Re: Afro-Asiatic

Glen:

>Interesting. What about north into Anatolia? Any movement? Just a
>casual thought.

John:

>Sorry mate. At this time Neanderthal's were firmly in control for >all
>sites north of the Carmel Cave in Palestine (and frequently were >in
>control even south of that). H.sapiens only moved north from >Palestine in
>the second wave circa 40,000 BCE.

Strange. And I can't find any First Wave languages in Europe either. We can
only wildly speculate on those forgotten languages like Pictish, Iberian and
Tartessian but they could just as well be Caucasic or Semitish languages.

>The Eurasian Steppe was eventually occupied by SinoDene. The far east was
>occupied by MacroAsiatic dialects, precursors to Austronesian, Tai,
>Australian, Amerind, etc. What about Anatolia and Fertile Crescent?? Unless
>this was the early homeland of BuruYen? What is the date of the Aurignacian
>and Gravetian cultures > in the steppes?

John:

>Guess what Glen
>
>Aurignacian 40,000 - 35,000 BCE
>Gravetian 30,000 - 25,000 BCE
>
>Interesting eh!

Yes, the dates are interesting (holding back titulation) but do you mean
that these are the dates "out of Africa" or "on the _steppes_". If they are
on the steppes by such an early time, then I'm disturbed.

Glen (ME):

>>Interesting stuff. Well, they would be Nostratics minus the
>>AfroAsiatic languages.

John:

>Yup, you got it.

Apparently after re-reading Bomhard and thrashing the evil Mr Foote, I found
Bernal essentially implying the same thing and with some explanations of the
mesolithic in Africa related to Kenya.

It is I who wrote:

>Can we find a happy medium where a connection between Ainu and >Japanese
>can be thrown away on linguistic grounds, but the origin of >Nostratic in
>Africa can be supported on archaeological/genetic >grounds?

John:

>Yup again. Mesolithic-late Paleolithic Helwan in Egypt was 15,000 >BCE, a
>nice date for Nostratics. Capsian in North Africa was a >little later,
>(10,000 BCE, could have been Berber). Ibero-Maurasian >(a Capsian
>derivative) moved into Spain from 10,000 - 8,500 BCE. >Could your Semitish
>really have been Berberish?

Honestly? Berberish? Hmmm, I wonder. I know little of Berber. The first
question is: would this Berberish have Semitic-looking numerals like *shex
for "six" and *sepx for "seven" to explain the Basque loans. The Basque
would have had to have borrowed /sei/ and /zazpi/ early. I've already
theorized that /sei/ would derive from a pre-Basque form *s'eCi where "C" is
a lost consonant. A sibilant explains this loss best - thus perhaps *s'es'i.
The numeral /zazpi/ cannot be explained rationally in terms of Basque
elements and must be either ancient or borrowed or both. It would derive
from *sapsi. Does Berber explain this?

We still have agriculturalists flowing into Europe from Anatolia so even so,
we would have two intrusive languages: Berberish and Semitish. I wouldn't
make sense that this Berberish is the result of all these borrowings from
Etruscan to Basque, despite whatever the numerous agriculturalists were
speaking.

>Kebaran in Israel was 12,000 BCE and developed into Natufian from
>10,000 BCE. Zarzian in the Zagros was 12,000 BCE developing into a
>string of cultures (could have been Elamite/Dravidian)

No it couldn't have, but Kartvelian at 12,000 BCE seems good. Perhaps "this
string of cultures" is Eurasiatic? Kartvelian and Eurasiatic seem to share
innovative features seperate from AfroAsiatic.

>with Pontic Tardenosian moving from the Balkans from 10,000 - 8,500 >BCE
>into the Eurasian forest zone. Is this too late for your >Eurasiatic group
>Glen?

These Tardenosians aren't Nostratic. Looks like a T-Group language. NEC or
Caucasic perhaps? What direction are they going to the Eurasian forest zone
- east towards the steppes right? Sounds like the beginnings of the NEC
language after it left Hurro-Urartean and Hattic behind in Anatolia.

- gLeN



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