Re: Why the Proto-Indoeuropean numerals are not motivated within IE?

From: Tavi
Message: 69690
Date: 2012-05-26

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "piervantrink" <piervantrink@...>
wrote:
>
> The problem with Altaic, IE connection is that Altaic folks are linked
to the Asian type whereas IE folks are linked to the Eurasian type, thus
I think that the similarities between the 2 is not genetical but a
result of sprachbund and/or superstratum and/or borrowing
>
Genetics alone doesn't prove or disprove anything. There're cases of
people with similar genes speaking unrelated languages and also of
people of very different stocks speaking the same language.

> We have historical account of Scythians tribesmen wandering in the
Central-Asian steppes as far east as eastern Mongolia (and those
Scythians are the origin of many Iranic words (and even theonyms such as
tengri[indo-iranic druga, Scythian?? denger] and ormozd[from
ahuramazda]) as well as Iranic grammatical and structural
characteristics in Mongolic and Altaic languages (remember the case of
some French based creoles which use a predominantly autochtonous lexicon
but built upon French grammar, structure and conjugation) SO IT WILL NOT
BE SURPRISING if there were earlier (than Scythians) wandering IE tribes
that were responsible of the lexical and structural similarities between
IE and Altaic!
>
Cultural loanwords due to *historical* language contacts have little to
do with *pre-historic* language relationships from many millenia ago.

> If we look at the Altaic stems, most of them are mono or biconsonantal
stems (without the properties o ablaut and inflection)
>
As I said before, there's evidence the rich morphology of historical IE
languages wasn't found in older stages of the IE family, but it's rather
the outcome of an evolution from a primitive unflexional system over an
exceedingly long period of time. I'd recommend you read Rodriguez
Adrados (an old Spanish IE-sits quite ortodox in many other respects)
for more details.