http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/History/Pelasgian.html
On: <i>Pelasgians</i>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Pelasgian
Ancient Greek writers used the name Pelasgians (Greek: PelasgoÃ, s. Pelasgós) to refer to groups of people who preceded the Hellenes and still dwelt in several locations in mainland Greece, Crete, and other regions of the Aegean, as neighbors of the Hellenes, into the 5th century. The ancient Greek references to the Pelasgians are confusing. However, it is agreed that Pelasgians had spoken a "barbaric" (non-Greek) language.
<b>Whether the Pelasgian language was pre-Indo-European or not, and the extent to which it was a single language or not, are modern disputes that are colored by contemporary nationalist issues.</b> Among the nations for whom Pelasgian descent has been claimed are Albanians, and Romanians. There is also a theory suggesting that the Philistines or Peleset of the ancient Levant were connected with the Pelasgians. Scholars have since come to use the term "Pelasgian", somewhat indiscriminately, to indicate all the autochthonous inhabitants of the Aegean lands before the arrival of the Greeks; a number of other recent theories as to their nature are also discussed below.
[...]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Interesting read. For several reasons, including:
1. What the Greeks wrote in the past:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->That the Athenians were autochthonous was expressed mythically in the stories of Erechtheus and Erichthonius and was emphatically stated by Isocrates in Panegyric 23-5:
"For we did not win the country we dwell in by expelling others from it, or by seizing it when uninhabited, nor are we a mixed race collected together from many nations, but so noble and genuine is our descent, that we have continued for all time in possession of the land from which we sprang, being children of our native soil, and able to address our city by the same titles that we give to our nearest relations, for we alone of all the Hellenes have the right to call our city at once nurse and fatherland and mother."<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
2. Now IE studies. Section <i>"Modern Theories: Pre-Indo-European people</i>
(NOTE: not <i>proto</i>-IE people, but pre-IE. Pre-IE means people who lived somewhere before the IEs are to have arrived. Proto-IE tends to mean some ancestral population to IE, a genetic precursor. From what I understand.)
3. How IE determines what is and isn't Greek. Same old logic again: Not Greek "because not IE, because it isn't <i>common</i> IE" -
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->"Further, scholars have attributed a number of non-Indo-European linguistic and cultural features to the Pelasgians:"
(For reasons such as
"Certain mythological stories or deities (usually goddesses) that have no parallel to the mythologies of other Indo-European peoples like the Germans, Celts or Indians."<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
How far back in time do we need to go to get an acknowledgement (self-recognition) from some IE population that they belong to IE? No historical population seems to mention them ever. Forever there seem to have been multiple 'tribes' rather than a single common community. Or is it the theory that they were together at a time they couldn't write?
4. So IE thinks they are non-IE, pre-IE. Things become interesting/confusing here:
http://ysee.gr/index-eng.php?type=english&f=faq#32
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Do you seriously believe that the Gods live on Mount Olympus?</b>
Olympus is indeed the abode of the Olympian Gods. However, it is not the well-known mountain separating Thessaly from Macedonia on whose peak our ancestors built alters, knowing full well that it could not therefore be the Gods' literal abode. There were 18 other mountains also called Olympus in distant places inhabited by Hellenes, from Asia Minor to the colonies in the West.
The true Olympus was and is a Divine place, a celestial 'land' that is bathed in Spiritual Light.<b> In fact the word Olympus is derived from the verb 'Lampo' (I radiate), whose archaic root is probably proto-Pelasgian.</b> The sublime Olympus lies above us, below us and within us. Our Gods are everywhere!<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Olympic Gods.
So, going by all that:
The word Olympus probably derived from proto-Pelasgian.
If Pelasgian is not IE, then proto-Pelasgian isn't IE.
This would make Olympos and the very name for the Olympic Gods non-IE.
Does this mean the Olympic Gods aren't IE either if they live somewhere - which they're named after for its most pertinent meaning of "radiating" spiritual light - whose name isn't even IE? <!--emo&:blink:--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='blink.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Did I make some mistake? Or am I making too much of "probably"?
On: <i>Pelasgians</i>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Pelasgian
Ancient Greek writers used the name Pelasgians (Greek: PelasgoÃ, s. Pelasgós) to refer to groups of people who preceded the Hellenes and still dwelt in several locations in mainland Greece, Crete, and other regions of the Aegean, as neighbors of the Hellenes, into the 5th century. The ancient Greek references to the Pelasgians are confusing. However, it is agreed that Pelasgians had spoken a "barbaric" (non-Greek) language.
<b>Whether the Pelasgian language was pre-Indo-European or not, and the extent to which it was a single language or not, are modern disputes that are colored by contemporary nationalist issues.</b> Among the nations for whom Pelasgian descent has been claimed are Albanians, and Romanians. There is also a theory suggesting that the Philistines or Peleset of the ancient Levant were connected with the Pelasgians. Scholars have since come to use the term "Pelasgian", somewhat indiscriminately, to indicate all the autochthonous inhabitants of the Aegean lands before the arrival of the Greeks; a number of other recent theories as to their nature are also discussed below.
[...]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Interesting read. For several reasons, including:
1. What the Greeks wrote in the past:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->That the Athenians were autochthonous was expressed mythically in the stories of Erechtheus and Erichthonius and was emphatically stated by Isocrates in Panegyric 23-5:
"For we did not win the country we dwell in by expelling others from it, or by seizing it when uninhabited, nor are we a mixed race collected together from many nations, but so noble and genuine is our descent, that we have continued for all time in possession of the land from which we sprang, being children of our native soil, and able to address our city by the same titles that we give to our nearest relations, for we alone of all the Hellenes have the right to call our city at once nurse and fatherland and mother."<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
2. Now IE studies. Section <i>"Modern Theories: Pre-Indo-European people</i>
(NOTE: not <i>proto</i>-IE people, but pre-IE. Pre-IE means people who lived somewhere before the IEs are to have arrived. Proto-IE tends to mean some ancestral population to IE, a genetic precursor. From what I understand.)
3. How IE determines what is and isn't Greek. Same old logic again: Not Greek "because not IE, because it isn't <i>common</i> IE" -
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->"Further, scholars have attributed a number of non-Indo-European linguistic and cultural features to the Pelasgians:"
(For reasons such as
"Certain mythological stories or deities (usually goddesses) that have no parallel to the mythologies of other Indo-European peoples like the Germans, Celts or Indians."<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
How far back in time do we need to go to get an acknowledgement (self-recognition) from some IE population that they belong to IE? No historical population seems to mention them ever. Forever there seem to have been multiple 'tribes' rather than a single common community. Or is it the theory that they were together at a time they couldn't write?
4. So IE thinks they are non-IE, pre-IE. Things become interesting/confusing here:
http://ysee.gr/index-eng.php?type=english&f=faq#32
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Do you seriously believe that the Gods live on Mount Olympus?</b>
Olympus is indeed the abode of the Olympian Gods. However, it is not the well-known mountain separating Thessaly from Macedonia on whose peak our ancestors built alters, knowing full well that it could not therefore be the Gods' literal abode. There were 18 other mountains also called Olympus in distant places inhabited by Hellenes, from Asia Minor to the colonies in the West.
The true Olympus was and is a Divine place, a celestial 'land' that is bathed in Spiritual Light.<b> In fact the word Olympus is derived from the verb 'Lampo' (I radiate), whose archaic root is probably proto-Pelasgian.</b> The sublime Olympus lies above us, below us and within us. Our Gods are everywhere!<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Olympic Gods.
So, going by all that:
The word Olympus probably derived from proto-Pelasgian.
If Pelasgian is not IE, then proto-Pelasgian isn't IE.
This would make Olympos and the very name for the Olympic Gods non-IE.
Does this mean the Olympic Gods aren't IE either if they live somewhere - which they're named after for its most pertinent meaning of "radiating" spiritual light - whose name isn't even IE? <!--emo&:blink:--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='blink.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Did I make some mistake? Or am I making too much of "probably"?
Death to traitors.