On 2006-06-20 05:29, mkelkar2003 wrote:
> I beg to differ once again. Why use an old term in a "maximally
> inclusive" sense when an actually maximally inclusive term
> Indo-Hittite is available? The matter is more than just semantics.
Oh, really? If we agree on which languages belong to the family and, at
least roughly, on how the branches are related to one another, what do
we gain by renaming the family? If I use the term "Indo-European" in
exactly the same meaning as that of someone else's "Indo-Hittite", what
does this word-play change in the real world? I accept the "Indo-Hittite
hypothesis" in the sense that I, too, think that all the non-Anatolian
IE languages are more closely related to each other than any of them is
related to Anatolian, but that's no good reason for revising
well-established terminology ans long as it remains unambiguous. Labels
are only labels.
> If
> one accepts Ivanov's (2001) proposal of dividing Anatolian dialects
> into Northern and Southern groups it would affect the timeline and the
> homeland question. And then there is the controversy about the Carian
> langauge.
Neither the subdivision of Anatolian nor the status of Carian have any
bearing on the chronological issues. If Proto-Anatolian was still
uniform, say, ca. 3000 BC, the Anatolians had all the time in the world
(more than a millennium) to subdivide themselves to their hearts'
content: not once but again and again and again ...
Piotr