>Hello everybody, I send my "Introduction to the Study of Prehistoric
Ethnogenic Processes in Eastern Europe" in attachment. Valentyn Stetsyuk.
Amazing results. Congratulations. An enormous work with possibly enormous
implications. Thank you very much for your stimulating work!
You are no doubt aware that your method implies a lot of abstractions.
Some impressions, thoughts & questions (sorry if my questions may look
naive, but all this stuff is completely new to me):
1) Could you please explain in simple words (some examples?) what is the
importance of first & second word levels for your method?
2) Do you suppose Uralic, IE, Altaic, Sem-Ham., Kartvelian & Dravidian all
split at the same moment? or do you only suggest these peoples were in close
contact at some time? (Is your Sem-Ham. is only a small part of
Afro-Asiatic?) Suppose you didn't select these 6 language groups, but a
smaller or larger group of languages --would that have yielded other
results?
3) Other scholars have suggested other geographies, eg, AFAIR Andreyev (your
footnote 15) believes Uralic+IE+Altaic ("Boreal") at the end of the last Ice
Age must have lived somewhere in the Carpathians. If both his & your
conclusions are correct, that means that they must have traveled together to
the Kaukasus?? Or do you think Andreyev is wrong (at least in his geography)
the 3 groups have lived close to one another since thousands of years in the
Kaukasus? Before I had read your "Introduction" I had thought that the early
IEs had borrowed agricultural terms form Sem-Ham. but not the basis of their
language which was nearer to that of uralic & Altaic (cf. Andreyev), but in
your view Uralic & Altaic are both closer to Sem-Ham. than to PIE. Is this
only in vocabulary or is this resemblance "genetic"?
4) Greek & Germanic are in the centre of your IE homeland. Could this be due
(only?) to the fact that these languages had the largest number of words
used in your analysis? Is this a "real" homeland, or were these IE languages
only in close contact at that time?
5) Some of your word identifications are not very convincing (eg, Eng.
jump Yagn. jumb "to move", or Engl. gate cf. Dutch gat (plural gaten),
meaning "hole").
6) It's amazing how many migrations must have taken place. Perhaps periods
of (long?) stasis alternating with brief periods of (intense?) migration?
7) By combining your results with other methods more accurate constructions
are perhaps possible?
Thanks again --Marc