> The fact that such a reasoned account can be made for such a
> non-strandard location makes me realise how much current locations
> suggested are based on some pretty flimsy arguing and a process where
> people come to agree on such narrow evidence.
>
Sorry John, this article is really written by an incompetent guy.
Everything he says about adduced rerlations between AN and IE are
simply wrong : malay dua comes from an earlier drusa as in paiwan. Its
similarity with latin is purely coincidential. He said also something
wrong that I find difficult to hear, that cattle breeding was learned
in China from the Tokharian, because of the allege similarity between
IE gwos and Chinese ngjuw < b/ngwy < b/ngwu. In fact, cattle-herding
was known already in southern china before the sixth millenium (Bubalus
in the Pengtoushan culture).
I don't think Bernard Sergeant said IE came from China. In his book
"la genèse de l'Inde' 1995, payot, he says that the Indus civilisation
was not aryan but burushaski, that the name Sind itself comes from
burushaski sinda "river". The burushaski live north of the Indus
valley, geographically it works well : the aryan came from the south
and progressively headed north; only the northertern brusha resisted
linguistics assimilation.
Guillaume