Basque

[MJ]

Tornado,

 

Are you an ambassador in our forum? Could you introduce yourself, please?

[MJ]

OK. But you didn't introduce yourself, right?

[Guest]

quote:

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Originally posted by MJ:
OK. But you didn't introduce yourself, right?

---

Sorry for not introducing myself:
Profile for Tornado
Member Status: Junior Member
Member Number: 375
Registered: May 15, 2001
Posts: 25
Email Address: amigotornado@yahoo.es
Location: the world
Homepage: http://
Interests: Culture

And dear Mj I know what you mean, I guess I am in good understanding with people you don't much. Hakob, Garen Mamikonian, Iranyar, Aryan Shah, Armin Minassian, Captain Piruz, Aryashahin and in general those Pan-Aryanists have respect for me and it's mutual, we have a cultural and linguistic forum also where we meet and discuss. I hope this would be no source of enmity here, I respect you as a person, but I will keep contact with my friends.

Allmost 3/4 of friends are from Iran, Anatolia, Armenia, transcaucasus , central Asia and Caucasus, Spain and Italy are the second region on my list.

and furthermore I am a human from this world

[MJ]

I hope this would be no source of enmity here, I respect you as a person, but I will keep contact with my friends.

 

No, as long as you can abide by the Code of Conduct of this forum, and would not exercise a pattern of annoying, homophobic, racist, dishonest, etc, behavior, no animosity would be exercised towards you. Besides, no animosity against anybody – if you don’t abide by our rules, we would deny you access. That’s all we would do. And then, immediately, we would forget about you.

 

Allmost 3/4 of friends are from Iran, Anatolia, Armenia, Transcaucasus , central Asia and Caucasus, Spain and Italy are the second region on my list.

 

Good for you.

 

and furthermore I am a human from this world

 

Really? Don’t human beings from this world practice the manner of knocking the door when entering and saying: “Hi! I am so and so. I wonder if …?”

 

[ May 20, 2001: Message edited by: MJ ]

[Guest]

Excuse me have I said something wrong here? Or I did something wrong? I don't have to do with other people you are at odd with, but I don't think I have said something bad here. i just talk about Languages and cultures, and don't talk about politics, to avoid problems.

 

Tornado

[MJ]

Did I say you did or said something wrong? Why all this defensiveness?

 

[ May 20, 2001: Message edited by: MJ ]

[Guest]

It was not extra deffensiveness, anybody else would have said the same thing

[MJ]

OK.

[Guest]

quote:

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Originally posted by MJ:
Tornado,

Are you an ambassador in our forum? Could you introduce yourself, please?

---

I don't understand you MJ. Whu would an Ambassador have enough time to post on internet?

PS. The ambassadors are generally more into high politics than culrure, while I don't want to be engaged in politics at all. Not that I don't have clear cut views but that I want to avoid long discussions and its consequences.

[nairakev]

If you ask any Megrel, why they speak differently from georgians and you'll ask if there are other ethnicities who have common roots to Megrel language, you'll hear always the same answer : "Basque"
Russian and many european (Spanish, French) ethnologues tried to explain and research the similarities not only (linguistic) but also physical and cultural between basques and megrels. But as I know there were no serious confirmations that these two ethnicities form one family (not enough historic material, only hypotesus). Though its well known that basque and megrels have lots of stuff in common, ethnic games, clothes, words, even names have rassemblance.
I think the last word isn't said yet. Because the research is still going on.
There are questions like:
Who migrated first? Megrels to Spain, or may be basques migrated to Georgia.

[Guest]

dear Naira

 

mingrelians seem to attach themself to the basque, but if you go to the Mingrelian villages they have never heard of the language Basque. As I know the basque themselves say that there are some hypothesis but not for sure that Basque is similar to the Caucasian languages . These theories seem to have been made in the period when the basque separatists wanted to stress their differences from the rest of the Spanish population, better said they wanted to stress they are something else. There were also attempts to connect the basques with the native americans or, the Tibetans, and dravidians and even the mythological atlantians.

 

But more recent the Mingrelians and in general georgianswanted to attach themselves to the basques in order to be accepted in the European song festival, football federation, security system etc... however Georgia is accepted in the European struvture, this was due to the fact that these regions were cathegorized as Soviet and thus European. The superficial basque connection, has had nothing to do with,the international politics doesn't work this way.

the anthropological and linguistic researches couldn't make clear more relationship between Caucasian and basque, than in the realm of tjhe Nostratic languages. This is that basque and caucasian languages are more or less as related to each other as they are with the Altaic (Turkic, Korean, Mongolian), Dravidian (languages of black Indians ,for example tamil, telugu etc...), or Finugric (Finnish, Hungarians) etc...

 

But I agree with you, there should be done more research. probably some of these language and anthropological groups are more related to each other than than to others, this is my opinion, but still we have no evidences , in regard to Georgian/Mingrelian and basque relationship.

[nairakev]

I won't go deeper into debate. My message was in response rather to a question "which connection goes more likely. Armenian-Basque or Gerogian-Basque or Abkhazian-Basque?"

As soon as I didn't see anyone mention migrelian connection, I found necessary to mention that. Because as you know this connection is dicussed mostly in scientific world. There was really nothing else, but bringing into debate this migrelian-basque connection, which wasn't mentioned nor by you neither by others.

 

 

 

I'm not sure about your ideas. I don't think georgians would use such a "delirious" argument to justify their will for participating in European socio-cultural life. It's too minimalist as argument. I really don't think that the research which has started before the last cuacasian conflicts (Georgia, Chechnia, Nagorno-Artsax) has something to do with political games.

 

[ May 27, 2001: Message edited by: naira ]

[nairakev]

[ May 27, 2001: Message edited by: naira ]

[nairakev]

Tornado,

I can agree that I have not read george hewitt, and I don't know really a lot on how the english structure georgian language.

I have really no serious background on this issue, though I've studied linguisticc for a couple of months years ago.

 

But knowing a bit Georgia and in particular, megrels, I'm quiet confident that Georgians would not use megrelian-basque language connection to say they are more Europeans than their neighbours. There was always a conflict between megrelian thinkers and georgians. It's unofficial, but mostly georgians and megrels hate each other. No one can explain truly, why megrels dislike georgians (megrels who live in megrelia, closer to Zougdidi, not in Tbilisi). Especially after recent events, this gap has been deepened. President Gamsakhurdia was megrel, since Shevardnadze organised his removal and drove him to death, and lost Abkhazia, megrels cannot have a lot of sympathy for georgians. I'm saying again. This is unofficial version. The official version is that megrels are georgians and speak the same georgian language, but with a slice accent.

This is a pure boulschit! I hope you heard megrels speaking in their language. So? Do you still think megrelian and georgian are forming one language. It's not like Artsax armenian dialect and yerevan armenian. Between megrelian and georgian a huge difference. Georgians do not understand it at all. They cannot capture even a word from their conversations to figure out what they are talking about. While when I listen Artsax armenians talk, slowly but, I get what they talk about.

 

[ May 27, 2001: Message edited by: naira ]

[Guest]

quote:

---

Originally posted by naira:
Tornado,
I can agree that I have not read george hewitt, and I don't know really a lot on how the english structure georgian language.
I have really no serious background on this issue, though I've studied linguisticc for a couple of months years ago.

But knowing a bit Georgia and in particular, megrels, I'm quiet confident that Georgians would not use megrelian-basque language connection to say they are more Europeans than their neighbours. There was always a conflict between megrelian thinkers and georgians. It's unofficial, but mostly georgians and megrels hate each other. No one can explain truly, why megrels dislike georgians (megrels who live in megrelia, closer to Zougdidi, not in Tbilisi). Especially after recent events, this gap has been deepened. President Gamsakhurdia was megrel, since Shevardnadze organised his removal and drove him to death, and lost Abkhazia, megrels cannot have a lot of sympathy for georgians. I'm saying again. This is unofficial version. The official version is that megrels are georgians and speak the same georgian language, but with a slice accent.
This is a pure boulschit! I hope you heard megrels speaking in their language. So? Do you still think megrelian and georgian are forming one language. It's not like Artsax armenian dialect and yerevan armenian. Between megrelian and georgian a huge difference. Georgians do not understand it at all. They cannot capture even a word from their conversations to figure out what they are talking about. While when I listen Artsax armenians talk, slowly but, I get what they talk about.

[ May 27, 2001: Message edited by: naira ]

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oh I didn't know that the Mingrelians hated Georgians. I allways had thought that the fanatic and chauvenist Georgians are from mingrelia, like Gamsakhurdia was.

about Georgian proper and Mingrelian being two unintelligable language you are right, but they belong both to the kartvelian languages group.

dear Naira I wonder how you have had so much contacr with georgians and especially the mingrelians, a people only 1 million person.

[Guest]

quote:

---

Originally posted by naira:
I won't go deeper into debate. My message was in response rather to a question "which connection goes more likely. Armenian-Basque or Gerogian-Basque or Abkhazian-Basque?"
As soon as I didn't see anyone mention migrelian connection, I found necessary to mention that. Because as you know this connection is dicussed mostly in scientific world. There was really nothing else, but bringing into debate this migrelian-basque connection, which wasn't mentioned nor by you neither by others.




I'm not sure about your ideas. I don't think georgians would use such a "delirious" argument to justify their will for participating in European socio-cultural life. It's too minimalist as argument. I really don't think that the research which has started before the last cuacasian conflicts (Georgia, Chechnia, Nagorno-Artsax) has something to do with political games.

[ May 27, 2001: Message edited by: naira ]

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1-Megrelian and Georgian, and Lazian and Svanian are all called Georgian in English, better said Kartvelian, Georgian in English can mean either Kartvelian (south Caucasian or Kartuli (georgian proper"Read about this problem george Hewitt.

the reseaches before the ethnic conflicts in trans -Caucasus are indeed not all politically motivated, but the Georgians or Mingrelian in particular with the basques usually want to say they are more Europeans than their neighbours, but this smells more as inferiority complex than proud.

[nairakev]

I had and I still have many friends who are mengrelians. They often talk extreme way, and the first impression may seem that they're nationalists and arrogant people. But I won't take those clichés easilly. It is true that megrelian georgians are holding an important part in today Georgia's cultural and political life, but in no way I would agree to call megrelians the most extremist and nationalist georgians. I know that many megrelians are proud of Beria (Stalin's right hand), but this pride is mostly explained by the fact of Beria's fame of being one of USSR most influential political figures during decades after the bolshevik revolution, as many georgians are proud of Stalin, being the first Georgian to get to the reigns of absolute power. However, when georgian intelligentsia analyses Stalin's and Beria's epoques, they make often very categoric conclusions and beat the myth. Georgians, were the first to suffer because of Stalin's regime. Many georgians were send to GOULAG's as well, and actually the civil war in Georgia is a resonance of what Stalina and Beria did to their motherland.

I really do not think that the most extremist and ultra-nationalist georgians are from megrelia. Megrels are very proud and hospitable ethnicity. Of course, as the worls is based on stereotypes, you can here people saying (even georgians) that megrels are 'big-headed' arrogant and nationalist.

But I won't generalise. And I'd say that many megrels were supportive of Armenia during Artsax war. And certainly, there were lots Tbilisi apparatchik, of megrelian origin, who did a lot to side Azerbaijan, during this conflict. Tbilisi appratchiks, supported Azeris because they were afraid of Abkhaz, Osetians (who were their local separatists). The problem is that Georgia has lost both Abkhazia and Osetia. And that's because of stupid position taken by first by Gamsakhurdia and then by Shevardnadze.