Re: Afro-Asiatic

----- Original Message -----
From: Glen Gordon <glengordon01@...>
To: <cybalist@egroups.com>
Sent: Monday, January 31, 2000 3:00 AM
Subject: [cybalist] Re: Afro-Asiatic


>
> Alexander schreibt:
> >>At any rate, carry on. We all know that AfroAsiatic is from the
> >>Middle-East and not Africa. Nostratic in the Zagros, though?
> >
> >[...]
> >Which of this variants can be associated with Nostratic? IMO only >the 1st
> >one.
>
> Interesting... but what if Nostratic is associated with both? It's not as if
> Nostratic-speakers were glued under a single government in a single place
> with a border. It's next to impossible to connect Nostratic with the
> archaeology. How can we be absolutely sure a word meant "goat" instead of
> "sheep", and so on. This requires long debates about each etymology and
> being secure in its reconstruction.
> Then, we can talk specifics like Zagros.
>

Ich antworte:

Do you mean: What DIRECT LINGUISTIC evidences do we have to prefer proper
Anatolian or proper Zagros cultures as a candidat for Nostratic one? I think
none (and hardly will ever have, I'm afraid).
However recognition any of them as Nostratic (in the framework of the conception
I presented) have very far going CONSEQUENCES. It is easy to retrace the
connections of the Zagros (+Natufian) cultures with "Subneolithic" and Neolithic
cultures of the Middle East (but not Anatolia except the easternmost part),
India, North China (but not the Huanghe valley!), the Urals, the Pontic steppes,
North-East Africa. On the other hand the cultures of the Anatolian type spread
in North Mesopotamia and South and Central Europe, partly in the Caucasus
region.
Which of these 2 areas looks "more Nostratic" for you?

Alexander