Armenian Origins Of Basque and Etruscan?

[Chu]

Interestingly, this culture largely disappeared across Europe around the time of the Younger Dryas and was replaced by the 12K BCE individual from Villabruna in Italy. But the Magdalenian culture survived in the Iberian Peninsula which is seen in the genetic admixture of Neolithic Iberians. The Iberian Peninsula basically acted as one of the primary refuges for people who survived the Younger Dryas event.

Interesting, Eboard, thanks!

As to the origin of the Basque language, I would guess that it could have been imported from the Anatolian farmers that settled during the Neolithic, but it could have already been present from the Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers that inhabited the area. I wouldn't be surprised if it's a mix of both, i.e. a local language that was later influenced by the spread of farming communities from the East but that's purely a hunch from a non-linguist.

That's quite likely, IMO. Especially it having been there since the Paleolithic. I don't know about you, but the more I read, the stronger impression I get that languages change VEEERY slowly. There are borrowings, or total assimilation in some cases, but most of the time, maybe what we see nowadays is not SO different from what was back then, linguistically speaking. If anything, it may be more likely that there were more languages back then than now, not the opposite. But some are super resistant. I was reading recently how in Algeria, for example, the Arabic language that is written (classical) has remained pretty much stable for 3000 years. The spoken language differs, but people understand both without any big trouble. That happens in several other places too. So why not since way earlier than is often assumed?

Daniel Everett (a linguist who wrote a few books) even has a theory that puts language back in the Australopithecus. He is a Darwinian, but makes a good point, I think: even in super ancient archaeological sites, and especially in islands, the tools found show that people must have had a way to communicate. Otherwise, how would the build a boat, or convince others to cross a river or a sea, or "talk" about making a fire or a special spear? Etc. It is often assumed that they were very simple hominids, but the "hardware" was already there for language. The difference in brain size wouldn't prevent them from having language either. (Neanderthals are said to have had slightly bigger brains than us, for example).

Anyway, just some thoughts, FWIW.

 

[Chu]

@thorbiorn , thank you for that great collection of quotes! I too was hoping there was more in the sessions, but that's something.

Wouldn't the "hurrian territory", and modern Armenia, be right about where Zoroaster is supposed to have been born? I think Laura mentioned it, or maybe it's on "When Zarathrustra Spoke".

From Wiki as well:

Hurrian is an extinct Hurro-Urartian language spoken by the Hurrians (Khurrites), a people who entered northern Mesopotamia around 2300 BC and had mostly vanished by 1000 BC. Hurrian was the language of the Mitanni kingdom in northern Mesopotamia and was likely spoken at least initially in Hurrian settlements in modern-day Syria. It is generally believed that the speakers of this language originally came from the Armenian Highlands and spread over southeast Anatolia and northern Mesopotamia at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC.

For those interested, on the Wiki summary about the language itself, there are MANY language traits that I think are VERY similar to Basque as well.

Hurrian language - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The ergative, the SOV order, the high rate of suffixing, even what was deduced about its sounds... We would have to compare them way more carefully, but I was surprised by the parallels, because some of those traits are rare in languages nowadays. They aren't unique to Basque, but still the minority. So, I can well imagine the two being related. More digging to be done!

 

[Basque Seeker]

After listening to modern Armenian:

it's clear to me that it lacks clear direct phonetic links to Spanish/Basque. But I understand too that modern Armenian is quite different from old one and ancient Basque could also sound different from modern one, including sounds.

I also agree Spanish and most common modern Basque are very close in terms of sounds. There is one point that still keep me thinking, though, since I found one exception.

The most common type of Basque nowadays, both spoken and written is 'Batua' (meaning 'united'), which is a modern artificial construct to 'unify' Basque speakers, so they can use the same language and understand each other. The reason to create this was that people from some villages could really not understand each other, even living in villages within the same province, few kilometers apart.

Examples of this are the 'types' of Basque spoken in villages like Lekeitio, Ondarroa, Azpeitia or Ea. A person only knowing and speaking 'Ondarroan Basque' still today will have a real hard time, to say the least, to understand a person speaking 'Lekeition Basque' for instance.

I guess if we wonder how this language was kept alive for so long there and isolated, we could have another symptom of the same cause with this?

Anyway, the exception that I think I found in terms of sounds is quite clear (IMH and non-expert O) in relation to 's', 'sh', 'ts', 'tz', 'tx', 'x', 'te', 'tu', 'rr', 'ye', 'yi', 'yo' 'yu' sounds, primarily. There is some difference on some of those sounds in Batua compared to Spanish for example, but the case I will show is far more marked, really changing the general sound, in my view.

The funny thing is that this is not related to a specific area, but to a set of 'conditions' that some people meet. These would be:

- Being born/raised in some of the Basque small villages that have their own type of Basque (so with evidence of upmost isolation somehow).

- Having Basque as first language (which is extremely rare nowadays, even for older generations since Spanish and French are extremely important, widespread and dominant - probably partially because they are easier to learn).

- Belonging to an older generation (rough approx. ~1920's or before, the reason is that from ~1939 to ~1975 the use and teaching of Basque was banned and prosecuted in the Spanish side during the 20th century dictatorship times, so Spanish was pushed and promoted as dominant in pretty much the full Spanish side of the border).

- Belonging to a certain family within that village (!). I *believe* (no proof so far) that this could be related to the specific 'house Basque' (term still in use today to refer to the specific type of Basque that was spoken within a certain family). In turn, this might be related to specific influence of either Spanish or French in certain families due to specific situations in the past.

For certain people belonging to that quite 'picky' group, this different type of prosody applies as per the sounds mentioned above (again in my opinion).

You can hear yourself some examples of this in the following videos (BTW this Youtube channel is an absolute treasure in my view [politics content aside, which I dislike], since it collects so many interesting details related to how people spoke and still speak in some of these small villages).

You will find big differences between young people speaking and *certain* old people speaking.

Now, focusing on the differences, some of these can be heard, for example in:

Check 02:06-02:15 & 08:43-08:53

Check 07:56-08:15 (with some French influence, interesting since that village is not even close to the French border).

Check 13:38-14:13.

Check 0:50-01:30

Check 09:33-10:02 This is fun, at the end of his intervention he asks to the interviewer 'entendido?' ('understood?' in plain Spanish). :D

Check 06:19-06:32


Urnietako Ahotsak

This one has multiple examples like:

0:58-01:31 who has no defect in the Spanish 's' pronunciation like seen around 01:29-01:31.

03:03-03:58.
11:47-12:04.


Elorrioko ahotsak

01:15-02:39.
13:42-14:11.
18:49-19:24.

My personal conclusion is that if these differences in prosody can be found within few generations of Basque speakers (with the extra conditions mentioned), and if the other links found between Basque and Armenian apply only to old Armenian, it might not be a too far reach linking Armenian with Basque even in apparently unrelated aspects like prosody if we could look back in time to check. Time machine anyone? :)

 

[Chu]

Very interesting, thanks @Basque Seeker ! I can hear some differences, indeed, although not knowing Basque, I'm probably missing a lot. You mentioned sounds and prosody, but what about the grammar and lexicon? Are they very similar?

Funny, I was having a conversation with @thorbiorn just yesterday, and we were wondering to what extent languages change. He mentioned differences in Feroese compared to Danish, for example, and how within 50 years, isolated groups couldn't understand each other well anymore. We also talked about how education and politics (like "Bantua Basque") can create a stability, and how, depending on (perhaps) the territory, the culture and genetics, languages branch out. The question is by how much and at what pace... There are so many variables, depending on whether you look at phonology, syntax, lexicon, etc. To what extent is there language "evolution", and to what extent do languages remain stable throughout the centuries if a group of people are isolated? I don't know, lots of research to do still.

 

[Basque Seeker]

@Chu pitifully from grammar point of view I couldn't find anything to add to the list you gathered.

For lexicon, I could access modern Armenian but not old Armenian on top of what has been posted in this thread by @Altair

For modern Armenian I could find few similarities in lexicon wrt Basque. I checked multiple basic verbs, numbers, colors, animals, pronouns, body parts, adverbs, etc.

Some examples I found:

[English: transliterated Armenian / Basque]

Stone: k’ar / har - harri
Far: herru / urrun
Water: jur / ur
To come: ari / etorri
Freedom: azatut’yun / askatasun
Fast: arag / askar
Horse: dzi / zaldi
I: i / ni
You: du / zu
Your: dzer / zure
That: vor / hor
Sharp: sur / zor - zorrotz
Edge: yezr / ertz
Sea: tsov / itsaso

Which I couldn't find are the type of super, really clear Basque-sounding words like the ones you can find on the names of towns, rivers, lakes, etc. in Armenia and nearby region (e.g. Urmia, Artik, Harich, Urartu [although not existing anymore it literally sounds in Basque as "water you can take" and the city was next to a lake, that was cool!], Norashen, Arevshat, Saratak, Arevik, Hatsik, Hartashen, Zorakan, Atabe, Ardoti, Ilurta, Alisgori, Shenako, Kumelaurta, Jandari, Kesalo, Alaverdi, Urasar, Agarak, Daranak, Areguni, Norabak, Aghitu, Ashotsk, etc.). It looks like the most 'Basque sounding' words in Armenian language are either lost or modified as per influence of other languages, maybe.

There could be indeed similarities, probably more interesting ones with old Armenian, but maybe the 'time' covered clear links with layers and layers of veils, which blurr the truth :S

Super interesting though!

 

[Chu]

Oh, apologies if I wasn't clear (although your findings are interesting too, because the author himself mentioned that it would have been a comparison between old Armenian and Basque, not modern Armenian).

My question was only about Basque: are there grammatical and lexical differences between the Basque spoken by people, say, born in the 20s, and modern Bantua, or even modern dialects that you know of. Or is it just sounds and prosody that have changed quite a bit? That is related to the question of how fast grammar actually changes. My guess is that it is slower than sounds, and much slower than commonly believed. It happens, yes, but it is harder to change because it would mean changing how people actually think, symbolize and view the work. FWIW!

 

[Basque Seeker]

Ah, ok, sorry I misunderstood. Well, that's a thing, because Batua wasn't the fruit of 'evolution' or something like that, it was an artificial construct specifically created by local scholars and linguists in order to deliver a method to unite the speakers.

The 'picky' group that I mentioned before could be compared against the younger speakers of the same 'house Basque', and there the only difference would be indeed in prosody/sounds.

There are for example multiple nouns and even verbs belonging to specific 'local' Basque dialects, but those are kept by younger speakers of those dialects too.

Some evidence of this with Ondarroan dialect, for example:

If we compare those (either older generation or younger generation) speakers of local dialects with speakers of Batua we will see some differences both in grammar and lexicon.

But those types of differences are consistent through time between older and younger speakers of different Basque dialects.

For more details on differences in lexicon and grammar between dialects you can check some examples here:

Basque dialects - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

And in Spanish:

Comparar bizkaiera batua principiante Diferencias verbos

Comparar bizkaiera batua principiante Diferencias Verbos Aditzak Vocabulario ¡Con colores! Explicaciones claras: entender amigos conocidos...

mintzamena.euskaragara.net

Dialecto central del euskera - Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre

es.m.wikipedia.org

Dialecto occidental del euskera - Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre

es.m.wikipedia.org

I also tried to check how Basque evolved (or not) in America, but pitifully I found just few examples of several generations of Basque speakers living in US. Most of the Basque speaking people who emigrated there and brought there their language did so in the 20th century.

I found a case of a family with 3 generations of Basque speakers in Idaho, for example, in this video:

Check 20:14-21:53.

I found interesting the fact that she speaks Batua instead of her family dialect. Also, listening to her it's clear to me Basque is not her first language as per the struggle she goes through to speak.

It's clear the way we speak wires the way our brains work and think.

Not sure if this helps, though.

 

[Arlind]

I can't really judge how close Basque and Armenian languages are and apart from the mentioned legend that a leader of Basques came from Armenia with his 7 sons there is little to suggest that Basque actually originated from Armenian language. It may just as well be that both languages are derivatives of the Atlantean language or its dialects and both peoples might be survivors of the Flood aka Atlantis destruction (note that present day Basques and Armenians inhabit mountainous regions or highlands).

I'm finding this and the Romance languages discussion threads (and there may be more, I'm slowly going through this board which I'm highly interested in) quite insightful. Very helpful in shedding some light on + providing the opportunity to learn not only on seemingly unrelated languages (in and out of the Indo-European language family, which seems to be a partial/ distorted picture of the history pf languages it holds) but also the history of the 'very connected' people of the ancient European/ Near East/ Steppe territories.

Thank you @Altair for researching and providing the great info (and books). My impression is that the the very old and fairly intact ("resilient" languages as Chu puts it) are later offshoots or potentially even 'somewhat preserved' forms of pre-Flood (Younger Dryas) language(s). That may be why research suggest they are related and often compared to the likes of Etruscan and Iberian (and there are more obscure ancient European cultures/ languages that don't fit the modern-constructed language family trees).

I forgot something: one interesting fact about Basque and Armenian both (and there are others), is the resilience they have shown. In spite of all odds, invasions and what-not, they are VERY old (Basque is believed to date from at least the Neolithic). I sometimes wonder what makes it so. Just geographical isolation alone wouldn't do it, I think. There is something intrinsic to the language (and the way its speakers think, which is VERY different in Basque), that is maybe intrinsic to the speakers themselves too? I don't know. But some languages sure are resistant, while others are very vulnerable regardless of the number of speakers.

Albanian is possibly another example though the modern official version is profoundly different to the original (especially the one spoken by the people) due to many recent rounds of standardization and endless pressure/ influences from the many invasions/ empire border changes, common throughout the history of the region seen as the natural boundary of East and West.

Nonetheless, the two main dialects that comprise it, Gheg (spoken in Northern and central regions) and Tosk (spoken in the South/ part of Greece/ South-eastern Italy etc), appear to have and still preserve VERY old roots. Both Gheg and Tosk, including old versions of it like Arbëresh, Thracian Arvanitika and others (considered languages on their own) have been linked to Etruscan.

Your thought about the languages being intrinsic to the speakers seems pretty valid to me, and I can add to that the resilience of the speakers themselves in refusing to submit/ maintaining their culture and identity which they identified with core elements like language and traditions. Local history suggests they sought isolation or they generally lived self sufficiently in the highlands and lands which historically were difficult to influence no matter the size of the armies going through or the power the imperial rulers at different times. Seems there was something inherent in them, part of their values and way of thinking (akin to ancestor/ ancestral values worshiping of the romans as an example), that made them lead their lives in tough conditions with no access to resources and all life-sustaining benefits of the portions of the population that submitted, so as to preserve their identity/ culture which I suspect they saw as the one and the same. The small pockets of these strong-willed people (weathering the storms so to speak) are the reason these ancient forms of language have survived. Roughnecks and probably far to rigid-minded but hey, they may have preserved jewels of language, as in (and this is a very subjective take of mine) archaic, more authentic and more in-tune with the world ways of expression/ communication. This something difficult to explain but I know and feel when I speak proper Gheg, pronouncing the words and speaking the old (efficiently short) sentences, that there's weight and substance behind my expression; it's as if it was more than just a series of sounds arbitrarily assigned to that expression, it's 'the right' sounds..

Didn't mean to go on a tangent here, but your thought sparked that connection.

 

[Dovana]

I recently watched this video from the famous Anatoly Fomenko, the Russian mathematician who proposed a drastically reduced timeline for our history.

This video is a one-hour documentary where the film-makers plus Fomenko and his research partner present the findings of a Polish scholar. The findings are that, basically, etruscan is russian and the alphabet is just a slightly altered cyrillic, to the point that a literate russian could easily read etruscan. They show a few examples, and they do seem to match very choerently, as far as their presentation goes.

It's a bit too convenient how much it matches their framework that, to exaggerate a bit, is that humanity started and developed in Russia.

I know little Russian and next to nothing about etruscan archeology, so I can't pass a much educated veredict. But this may be very interesting for the discussion.

 

[Chu]

Thank you @Dovana. I finally got around to watching the video above, and I found it VERY interesting. I confess that I'm terrible at History, so I don't know what to make of it all.

But this is what Laura wrote on the subject:

Anyway, the reason I mention this is because when the question was asked about Putin being a descendant of Putin, there was an odd hesitation and I felt that it wasn't the right question. What I think is that all of them descend from different branches of an even older line. It seems pretty obvious to me that the Roman patricians were arrivals from the northern steppes because their religion and customs were so completely Western Eurasian. And, Caesar was a patrician.

And:

Well, you are kinda mixing things up there. I've highlighted the main issues above. I say that the Romans appear to have been INFLUENCED by the Assyrians, not necessarily that there was ANCESTRAL linkage. I wrote it that way specifically because the influences are clear, but not so much the genetics. As for the Etruscans, there are some odd Nordic elements there for sure.

But, it may be exactly so that the indigenous Romans were descendants of Steppe peoples with a sojourn in Eastern Europe in between, and then were strongly influenced by peoples fleeing the collapse of the Assyrian empire. The ones that are still sort of dangling are the Etruscans.

I'm still plowing through book after book after book and hope that I'll find the lynchpin eventually. I have picked up a lot of clues and the puzzle is sort of taking shape, but there's still a lot of work to do.

And then, there is this from a session on 21 June, 1997:

Q: Change of subject: I am tracking the clues through the various languages and alphabets. I would like to know which of these alphabets, Runic, Greek, or Etruscan, preceded the others, and from which the others are derived?

A: Etruscan.

Q: Well, who were the Etruscans?

A: Templar carriers.

Q: What does that mean?

A: Seek and ye shall find.

Q: Well, how am I supposed to do that? I can't find anything else on the Etruscans!

A: No.

Q: What do you mean 'no?' You mean there is more out there on the Etruscans?

A: Yes.

Q: Okay. What are Templar carriers?

A: Penitent Avian Lords.

Q: What does that mean?

A: For your search. All is drawn from some more ancient form.

And then, @Altair shared some really interesting possibilities here!

History of Russia - История России

While Fomenko and Nosovsky include some sources, my impression is they also overlook some others like archaeological finds. They often use analysis of words. Yes, and this analysis seems sometimes too far-fetched to me (like confirmation bias). For example (from the quote above): Азиатский...

cassiopaea.org

I really don't know what to make of the timing given in your video, because that makes the Etruscans a much later people. My uneducated guess is that those are the later survivors, not the original tribes. BUT, what seems really plausible is that this is further confirmation that the Etruscans were the steppe peoples.

It's always interesting to see how, over the centuries, comparing Slavic languages (and especially Russian) to Western ones has been a taboo, a forbidden science. They really don't want us to think that civilization didn't "start" in Greece and Rome, eh?

The more I learn Russian, the more I'm often surprised by similarities with Romance Languages which shouldn't exist if we believe their official genealogical trees. And it's the same with language "isolates" (like Armenian in this thread), and how when you leave aside the dogma, you find plenty of similarities with languages that shouldn't be related...

The Italian researcher in your video gets it completely wrong when he says that the Etruscan alphabet comes from Latin, but inadvertently, he shares part of the problem: Just because a script can be deciphered with one specific alphabet, it doesn't mean that the languages are mutually understandable. (e.g many languages use the "Latin" alphabet, yet you wouldn't understand a word of them if you don't know the language in question.)

Anyway, others might have better input, but I'll be thinking about this for sure. Thanks! I find it quite fascinating and think it's worth watching.

 

[Altair]

It's always interesting to see how, over the centuries, comparing Slavic languages (and especially Russian) to Western ones has been a taboo, a forbidden science. They really don't want us to think that civilization didn't "start" in Greece and Rome, eh?

I finished recently Origin of the Anglo-Saxon race : a study of the settlement of England and the tribal origin of the Old English people (published in 1906) by Thomas William Shore and he convincingly shows that the so called Anglo-Saxons were a mix of Scandinavians, Danes and Baltic Slavs. He analyzes archeology, etymology of local place names in Britain and customs of family inheritance.

The more I learn Russian, the more I'm often surprised by similarities with Romance Languages which shouldn't exist if we believe their official genealogical trees. And it's the same with language "isolates" (like Armenian in this thread), and how when you leave aside the dogma, you find plenty of similarities with languages that shouldn't be related...

There will be even more similarities with the so called Germanic languages (English, German, Dutch).

There is also a Russian author Ольга Семёнова-Роттердам (Olga Semenova-Rotterdam). She published recently her book "Вспомнить всё. История до того, как её переписали." ("Remember everything. History before it was rewritten") in which she extensively analyses old Dutch chronicles as well as Bede. She comes to conclusion that around 1121 BC Slavic refugees/migrants from Albion (!) had to migrate to the territory of the modern Netherlands because they were defeated by Brutus of Troy (descendant of the Trojan hero Aeneas). She doesn't come to conclusion that Troy was located in Britain but, interestingly, she uses the date of the fall of Troy provided by Eusebius (1181 BC) and substracts 3 generations (60 years) to estimate the date when Brutus of Troy ("Brutus is the grandson or great grandson of Aeneas") might have defeated the Slavs from Albion. According to C's Troy fell in 1100 BC and according to Wilkens' Where Troy Once Stood (and C's) it was indeed located in Britain.

Here is an excerpt from the Dutch chronic Kroniek van Kattendijke tot 1490 as quoted in her book (the original version is here)

Ende die coninc Brutus die wan ende becrachtichde dat eylant Albyons ende versloech veel ruesen ende ruesinnen. Ende van dien wilden volck dat uut den landen verdreven was, wort Hollant eerst begrepen, als voerscreven staet, ende die hieten langhe tijt Slaven. Ende dit was xic lxx jaer voer Ghoeds gheboerten ende was in den tijden dat Samuel rechter was over dat volck van Ysrahel

Her translation into Russian:

И этот король Брутус, который захватил тот остров Альбион, сразил множество великанов и великанш. И этот дикий народ,
что с земель был согнан, первым занял (населил) Голландию, как это стоит записанным, и они звались долгое время славянами. И было это в 1170 r. до рождения Бога, в те времена, когда Самуил судьёй был над народом израильским

In English from the Russian translation above (Deepl can't deal with Old Dutch but some native Dutch speakers could validate):

And this King Brutus, who took over that island of Albion, slew many giants and giantswomen. And this wild people,
that was driven from the land, first occupied Holland, as it is written, and they were called Slavs for a long time. And it was in 1170 r. before the birth of God, in the days when Samuel was judge over the people of Israel

There is much more in the book but you have to know Russian. Here is a Youtube playlist with her interviews (all in Russian):

 

[Dovana]

This may tie into the russian/steppes subject. European portuguese sounds just so much like Russian. The more I losten to it, the more appalling I find it.

(Portuguese)

(Russian)

In summary, both have high incidence of:

• consonants without vowels in between (consonant cluster)
• high incidence "sh" sound (africate sibilant),
• that "y" sounds before many vowels (vowel palatalization)
• and it seems the singing ("prosody") is not exactly the same, but it seems to have similar patterns of frequency and how high or low pitched they go (range)
• that vowel that is quite closed but the toungue is almost to touching the palate (median high vowel, ы in russian)

And the frequency of all of those seems to be quite similar.

This strikes me as quite bizarre. Even in the far-away isles as Madeira, portuguese speak this way, and as far as I can tell none of their neighbors speak like that, not even less direct ones such as Irelans, Wales, or Marroco.

It seems that portuguese already had those characteristcs from 1600-onward, but they were not as accentuated. I tried looking for genetic sharing of slavs in Portuguese, haven't found anything yet. Also didn't find any significant slavic cultural or historical tie to Portugal.

A few leads, which may be or may not be false, is that Russia was one of the first countries to open an embassy in Brazil after its independence in 1828, even before Peru, if I'm not mistaken. This is in a time where even letters could take weeks to reach such far distances.

Also, there seems to be a cultural corridor between central Italy to the West, up to Galicia to the North of Portugal. That's a region where the cathars were quite present, and there's a cathar canton that is called Roussillon, even today.

It's quite a mystery to me.

 

[Gaby]

European portuguese sounds just so much like Russian.

Portuguese reminds me of Catalonian, so I figured that Castilla and its Castilian was dominant in Spain, while not so much in the peripheries of the Iberian Peninsula. Galician is close to Portuguese too, but you'll find that in speakers of both languages (Galician and Catalonian), there's the unmistakable "Spanish accent".

Russian would be the last language I would think when listening to Portuguese. I guess if you can "silence" the meaning of the words and focus only in the accent, maybe. An analogy could be the twin person that you may have in another part of the world, unrelated to your country or family. Some designs for accents might manifest thus.

My 2 cents.

 

[Chu]

What sounds similar to some people is the palatalization (consonants pronounced more in the front of the mouth, like /j/). But that is a detail if you compare their actual phonological systems.

Portuguese:



Russian




And that's just for the consonants, but the vowel differences are also quite big.

I would say the difference between Russian and Portuguese phonology is much greater that the difference between Greek, Basque and Spanish, which belong to completely different families.

Besides all of this, if you are actually familiar with both, you quickly realize that they are quite different. Just pay attention to nasal vowels, for example, quite frequent in Portuguese, but nonexistent in Russian.

 

[Chu]

And that is not to say that there aren't any interesting clusters, like this one could have been. If you group the languages of the world according to their sound systems (phonology) alone, you get completely different "families" than the officially recognized ones. As far as I know, nobody has been able to explain this phenomenon yet. And it is a pickle! But because "it's just sounds", they often get ignored because they are believed not to carry any meaning. A big mistake, in my humble opinion. Instead, crazy mental gymnastics are used to come up with language genealogies that, linguistically (and apparently quite often historically) speaking, make zero sense (eg. Latin having led to Romance Languages, or Anglo-Saxon to Germanic languages).