SV: method of dating RV, III

[Miguel Carrasquer Vidal]

"N. Ganesan" <naga_ganesan at HOTMAIL.COM> wrote:

> O. Szemer'enyi, Structuralism and Substratum - Indo-Europeans
>and Semites in the Ancient Near East,
>Lingua, 13, 1-29, 1964
>
>Szemer'enyi investigates the exceptions to the rule that
>PIE phonology is built on a 5-vowel system. Noting that
>both Sanskrit and Avestan use a 3-vowel system, he says
>that this is adopted from the Semitic languages of
>Mesopotamia.

I don't think that'll work.  Proto-Semitic had indeed a 3x2 vowel
system (long and short *a *i *u), but North and East Semitic clearly
already had /e/ and /e:/, and probably /o/, /o:/ as well (can't be
sure for Akkadian, because of the defective writing system in thi
respect).

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam