http://www.volgagermanbrit.us/documents/M35__haplogroup_E1b1b1.pdf

On Page 6, under “Discussion,” they’re talking about my ancestors; who would later move to Crete and build the Minoan Civilization. And then – later – the Roman Empire. I’ve been promising a video for weeks on this. And I will deliver it. The reason I haven’t done it yet is because of an embarrassment of riches. I have decided to absolutely, completely, 100% start putting this thing together in a couple of months. That’ll give me time to finish the linguistic (amateurish) background work.

“The Eu9 haplogroup is the best genetic predictor of the appearance of Neolithic painted pottery and figurines at various European sites. Also, the highest frequency of Eu9 is in the sample from Turkey (40%). The Turkish genetic samples were all from Konya (Semino pers. comm) which is within 100 km of the significant Neolithic site of Çatal Höyük.”

Whenever people deign to talk about the massive number of Anatolians in Central Italy – and this paper does NOT – they always say they’re “Neolithic farmers.” I use this paper to show – by the absence of these figurines and pottery samples – that the Anatolians there showed up AFTER the Neolithic. They flooded in right before the Bronze Age Collapse and settled in territory largely uninhabited by the G2a men. The REAL Neolithic Farmers of Central Italy. The latter largely lived in the Apennine Mountains; where they continue to congregate to this day.

My linguistic work is merely to demonstrate whether or not it is POSSIBLE that the Minoans spoke Proto-Italic. (Really, Italic. If it’s “Proto” anything it’s “Proto-Latin.”) And if not? No problem. I’ll throw the idea in the dustbin.

Although we know quite a bit about the artifacts, ways of making a living, and recently even the DNA of Europe’s first farmers, we don’t know anything about their language or much about what they thought or believed in. Old Europe was one of the more advanced parts of the world, especially in metallurgy, but they don’t seem to have developed writing. The Sardinians are genetically very similar to those EEF [= Early European Farmer] farmers, but I doubt that they can tell us much about the old culture. It’s been a long time.

On the other hand, we know a lot about the language of the invaders, and have figured out a fair amount about Indo-European culture from linguistic archaeology. We can see that something new was added to the European genetic mix, but we aren’t sure where those invaders originated. That might be resolved, fairly soon.

We know that the Indo-Europeans crushed Old Europe and eventually imposed their language almost everywhere in Europe ( except for the Basques), but it didn’t happen all at once.

Your Dictionary quotes Webster’s New World College Dictionary:

Celtic Dānuvius ; from Indo-European dānus-, stream (; from base an unverified form dā-, liquid, flow) from source Dnepr, Dnestr, Don, Donets, Doon

and The American Heritage Dictionary:

Across Europe, from Russia to England, there are rivers with names beginning with a d and also containing an n: the Don, the Dnieper, and the Dniester of Russia and Ukraine, the Danube of central Europe, and the six rivers called Don in Britain. All of these names come from the Proto-Indo-European word *dānu–, meaning “river” and derived from the root *dā– “to flow, flowing.” In Avestan, the earliest Iranian language we know, dānu– means “river, stream.” In modern Ossetic (the language of the Ossets, descendants of the Scythians, an Iranian tribe of the Russian steppes), don means “river, stream.” This word appears in the name of the Don River of Russia. Dnieper and Dniester (earlier Danapris and Danastius, respectively) come from Scythian Dānu apara and Dānu nazdya (“the river in the rear” and “the river in front,” respectively). The name of the six rivers called Don in Britain comes from the Celtic version of the “river” word, also *dānu–. This Celtic word survives more or less intact in the name of the Danube, which was called Dānuvius by the Romans. The presence of Celtic river names both in central Europe and in Britain attests to the Celts’ earlier glory, and recalls a time when Celtic languages were spoken across Europe from the valley of the Danube in the east to Spain and Ireland in the west.

Online Etymology Dictionary:

major river of Europe (German Donau, Hungarian Duna, Russian Dunaj), from Latin Danuvius, from Celtic *danu(w)-yo-, from PIE *danu- “river” (compare Don, Dnieper, Dniester).

Jones’ Celtic Encyclopedia:

Ironically, the etymology of the name becomes “river river”–Danube < Danuvius < Old Celtic Danu-yo < IE danu- "the river," which is also name of the Irish goddess Danu, regarded as the mother of the gods; it is likely also related to the name of the Welsh goddess Dôn, also regarded as the mother of the gods. It is possible that the Danube was regarded as a sacred river by the Celts, so much so that the gods were the children of the goddess of this important river. Unfortunately, this is only speculation.

The Old European name for it was probably their word for “river” too.