Dear Joseph,
There is no need to go through all these
terminological issues over and over again, splitting every little hair that can
be found there. Many generally recognised labels are not quite logical and we
have to live with that, since nothing short of a sweeping terminological
revolution (a really satisfactory one, and carried out by scholars of sufficient
authority) could mend matters.
The name "Indo-European", to begin with,
is infelicitous and potentially misleading. It might suggests to a lay
person that the family consists of two subunits, "Indic" and "European" (well,
in case you don't know, there is no "European" subfamily). Unfortunately, we
lack a better term to replace "Indo-European" with. The variant
"Indo-Germanic" (now used only in German-language publications) is even
worse. A minority of scholars feel a need to emphasise the "outgroup"
position of Anatolian in the family and reserve the term "Indo-European"
for a subfamily which includes all the branches known in the 19th century plus
Tocharian. The larger taxon that includes the Anatolian languages is then termed
"Indo-Anatolian".
All these names seem to suggest a
priviledged status of Indic within the family -- a souvenir of the time (one and
a half centuries ago) when such was indeed its position in the minds of most
specialists. Modern PIE reconstructions are no longer dominated by Sanskrit as
the "favourite daughter". But this is something that any scholar or informed
amateur is supposed to be aware of. Despite all its shortcomings, the
traditional name INDO-EUROPEAN is currently the recommended term for the family
(_with_ Anatolian as one of its branches), and PROTO-INDO-EUROPEAN is the
recommended term for the corresponding protolanguage in professional usage
-- that is in handbooks, monographs, linguistic journals, and also on
Cybalist.
As for the "Indo-" prefix: as Ed
explained, it has long been the done thing to use it as shorthand for
"Indo-European" in defining hypothetical superfamilies including the latter.
Here, too, practical convenience overrides logic. Thus, for example,
"Indo-Uralic" is an abbreviated name for "the smallest taxon that
includes both Indo-European plus Uralic" -- just because nobody can be bothered
to write or pronounce "Indoeuropeo-Uralic".
It would be nice to have an perfectly
logical system of labelling linguistic taxa, but as in other fields of science,
tradition has its rights. It would be neither practicable nor
desirable to break with it completely (among other things, because recent
upheavals and reinterpretations do not look final enough). Names are only
names, after all, and the code you allude to is not very difficult to
understand.
I would also like to confirm that the term
"Tyrrhenian" is often used with reference to the putative taxon consisting of
Etruscan, Rhaetic, Lemnian and possibly a few other fragmentarily attested
languages, such as Camunic (if distinct from Rhaetic). Since we know virtually
nothing about the linguistic position of the Pelasgians, there is no ground for
classifying their language in whatever way. The opinion of ancient Greek authors
on its possible relation to "Tyrrhenian" does not matter much if we lack
the means of verifying it in the light of _our_ criteria for determining
liguistic relationship.
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, August 27, 2001 12:51 PM
Subject: [tied] Re: Views about Etruscan
Ed, again excuse my abject ignorance
I always
thought that the use of Indo in IE and PIE was a reference
to a parent
language group that represented commonality between
Indic, Aryan, and common
or formative Euro language groups. If indo
is not being used to indicate a
relationship to Indic why is it used
at all? Now, Ed, you tell me that the
reason Indo was used was not to
provide a descriptive phylum for the
language that denotes its
Linguistic relationship? Is it being used only as
a decoration or a
meaningless prefix? What is the logic for using Indo- in
front of a
linguistic classification? Is this a code designed to
indoctrinate
and guide the faithful and mislead the infidel. Please explain?
I'm not disputing that it occurs in print. I've looked at the
Hellenic sources that deal with Pelasgic myself and it is more than
clear that they are referring to a language group that is related to,
if
not the parent of, Tyrrhenian. They even make distinctions between
Pelasgic
languages and other non-IE languages. The earliest Hellenic
sources; from
the 4th century and before; from a period before
Pelasgic was dying out;
that had first hand experience; point out
that they did not know its
relationship to their language. However,
they understood this language
family was related Tyrrhenian. In other
words not all Pelasgic languages
were Tyrrhenic, but all Tyrrhenic
language were Pelasgic. I can provide
these sources if you like.
Is there a logical and simplified, or at
least a single set of
terminology for IE and PIE, or is that all too
subjective and
Balkanized? As you may know, nearly all of the higher levels
of
archaeological interpretive thought from the 40s, 50s 60s 70s, and
80s has been reworked, reordered, reanalyzed, and reinterpreted
several
times. Still there remain a number of glaringly poor,
inadequate, and just
so wrong dinosauric constructs lurking about in
plain view. Still, like it
or not archaeology is becoming less
centric and more reliant on other
disciplines including Linguistics.
That is one of the reasons I signed on
here, and I have learned a
lot. I know the perpose of this group is not to
amend my lack of
linguistic sophistication, however, it would prove helpful
if a
relative, systematic, and nested analytical method was used.
JS Crary