I wrote:
> As I mentioned, the distance between *PIE (at
> 5500BC) and most written IE
> languages would be about 6000 years.
George wrote:
*****GK: In my view the problem stands in connection
with the distance between PIE (at 4200 BC) and
Hittite, Greek, and Indo-Aryan (meager this last
admittedly) in the mid-second millennium BC. Hence not
6000 years but less than 3000.*****
Well THEN your problem HAS JUST DIAPPEARED. If you based your "distance" on
only Hittite, Greek and Indo-Aryan, what's your complaint? Your IE at that
time is only represented by three early languages. There's been at least 50
IE languages and clusters documented since then. So you have the huge amount
of diversity and new clusters in the last "2500" years that you asked for.
Your problem is solved.
And if you use the more likely 6000 years, your problem also disappears. If
it takes an hour a bake a cake, and you arbitrarily decide this particular
cake only took 15 minutes, you've created your own mystery. We don't try to
force the facts to fit a theory (like the theory that the unrecorded language
of Yamna @ 3000BC = PIE) and then complain that the facts are wrong because
they won't fit the theory. I'd suggest the problem that you have CORRECTLY
recognized may be with your theory.
And BTW the reason it is inappropriate to use only those three languages in
dating "attested" IE is because those languages DO NOT reconstruct *PIE by
comparative analysis. *PIE includes Celtic-Italic, Slavic, Germanic, etc. so
the ACTUAL date of attestation for most languages reflected in the
reconstructed parent is only about 1000 -1500 years ago, not your 2500-3000
years ago.
AND BTW just what is the objective basis of your measure of difference
between Hittite, Greek and Sanskrit? How do you know if it is a lot or a
little? What are you going by? Lots and lots of clusters appear after H, G
and S. Are all those languages farther apart or closer than the three you
mention? How do you measure those differences?
You also missed some things I asked about your theory in my previous point.
George wrote:
<<To me "Indo-Europeans" are all those populations which HISTORICALLY have
spoken languages basically classifiable as Indo-European.>>
So, again, how do propose to identify your "Indo-Europeans" without using
linguistics? Do you have another way, besides linguistics, to identify
"language basically classifiable as Indo-European..." I mean that seriously.
Are you proposing some new non-linguistic way of defining IE languages? I
don't see anything else actually distinguishing in your definition of
"Indo-Europeans" except the "spoken language", i.e., linguistics.
George also wrote:
<<To use a polite turn. What exists today of course, is not PIE, but many
mutually incomprehensible great great etc etc etc granddaughter languages and
dialects.>>
I asked and still ask:
<<This is IMPORTANT! Let me ask you how you know that? How do you know they
are "granddaughters"?>>
Steve