Nostratic and IE (or "Sorry John, I'm being naughty again")

I apologize for my mr.-nasty-bear comments. I'm not emotionally stable. I
blaim my father's rampant alcoholism and strict, self-condemning
religion for my imbalance. I also blaim Canada and the lack of vitamins in
pizza :)

>Surely they would have had to travel through the
>middle east at some stage? And if in the Middle East, there are only
>three ways out [...] West [...] North [...] East [...]

Nostratic movements:
Eurasiatic : Africa -> East (Fertile-Crescent)
Kartvelian : Africa -> North (Caucasus)
AfroAsiatic : remains in Africa

Non-Nostratic movements:
Vasconic : Anatolia -> Balkans

>What I am arguing is that *all* language movements from at least
>20,000 BCE until the neolithic agricultural revolution have to take
>account of this cultural trend

What has not been taken into account? The cultural trends are explained
here.

>On your "central origin" theory, for Uralic they should have started >in
>Papua New Guiea and spread out from there!

All the closest linguistic relationships to Uralic (4 groups) lie to the
east from 4000 BCE onward, except IndoTyrrhenian. We must take the most
probable theory.

>Glen, I don't argue that Uralic languages were ever spoken in
>Anatolia. [...] It is quite probable on the evidence I feel that
>they spoke a language that was either "late-Eurasiatic" or
>"Proto-Boreal" on your schema.

Still not likely.

>2. Altaic languages show a feature that suggests that the further
>east you go the more you find Nostratic like features modified and
>diluted. Thus if Japanese is an Altaic language (and not an >Austronesian
>one), then it is furtherest from the proto-Altaic core.

Wrong, in fact Korean appears to retain some archaic features of Altaic and
Nostratic. Also, Armenian has very little to do with IE anymore and look
where that resides. Would you like to place the IE homeland in India or
Greece then?

>by what route did the proto-Altaic languages travel from proto->Nostratic
>in Africa? [...]
>
>1. Via the Middle East-Iran-Turkmesistan to the Altai and regions
>north and east from 18,000 to 5,500 BCE

Correct, Steppe migrated between 12,000 and 9,000 BCE. Dravidian also
started to migrate at this time to India.

About Gilyak:

>This seems to be indicative. But I still would need to see more
>before seeing these as possible chance or random coincidences.

There's much room for a change of opinion based on what little I do know on
it but I take the most probable theory until more evidence to the contrary
presents itself. Unfortunately, no one else knows much about it either.

>The first Pottery cultures (LBK, Starcevo etc) appeared in the
>Balkans 5,500 BCE. Pre-pottery Neolithic (agriculture) began in >Macedonia
>in Nea Nicomedia 6,000-5,500 BCE). Macedonia is Balkans I >believe.

Oh, my god, I seem to have erred. I don't deserve to live. Carry on. Yes,
neolithic. I got the term confused in my head for a while there.

On Semitic:

>Now this would mean that prior to 3,300 BCE we are talking of
>Proto-Semitic languages. And we are suggesting that the Urheimat of
>Semitic is somewhere netween the Northern Central and the Southern
>Central Zone.

Yes, but in order for Semitic to affect IE, it needs to have been more
northern. We certainly can't be careless enough to presume that the IE were
further south since this has been debated for decades without strong
success. An intermediary doesn't work to explain how only Semitic words
enter the language from numerals to animal names associated with the influx
of agriculture.

On the other hand, the language(s) affecting IE and Tyrrhenian may not have
been Semitic proper and as I have already said, would have been engulfed by
the local, native languages in Anatolia and the Balkans, until another
spread would occur later on in recorded times. Based on the path necessary
to get from the Semitic core to the IE core, the Semitic language could only
have spread along the west coast of Anatolia. This would suggest that the
only languages or language groups surviving till the age of writing that
could provide evidence of this spread is Hattic, Tyrrhenian and IE.

I can and have provided clear examples of Semitic loans in Tyrrhenian and IE
that are seen by many others. I need to research how Hattic might have been
affected (and I'm sure that it has) but the difficulty lies in seperating
later Akkadian loans from those of an earlier period.

>As an Afro-Asiatic language, here we have proto-Semitic people coming >into
>southern Palestine circa 5,000 BCE,

If so, the Semitic loans in IE could only be explained by the Semitish
hypothesis, or early forms of teleportation.

>What language did the Yarmukan people speak, if it was not Semitic?

Semitish, I suppose. The ancestry of Yarmukan is not a good indicator of
language. If they arose from the Natufian who arose from the Kebaran, who's
to say that the language didn't spread differently such that they ended up
speaking an early Semitic tongue. Semitic's long-lost "Yukaghir", perhaps.
Thanks, John.

Then it's settled, the Yarmukan culture spoke Semitish, a dialect seperating
from an early stage of Proto-Semitic, interesting.

>Glen, I am not strong linguistically, but when Semitic linguists tell
>me that proto-Semitic fragmented only 3,300 BCE,

What linguist told you this? Akkadian was already seperate by then. The
EncBritt speaks of Akkadian in 3100 BCE retaining Semitic laryngeals which
slowly disappear in the next millenium.

>They spoke the language from which Semitic got many of the
>terms that separated them from the other Afro-Asiatic languages that
>stayed in Africa. No mythical sub-stratum at all here Glen.

I'm afraid the words "six" and "seven" are very much native to AA. The only
language that could convey these words is an AA language or a language that
had borrowed them from Semitic. If you cannot find a likely attested
intermediary, it remains very much mythical and more indirect a hypothesis
than Semitish. Indirect is bad. Can we call it a truce with "Semitish" then?

- gLeN

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