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Archiver > GEN-ANCIENT > 2004-04 > 1082203187


From: Francisco Antonio Doria <>
Subject: RE: [Gen-Ancient] Georgia & the Caucasus - Garden of Eden? [Was: Edessa, Judea, and Armenia]
Date: Sat, 17 Apr 2004 08:59:47 -0300 (ART)
In-Reply-To: <000001c42472$0866e810$0500a8c0@SAINTNINO>


Dear Carolyn,

I must say I'm having trouble following you. Basque is
an isolated language, perhaps related to another
isolated language in mid-Asia, while the Celtic group
is derived from the indo-european (or indo-hittite)
family.

It is conjectured that the name Iberia was carried
from Eastern Iberia to Spain by the Alans; the name
Galicia to Galiza in Northern Portugal was again
derived from some similar migratory movement.

The Basque people, again, is *very* isolated: one of
their genetic characteristics is the Rh negative blood
group.

fa


--- Carolyn Clark Campbell <>
escreveu: > This potential Basque-Celtic connection is
very
> interesting indeed.
> When my husband and I first came to Georgia a few
> years ago, we were
> told that the only hypothetical connections between
> the Georgian
> language group (which includes Georgian, Mingrelian,
> Svan and Tsan, and
> Georgian-Jewish [a dialect of Georgian as Yiddish is
> of German and
> Ladino of Spanish] -- all languages restricted to
> the Caucasus region)
> are Basque and Gaelic. Since then, we have heard
> that some linguists
> have pooh-poohed the potential Gaelic and/or Basque
> connections with
> Georgian -- now if they are connected with each
> other that adds to the
> sense that there could be possible connections of
> Georgian with both.
>
> The potential Basque connection with the Georgians
> is intriguing ...
> we've always been puzzled as to why ancient East
> Georgia (which is where
> the Udi live) was called Iberia, a term now used for
> Spain, although one
> theory was that the Romans simply used the term for
> "a far-away place,"
> which, of course, both Georgia and Spain were
> vis-à-vis ancient Rome. It
> would make sense that people from the Caucasus might
> want to settle in
> the Pyrenees, just as my Scottish ancestors were
> attracted to the
> mountains of North Carolina (many places in Georgia
> remind me of both
> Scotland and North Carolina).
>
> My friend who's been working with the Udi people
> here actually started
> with Irish voyage origin legends and worked his way
> back through 10
> locations in the early ballads to the Caucasus. It
> will make an
> interesting study when he finally gets a chance to
> write it.
>
> At present, all we have is interesting speculation,
> so it would be
> exciting to get some kind of scientific studies (DNA
> & linguistic) of
> the people here. Of course, because of all the
> foreign invasions the
> genetics of the people here are undoubtedly a vast
> hodge-podge. I'm told
> a significant number of newborns here in Georgia
> carry the "Mongol spot"
> -- which is common among Hungarians as well -- a
> large blue bruise-like
> birthmark in the "small" of the backside below the
> waist -- an
> indication of Asian genetic heritage -- I've noticed
> most Korean babies
> have the same marking, which disappears when they
> get older. The Mongol
> invasion of Georgia was so devastating that
> something like 90% of the
> people were killed during that period, and the
> population has never
> fully recovered in numbers.
>
> My husband, who is of Jewish descent (except through
> the
> paternal-paternal-paternal line, which is Prussian
> -- hence no Y DNA
> connection with early Jews, though one culturally
> inherits "being
> Jewish" through one's mother), and I, who am largely
> of Celtic descent
> (both the Clarks and the Campbells came from
> Scotland), though lots of
> my lineage is English, both feel absolutely "at
> home" in this culture --
> an odd experience in a land with such an alien
> language. We've traveled
> to many countries where we've loved the people and
> their culture, but
> never before had the "feeling" of almost having
> re-discovered "home". I
> keep eerily running into men who look remarkably
> like they could be my
> father's brothers, while my husband finds it an
> extraordinary experience
> to be warmly welcomed for his Jewish heritage by
> people who consider
> "their" Jews to be an important and treasured part
> of their own culture
> and history.
>
> Europeans who come here immediately identify Georgia
> as obviously
> European -- the appearance, the demeanor, the
> intellectual history is so
> evidently European. Italians write about how
> Italian the culture seems,
> but French see how closely it is allied to French
> culture, and the
> Germans and Dutch and Scandinavians feel a warm
> sense of brotherhood
> with the people. Yet having lived as a part of an
> Asian family in my
> early years (my first husband was Korean) I see so
> many parallels with
> Asian culture -- a Korean would feel very much at
> home in Georgian
> family life ... What is it about this place that we
> all feel such an
> affinity?
>
> (Undoubtedly totally irrelevant: a Malagasque friend
> of mine who spent
> some time with the Basques, upon seeing photos of my
> grandchildren who
> are 1/2 Irish, through their father, and 1/4 Korean,
> through my
> daughter, exclaimed -- oh, my! They look exactly
> like Basque children!)
>
> Carolyn Clark Campbell
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Phil Moody [mailto:]
> Sent: Saturday, April 17, 2004 7:31 AM
> To:
> Subject: Re: [Gen-Ancient] Georgia & the Caucasus -
> Garden of Eden?
> [Was: Edessa, Judea, and Armenia]
>
> "Carolyn Clark Campbell" wrote:
>
> the Ossetians (now trying to be independent of
> Georgia in the
> > south and Russia in the north), are more credibly
> claimed to be the
> > descendants of the Scythians, who moved across
> Europe as the Goths;
> and
> > years ago I remember reading in the National
> Geographic that the Celts
> > also originated here and spread across Europe
> during the last
> millennium
> > B.C. One linguist is trying to document a
> connection between Gaelic
> and
> > the language of the remaining Udi people (less
> than 1,000 left) who
> were
> > expelled by Stalin but have returned to their
> original homeland in
> East
> > Georgia, where the Romans originally called them
> Albanians (no
> relation
> > to current Albania) and they had a major
> civilization with its own
> > writing system.
>
> PLM: Perhaps, it would behoove this linguist to
> substantiate his
> research with
> some Y DNA testing of the Udi male population. Here
> is an interesting
> study
> online "Genetic evidence for different male and
> female roles during
> cultural
> transitions in the British Isles", at:
> http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/98/9/5078
>
> A few quotes to peak your interest:-)
>
> "Basque Population History. To investigate the
> degree of paternal
> genetic
> continuity in the British Isles through the
> Neolithic and the
> development of
> Iron Age cultures, we compared the Welsh and Irish
> samples with 50
> Basques
> (28, 29). The Basques are widely believed to be
> descended from the
> Paleolithic
> inhabitants of Europe for reasons including the
> following: ***(i) Basque
> is a
> non-Indo-European language with some features
> suggesting a distant
>
=== message truncated ===

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