Re: Limitations of the compartive method

1) Representation of selected branches among Pokorny's
IE etymologies (Bird 1982)
Germanic 67.4%
Hellenic 60.4%
Baltic 53.7%
Indic 49.3%

If Indic has the smallest percentage of IE vocabulary,
how can anyone rationally claim it to be the center of
IE?
I realize Pokorny is dated but it's the relative
numbers that count.

===============
Tsalam. t?ob

I agree that India is not even thinkable as the center,
or origin of PIE,
BUT
that kind of percentage is dangerously circular,
Depending on what you *consider* old or not,
the percentage can change significantly.
The fact that Germanic scores that high
indicates a clear bias, as far as I concerned.
Nevertheless,
On account of the fact that orthodox PIE is
in my opinion biased and is mainly representative
of Central and Eastern PIE,
the low score of Sanscrit (= Central) is all the more telling.

Arnaud
=====================