Re: Prehistoric Ethnogenic Processes

From: Marc Verhaegen
Message: 234
Date: 1999-11-11

>> Amazing results. Congratulations. An enormous work with possibly enormous
implications. Thank you very much for your stimulating work!

>Thank you too for the such high valuation of my work. This is only an
extract from my book in Ukrainian. If you should read the whole work, the
matter is more clear for you.

>> 1) Could you please explain in simple words (some examples?) what is the
importance of first & second word levels for your method?

>I can explain that on the example of Indoeuropean languages. The words of
Indoeuropean languages wich have correspondences in all Nostratic languages
belong to the first (Nostratic) level. These words are so - bright (sun,
light, fire etc), dark (black, night), to seize (to catch, to take), hunger
(suffering, death), to throw (to cast, to hurl, to shoot) and similar.
Nostratic languages are the languages of the first level. The words of
Indoeuropean languages wich have correspondences in all Indoeuropean
languages (common Indoeuropean words) belong to the second level. These
words have more concrete sense - father, mother, man, cow, sun, day etc.
Separate Indoeuropean languages (Greek, Latin, Old Indian, Old Iranian,
Germanic etc) are the languages of the second level. English, German, Gothic
etc are the languages of the third level.


How come the first level does not have "day" or "man"? "Cow" I can
understand: the IEs learnt to know what a cow was only after they came in
contact with farmers ultimately coming from the Middle East. And "father -
mother" (as well as "brother, sister, daughter") could have been composita
(+*-ter) (formal meaning?) --is that possible, Piotr?

You used the first-level words for comparing Uralic, IE, Altaic, Sem-Ham.,
Kartvelian & Dravidian, didn't you? Couldn't it be that, say, Sem-Ham. had
agriculture before the other groups & therefore gave the other groups a lot
of agricultural terms, which overestimated the geographical closeness of
Sem-Ham.?

>> 2) Do you suppose Uralic, IE, Altaic, Sem-Ham., Kartvelian & Dravidian
all split at the same moment? or do you only suggest these peoples were in
close contact at some time?

> I think that Uralic, IE, Altaic, Sem-Ham., Kartvelian & Dravidian were
splitting from the common languages during certain long time when speakers
of these languages were living on the same territory with geographic
borders. But separate groups of these speakers could leave this territory in
different time.


Earlier leaving would confuse the geographical implications, wouldn't it? If
the IEs left earlier, it would seem as if they had lived farther away (less
words in common with the other languages), don't you think? Perhaps the 6
groups split a lot earlier, were perhaps not even in close contact, but
learnt to know only each other's goods (cows, technologies, barley, wool,
cords etc.) & terms for these goods?

>>(Is your Sem-Ham. is only a small part of Afro-Asiatic?)

>I took prepared data of Illich-Svitych.


Then you use it as a synomym of A-A?

>> Suppose you didn't select these 6 language groups, but a smaller or
larger group of languages --would that have yielded other results?

>The possibility of bringing of Illich-Svitych's data in a certain system
confirms that the selection was correct.

>> 3) Other scholars have suggested other geographies, eg, AFAIR Andreyev
(your footnote 15) believes Uralic+IE+Altaic ("Boreal") at the end of the
last Ice Age must have lived somewhere in the Carpathians. If both his &
your conclusions are correct, that means that they must have traveled
together to the Kaukasus?? Or do you think Andreyev is wrong?

>I think so.

He sounded rather convincing to me (but I'm no expert at all). I only read 2
short abstracts of his in LOS Forum a few years ago.


>> Before I had read your "Introduction" I had thought that the early IEs
had borrowed agricultural terms form Sem-Ham.

>Yes, you have right. A some branch of Sem-Ham come through Anatoly and
Balkans to South Ukraine and founded here Tripolje culture. They had a
contact with IEs here.

Do you have evidence for that? (It's believed that there has been a giant
flood coming from the Meditteranean that opened the Bosporus & filled the
Black Sea Basin (in the 5th millennium or so --I don't recall it well, but I
believe Mark may know). Before that date there was no Black Sea at all.)

>> 4) Greek & Germanic are in the centre of your IE homeland. Could this be
due (only?) to the fact that these languages had the largest number of words
used in your analysis? Is this a "real" homeland, or were these IE languages
only in close contact at that time?

>I tried to use all languages even.


>> 5) Some of your word identifications are not very convincing (eg, Eng.
jump – Yagn. jumb "to move",

>The translation is not correct. It may be approximately "to move swift".


>> 6) It's amazing how many migrations must have taken place. Perhaps
periods of (long?) stasis alternating with brief periods of (intense?)
migration?

>Certainly!

>> 7) By combining your results with other methods more accurate
constructions are perhaps possible?

>I am sure. Sorry, my English is bad, I cannot explain more clearly.


And I'm sorry I can't read your book in Ukrainian.

Best wishes --Marc