>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.
Ah yes. The question is: Why NOT seperate Sumerian from Elamite? I haven't
seen anything so far that would warrant Sumerian and Elamite to be very
close. Elamite is often said to bare similarities with Dravidian. If we view
Eurasiatic as expanding towards the eastern steppe, Sumerian pretty much
holds the original locale, Elamite is a little further east, Dravidian some
more and Steppe is fully so. When one draws out the family tree, this should
be represented. As such, we might speak of an ElamoDravidian subbranch under
Eurasiatic, seperate from Sumerian, with a DravidoSteppe subsubbranch which
in turn has a Steppe subsubsubbranch.
...On the other hand, the group could have expanded first and then dialects
formed in their respective geographical areas, making Sumerian, Elamite,
Dravidian and Steppe equal members of Eurasiatic.
- gLeN
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