaeo-astronomers in his cause.Septentrionalis 15:29, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Sources for the Ionian-Mycenaean split by then? If this is mainstream, the linguistic argument may be reducible to a cross-reference. Septentrionalis 15:35, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

If I've correctly understood J.F.'s theory, the 13th century Troy would be a city populated by a mixed population : Luwians and descendents of the Proto-Ionians, with double names : Pâris (Luwian)/ Alexandros (Greek). This view is, of course, against the mainstream, thinking that Alexandros/Alexandus would be an Achaean/Mycenaean from the "Akhijawa kingdom". J.F's arguments are : 1)-none of the Hittite Tablets related to Akhijawans mentions "Wilusa" -- the Hittite tablets mentioning "Wilusa" mention also "Lazpa" -- but as W. Lamb in Thermi has written, there has been no Mycenaeans in Lesbos, contrary to Samos, Rhodes, Miletos, etc. To solve this riddle, some, as J.Freu, have been as far as denying that Lazpa = Lesbos (See RANT 1-2004)., in order to keep the equation : Alexandus = an Achaean king. 2)- Almost no Mycenaean pottery has been found at Troy before Troy VIIa, i.e. after the conquest of the city by the Achaeans. Well, the Alexandus Treaty was signed before that !... 3)- Apollon was the Alexandus' God. There is no god of this name in the Linear B tablets. (User 80.90.57.154, 17:10, 3 March 200§)

That will take work to make into article text. If Apollo is a tribal god of the Ionians (and the Dorians), but not of the Achaeans, a partition so long ago as 2900 sounds unlikely. But there is an old argument that Homer's Apollo Smintheus, god of mice and darkness, is a local (Trojan?) cult. I guess I should go read Renfrew (JF p. 61). Septentrionalis 16:24, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I share this view (and I suppose that J.F. would accept it. He has written something on this, but I can't remember where): it seems that Apollon was mainly a Trojan God, as shown by the Alexandus Treaty. (User 80.90.57.154, 16:30, 3 March 2006)

paddle

I don't think this is the place to discuss Grimm's law. And even if it were, it wouldn't apply to paddle (noun), since that's a Latin loan in English. It is a little bit different for paddle (verb) apparently, but this doesn't seem to be under discussion. If it were, we would find ourselves in precisely the territory of the one "exception" to Grimm's law, English path, explained, for lack of anything better, as an Iranian(!) loan. For the purposes of Faucounau, paddle (n.) is from Latin patella. dab (ᛏ) 08:05, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

I think we are talking about paddle (v.). This was influenced by paddle (n.), but originally meant just "to tramp about" and has cognates in Low German/Dutch, but for further etymologization faces the same problems as path. Not a compelling argument (obscurus per obscurium), to be sure, but we cannot dismiss it with reference to the "spade" meaning. dab (ᛏ) 08:14, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Noted; I'll recheck OED. JF, writing in French, chooses Eng. paddle, which implies he thinks it's native (else why not choose the Latin or French representatives of patella?) Septentrionalis 00:46, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

yes, but is he talking about paddle (v.) or paddle (n.)? dab (ᛏ) 20:48, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

• Fauconau, p.44: "car pa-da-ye-u est la transcription en écriture mycénienne du mot proto-ionien *padayeus:"skipper, armateur - propriétaire du navire", terme dans lequel le digamma primitif a passé à y. Le scribe centralizeur a préféré remplacer ce mot par son "équivalent achéen" *padeweus, écrit pa-de-we-u. Le fait que la racine soit *pad- et non la racine *ped- du "grec commun" (que l'on retrouve dans pedalion "gouvernail") montre que le terme a été emprunté à quelque langue indoeuropéenne ou proto-indoeuropéenne (on comparera avec l'anglais paddle "pagaie").
  • while French has the same ambiguity, and dictionaries suggest that "paddle" n. is only a secondary meaning of pagaie, I think if he meant the verb he would have said pagayer. Septentrionalis 23:01, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
  • pedalion has an eta and is duly related to πηδον. (and so I presume to the ê-grade of foot. Septentrionalis 23:07, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
• OED online for paddle' (n.):" Origin uncertain; perh. < post-classical Latin padela, padula (14th cent. in British sources in sense 1), of unknown origin; in spite of the chronology the Latin word may perh. represent a borrowing < Middle English. Cf. slightly earlier PATTLE n. Perh. cf. later SPADDLE n.

  Dutch peddel (second half of the 19th cent.), German Paddel (second half of the 19th cent.), Swedish paddel (second half of the 19th cent.), all in sense 2, are < English."

  • The cross references lead back here except the possible paddle<spaddle<spattle<L. spatula.
• OED for the verb: "[Origin uncertain; perh. < PAD v.1 (although this is first attested slightly later) + -LE 3; cf. German regional (Low German) paddeln to tramp about (< padden to walk, kick, wade (see PAD v.1) + -eln -LE 3). Cf. earlier PUDDLE v., and also PODDLE v."
• The OED path:Cognate with Old Frisian path (West Frisian paad, East Frisian (Saterland) pad, East Frisian (Wangeroog) path), Middle Dutch pad, pat (Dutch pad), Middle Low German pt, pat, Old High German phad, pfad (Middle High German phat, German Pfad); further etymology uncertain, perh. borrowed early < an Iranian language (see note below).

  The word is app. restricted to West Germanic; there is no evidence in Gothic or the early Scandinavian languages (but perh. cf. Finnish pade valley, prob. < a Germanic language). The forms show that the word must have been in West Germanic before the Christian era.

  The form of the consonants is problematic. While the final fricative suggests the regular operation of the First Germanic Consonant Shift (Grimm's Law), the origin of the initial p- is debated: according to Grimm's Law, an underlying Indo-European p- should have shifted to f-; alternatively, Germanic p- could derive from Indo-European *b-, the existence of which is uncertain.

  • Second edition had: if this is an example, paþ would correspond to pre-Teut. bat-, which has suggested the root of L. batuěre to beat

  The most widely accepted theory sees the word as a borrowing from Iranian, in which Indo-European p- is preserved, and there is alternation between forms with -t- and forms with -θ-; cf. Avestan pantā (nominative), paθō (genitive) way, Old Persian pathi-, ult. < the same Indo-European base as FIND v. (cf. FOUND v.1). This explanation does however pose historical problems, given the limited distribution of the Germanic word.

  An alternative suggestion assumes a borrowing from an unattested Gaulish term (< the same Celtic root as Old Welsh, Welsh pant valley, of unknown origin; cf. sense 2a). While this model can account for the consonants, the vowel quantity is unexplained (a long vowel would be expected).

  H. Kuhn (Zeitschr. Mundartforschung (1961) 28 4, 14) lists the word with a small number of West Germanic terms with unshifted initial p-, which he regards as deriving from a pre-Germanic Indo-European substratum; he regards path as being ult. < the same Indo-European root as FOOT n.

  In Old English the stem vowel typically alternates between æ and a, with the latter occurring before endings containing a back vowel, and the former occurring elsewhere (see A. Campbell Old Eng. Gram. (1959) §157); however, there is much analogical levelling. Old English forms with o as stem vowel are attested only when the word is the second element of compounds, and result from low stress (see A. Campbell Old Eng. Gram. (1959) §335). The evidence sometimes adduced for an Old English feminine by-form paþu is late and doubtful.]

• Septentrionalis 23:30, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

... montre que le terme a été emprunté à quelque langue indoeuropéenne ou proto-indoeuropéenne (on comparera avec l'anglais paddle "pagaie"

I wouldn't make too much of this, whatever he may mean by 'on comparera'. He is simply glossing over some weak points here, as it were waving his hands declaring anything that doesn't fit with 'emprunté à quelque langue indoeuropéenne'. It is clear that the whole theory is extremely weak (and it is duly ignored, of course), but it would be even clearer if JF wouldn't beat about the bush like this :) dab (ᛏ) 08:20, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Presumably why he does beat around the bush, of course ;-> Septentrionalis 20:12, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Constellations

that the names of the Constellations are (Ionic) Greek, not Minoan

I do not see this in Faucounau's writings, and it is a poor argument. Of course Aratus used Greek names for the constellations; he was writing in Greek. (Nor, as far as I can see, did he use Ionic forms for them.) Please supply page reference. Septentrionalis 22:30, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

This is written on page 57 of his book Les Proto-Ioniens. He has also developped the argument in not-peer-reviewed journals, for instance in Kadath 83 (1994) (with A. Roy, an astronomer). I don't see why you are calling this linguistical argument as "poor" ! (80.90.39.72 19:35, 16 March 2006 (UTC))

just as it is extremely poor to use arguments pointing towards the existence of Ionians in 1200 BC as "proving" the existence of "Proto-Ionians" in 2700 BC (15 centuries earlier!). The more I look into it, the more apparent it becomes how silly this whole theory really is. dab (ᛏ) 08:25, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't see why you call this theory silly, except if you have not read or understood what has been written !.. 1)-What J.F. calls the astronomical proof shows that the proto-Ionians lived in the Cycladic Islands c. 2500, not 1200 BC 2)-What he calls the "archaeological proofs" show the continuity between the "Keros/Syros Culture" and the Phaistos Disk, a proto-Ionians' work. Here again, we go back to c.2500 and 1700BC, not 1200 BC ! As for the Historical Ionians, they are, in fact, resulting from the mixing, in Ionia, of Athenian settlers and the remnants in this area, one millenium later, of the proto-Ionians. In other words, J.F. considers a double migration : a)- c. 2500, the proto-Ionians moved from the Anatolian coast to Attica b)-c. 1200/900BC, the Athenians moved to the Anatolian coast. (80.90.39.72 19:35, 16 March 2006 (UTC)) PS : BTW, I don't understand why you are correcting my sentence that Attic is coming from proto-Ionian, like the proto-Ionic language of the Phaistos Disk is. (Proto-Ionic-Attic is of course older than the Disk's proto-Ionic. The use of the word proto-Ionic for both is misleading)

I will double-check, but Faucounau's "proto-Ionic" appears to differ from Attic in the same fashion that historic Ionic does. Therefore Attic's similarity to other Greek dialects cannot be explained like everybody else does, by Ionic continuing to diverge from the common stem (this includes those who accept the three-wave theory); Attic must be a blending of proto-Ionic and a West-Greek dialect. Septentrionalis 20:10, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

It does; he reconstructs *Iae-so-(s) where Attic uses Iāsos and choses to read *po-kae-i as Φωκαιηι. Septentrionalis 20:09, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

There is no doubt from the papers I read that J.F. is distinguishing between what he calls sometimes "proto-Ionic-Attic" (= the mother-dialect of Ionic and Attic) and the "proto-Ionic language of the Disk", although he generally uses proto-Ionic for designating the language of the Disk (80.90.39.72 22:56, 16 March 2006 (UTC))

"I have read; I have understood; I do not believe." Septentrionalis 20:10, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

same here; you'll just have to live with the fact that some people do not consider those "proofs" conclusive, Rose-mary. dab (ᛏ) 21:17, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Of course, I know that there are people who don't consider the "proofs" as conclusive !.. It's a question of opinion, and this is why I have no objection to the header's redaction : "The P.D.'s purpose and meaning... remain disputed'". But saying that J.F.'s arguments are silly is another thing !!!!

Moreover, when you guys say "I have read", it's with strange glasses !.. For instance, here is what J.F. has written to support the links between the Keros/Syros Culture and the Phaistos Disk : "a)-the Disk is round like a "frying pan" b)- it has a spiral like several "frying pans" c)- it presents a mixture of incised lines and stamped designs d)-the stamps were "in relief" as some Cycladic stamps (not "in hollow" like all the Minoan stamps) e)- the ship is similar to the Cycladic ships, including the device to estimate the wind's strength f)-the axe is identical to the axe from the "Kythnos Treasure" g)- one may notice amongst the glyphs several "maritime items".

Well, read by you, it has become : the disk is round like a "frying pan"... No comments needed.. (80.90.39.72 22:56, 16 March 2006 (UTC))

Notability

Apart from the Faucounau stuff, "Proto-Ionians" seems to be a bona fide term in historical discussions on the Origin of the Greeks in the 1880s to 1920s period. This probably doesn't merit treatment in a standalone article but should become part of a larger discussion of the "Origin of the Greeks". --dab (𒁳) 14:27, 14 April 2009 (UTC)