Re: Afro-Asiatic

John:

>Hmm... why "Middle East"? What evidence do you have that Dene
>Caucasian and later Nostratic came from the Middle East?

Well, for starters, the linguistic dispersal of Nostratic mirrors the
previous and more extensive linguistic dispersal of Dene-Caucasian
languages. So we see duplication of migration such as the DeneCaucasian NWC
moving to the steppes followed by the Nostratic Steppe. DeneCaucasian
Na-Dene moving into North America followed by Nostratic EskimoAleut.
DeneCaucasian Basque followed by Nostratic IE (and possibly Semitic
dialects).

Thus, this would all suggest a similar locale. As well, the African
hypothesis for the Dene-Caucasian languages doesn't work as well as it might
for Nostratic since DC appears more remotely related to the eastern Asiatic
languages like Austronesian - a remote hypothesis but the most likely
nonetheless.

>OK - so for you NigerK is Dene Caucasian of 25,000 years ago. So you
>are proposing that a language group that was obviously widespread in
>Ice Age Eurasia - from Spain to Kamchatka, should have moved South >into
>the tropics?

From the same Middle-Eastern locale. Not unlikely if we consider the depth
of the time span. The languages surely have enough time to have expanded as
they did.

>[...] In the last 90,000 years there have been three human
>movements out of Africa
>
>60-80,000 BCE - the movement that took Australians and Indo Pacifics >to
>South East Asia and Australia
>
>30-40,000 BCE - the movement that took Aurignacian Homo Sapiens
>(Cro-Magnon's) from North East Africa, through Palestine to the
>Eurasian Steppes (the probable origin of Dene Caucasian)
>
>15-8,500 BCE - the movement that took the microlithic-mesolithic
>cultures from North Africa to the Eurasian forests (the probable >origin of
>Nostratic)

So you're talking about DeneAsiatic, DeneCaucasian and Nostratic movements
OUT of Africa... I don't know... Must think, my head is groggy today.

>And why would a Dene Caucasian language, move from a cold
>temperate climate (the Ice Age Middle East) into the tropics?

Because it's nice and warm. Do you know how cold it is here in Winnipeg. I
can understand those DeneCaucasian lot. But sigh, you are starting to make
logical sense and it's scaring me. I'll think about all this...

- gLeN

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