Re: Hercynian (again)

From: Bhrihskwobhloukstroy
Message: 68722
Date: 2012-03-02

Sharp observations. I (humbly) agree, although without rejecting what
Brian M. Scott has written

2012/3/2, Tavi <oalexandre@...>:
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott" <bm.brian@...> wrote:
>>
>> > There's a strong tendence to forget about minority
>> > languages in atlases and text books. Too often the winners
>> > make active efforts to erase the traces of "loser"
>> > language, for example, by translating alloglottic toponyms
>> > to their own language and even people names.
>>
>> This can happen, yes. The degree to which it happens varies
>> greatly, however, and the winning language isn't always that
>> of the winning people.
>>
> But you can't ignore IE languages have been and are still (see e.g.
> Anthony's book subtitle: "How Bronze-Age riders from the Eurasian
> Steppes shaped the Modern World") too often represented as being spoken
> by warfare aristocracies who imposed their language to non-IE speaking
> people by military conquest. And while this might be PARTIALLY true (as
> there were also non-IE speaking aristocracies) in the Bronze Age, this
> model is unable to explain all the IE linguistic facts without incurring
> in a plethora of mistakes such as playing tricks with semantics,
> converting loanwords in native words, and so on.
> unless a huge collapse
>
>
>