From: Rick McCallister
Message: 61048
Date: 2008-10-23
> From: Arnaud Fournet <fournet.arnaud@...>Exactly and that's the way I perceive languages, as overlapping and as sloppy as any other human endeavor. If languages were as orderly as many people wished, poor Piotr would probably be out of work. But thanks to the complexities of languages, he is gainfully employed. Re: Iberian, it too has substrates, we just don't know what they are.
> Subject: Re: [tied] Re: Asian Migration to Scandinavia
> To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Thursday, October 23, 2008, 2:47 PM
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Rick McCallister"
> <gabaroo6958@...>
> >> >>
> >> >> No, it isn't Uralic. It is a Central
> Asian
> >> substrate
> >> >> that Lubotsky and
> >> >> Witzel identify with the non-IE
> language(s) of the
> >> BMAC
> >> >> people -- a
> >> >> Bronze Age one. Witzel even hypothesizes
> that such
> >> >> language(s) may
> >> >> have belonged in the Macro-Caucasian
> phylum along
> >> with NW
> >> >> Caucasic,
> >> >> Burushaski etc.
> >> > . . .
> >> > Yes, I saw that but the problem is that he
> accepts
> >> Bengtson uncritically.
> >> > Bengtson may well be correct in the long run,
> but
> >> we'll never know unless
> >> > and until he cleans up his act and moves from
> mass com
> >> to reconstruction
> >> >
> >> ===========
> >> The first issue is how can Tokharian (or any
> language) have
> >> _two_ substrates
> >> at the same time ?
> >> I'd like to understand that.
> >>
> >> Arnaud
> >> ===========
> >
> > I was of the impression that languages have multiple
> substrates> e.g.
> > Spanish has Celtic and Iberian substrate.
> > And there are surely substrates of substrates.
> > I see substrates as layers, as in soil --but if you
> insist that substrate
> > is the same thing as foundation, we might have an
> argument.
> >
> =============
> ok,
> but Iberian seems to be the "ultimate" substrate,
> I mean the very first one to be on the spot.
> I don't think any of Uralic or
> "macro-Kartvelian" qualifies to the
> "ultimate" substrate of Tokharian.
> This leads to a very very complicated scenario of language
> overlapping.
>
> Arnaud