IE common traits

��<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META content="text/html; charset=unicode" http-equiv=Content-Type> <META content="MSHTML 5.00.2014.210" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Hello,</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>this question may sound absurd, but I've always wanted to ask it in a learned forum (not meaning there's some kind of outcome I would prefer!):</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Has anybody ever tried to prove that Proto-IE was the first (group of) language(s) present in all of Europe (may be identical with 'Old Europe', a place livable after the last ice-age), later developing singularly one by one, and those others, non IE-languages as Basque or Etruscan (which I believe to be IE) or 'Minoan' (the same), to be the newcomers? </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Mind you, I'm talking about that potential historical place in time - before all the recorded languages - that might not exist at all, that unknown, hypothetical construct usually called Proto-IE for convenience (whose? If you don't have a picture, what are you constructing models for?), supposed to be a model of convergence (when looking back) of vaguely similar modern or written (how were they really pronounced, 'Tsaesar' or 'Kaesar'?) ancient languages. </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The model as it is to my logic cries for this question.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>And if not, I'd like to ask another heretical question: </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Whoever makes up a hypothetical language also needs to make up hypothetical people/places/communities - a problem Dumezil didn't think of when putting up his beautiful, seemingly fitting three-fold myth-model (although this silently presupposed an advanced society that would be necessary for the model he probably based on later mythologies. But how about the archaeological facts for the attributed time - seemingly simple, rural, agricultural societies without hierarchies -?really?. Are/were they as simple as excavations show? Or is Dumezil wrong? - a question I wouldn't want to solve. Who knows - that seems to be a question of 'academic'? attitude-). </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Still Dumezil's supposed similarities for IE myths look amazingly consistent. Are we turning in a vicious circle?(archeologists trying to find what linguists need and vice versa?) Gimbutas and Renfrew are somehow riding the same tide - going where? </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>If I'm looking for a king, I'll find one - even if he was just Asterix' 'Majestix'. And linguists will somehow prove his possibility - if my supposed word - well, I heard it from linguists, anyway, - somehow follows Grimm's or others' laws (cf. the example of 'wanax' lately discussed on 'Aegeanet'). But which modern word doesn't? What if my concept of king didn't exist yet? I'd only be proving the circle of my/our own thoughts.</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I feel overpowered by different kinds of proof - they all sound right (and wrong) somehow.</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Is there a way out? Objectivity doesn't exist, we have just personal interpretations of - archaeologically speaking - random facts! (meaning: how about all those not found, not excavated or even not found worthy to excavate because 'just rural' etc.)</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I think the necessity in a subject like this is a 'just' personal opinion - albeit well founded by facts - because otherwise the usually trod lines of thought will never be looked out of. I don't want to open ways for stupid /or beautiful, as for that/ phantasies without foundation, but I'd like to hear some good ones, including possible not excavated, non-proof ways. </FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>And if there are thousands: What are we talking about?</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>With all my respect as a non-Linguist</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Sabine</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>