Gerry asked
> Thank you Glen for answering the second part of my question. What
about
> the first part? Why are you seperating Sumerian from Elamite +
> Dravidian? Would be pleased if John would also answer.
> Thank you,
Yep... As a non-linguist (as Glen seeks to keep reminding me) I can
only go on what those who are tell me. Samuel Noah Kramer - the
greatest contemporary Sumerologist (who also knew Elamite) considered
them to be unrelated languages (or very distant if related at all).
This would tie in with my theory (supported by Sumerian accounts of
their own origins), that they came from Bahrein. Ubaid culture had
spread into the area early on. By the Jemdat Nasr period, Bahrein was
abandonned to nomads (the arrival of Semites), and protoliterate
Sumeria was writing in the Sumerian language.
Thus there was a greater distance between the Bahreini Sumerians and
the Elamite-Dravidian dialect chain, stretching from the Zagros to the
Indus and possibly beyond.
Is this what you were wanting?
John