No Subject

Poitr Writes:

In response to Brent's questions about Tocharian, Italo-Celtic/Venetic/
Illyrian and the branching order within the IE family tree.

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I must warn you that my own view of the absolute chronology of IE
splits is not quite orthodox, and that the dates I prefer are deeper
than assumed by most authorities (though not as deep as Colin
Renfrew's, for example). I assume that the first branchings in the IE
tree should be dated to ca. 5600 BC (the split into Anatolian and
Non-Anatolian), and that the ancestor of Tocharian may have been a
distinct dialect already in the fifth millennium BC, if it really arose
from an early branching of the Non-Anatolian subfamily. If it could be
clustered with Germanic, Italo-Celtic or any other branch, we'd need a
shallower, possibly Bronze Age, date. The trouble is that the
demonstrations I've seen are not convincing. The oft-cited lexical
equations (the Northern SALMON word allegedly corresponding to
Tocharian FISH, Germanic NECK having a seeming Tocharian cognate) are
doubtful, being both isolated and based on superficial similarity.
Morphological affinities connecting Tocharian on the one hand with
Anatolian, and on the other with Italo-Celtic represent shared
archaisms, not innovations, and as such don't prove anything, though
they are very important for the reconstruction of PIE. I'm not aware of
any special connectons between Tocharian and Aryan, despite their
geographical closeness in historical times. Presumably the Tocharians
spent some times in the souther Urals or thereabouts, in the
neighbourhood of Altaic-speakers, and reached the Tarym basin and China
from the northeast.

My personally preferred dating for the Italo/Celtic split would be some
time in the 3rd millennium BC. At the time of the Italic expansion into
modern Italy the branch seems to have consisted of a northern group
(Venetic), which may have extended far into central and northern
Europe, and a southern one (Italic proper). I regard the Illyrian group
(insofar as it is a real grouping, rather than the historical
linguist's waste-paper basket) as a residual offshoot of the IE
movement up the Danube and into central Europe -- the one that produced
Italo-Celtic and possibly Germanic. I tend to reject other than areal
(Sprachbund) connections between Germanic and Balto-Slavic, though this
again is my personal opinion; the genetic unity of Germanic and
Balto-Slavic is something many linguists believe in (Alexander Stolbov
and I have discussed this on Cybalist about a month ago).

Piotr
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Hi Piotr:

I want to express my gratitude - for providing so much information and
food for thought. I appologize for not making prompt replys - but the
group is too quick for me, in more ways than one. You write response
was very helpful, and gave me insight not only to the subject matter,
but I believe I also got a little insight into IE linguistics as well.
Both are fastinating.

Again I was surprized.

I know some others have indicated dates as early as Early Bronze Age
for the Tocharian and 3000 BCE for the Anatolian split off. (I don't
know your field enough to know if there are even later dates, you
indicated that there were others who thought even earlier dates were
possible).
I am used to seeing discussions dealing with several of hundreds of
years amoung archaeologists, for events during this time frame.
Thousands of years is a little different for me.
As I have stated before, I am not a linguist, and not even that
familiar with linguists work, aside from some very very basic material
dealing with Semitic languages. I assumed that languages related to
specific cultures had been identified (via artifacts with writing,
place names, or later written stories, mythologies, documents etc -
which I understood to be more or less typical for Semitic work) - I
assumed that was how linguists were able to establish the locus for a
group, shown on their maps.
But if your talking about periods prior to 2500-3000BCE, obviously you
can't be talking about there being any sort of contemporary artifacts
with writing.

Archaelogists dealing with the Middle East haven't been able to
identify any languages much before 3500BCE, as far as I know. They have
a hard enough time telling if any two settlements are related via
artifacts - from this time period. It is amazing what you have done.

Which brought up the question in my mind - how far back does written IE
go back? After reflecting on it, the oldest I heard about, was Hittite
about 1900 BCE. Anything older?

How does a linguist go about estimating dates prior to this time?
And finally - how do linguists go about tying a language to a group of
peoples and a location, when there is no written document available to
identify the language, or the group?

Sounds to me like a very difficult job. Now I understand the fixation
on Sun gods and goddess, mythical beings etc. at this board - I think I
would turn to the occult too, if I faced such a task.

Again - my gratitude.

Brent