Mark:
>>5500 BCE. I've read stuff published before Ryan and Pitman's
>>findings which give this date as a reasonable one for the
>>'falling-together' of PIE.
ME (Glen):
>Yes, it's the date we often find for the arrival of IE to the area,
>so who am I to argue. (Well I DID argue for a while, but I've come >around
>:)
John:
>There seems to be an archaeological connection that fits in well
>just before this date. The Zarzian culture of the Zagros [...] >extended
>northwards into Armenia and Georgia. The Kobystan
>Zarzian site on the eastern end of the Caucasas shows connections
>cultures to the north, [...]
>If Mallory is correct he seems to be confirming the
>Zarzian-Kobystan connection that I mentioned above.
That's all correct, but the cultural connections here have nothing to do
with IE. They can't. They would be a group of people and cultures with
non-IE languages that had an ancient link to the southeast. The likeliest
possibility is that they spoke ancient NWC- and NEC-related tongues.
There seems to be support _against_ the notion that these particular
cultures had spoken IE. If this is what you're using to claim a northward IE
route through the Caucasus, John, you must satisfactorily explain the change
in direction of cultural influence that you mention above. The cultural
influence was first running from south->north as you describe but then
started running north->south (a direction AGAINST your IE spread) after 7000
BCE.
I would argue that the IE (coming from the north to the Black Sea) were the
source of this upheaval, trading with cultures to the west and breaking the
original links. Since the IE were benefiting from the west, the eastern
cultures would have began trading with and being influenced by these new IE
speakers. This explanation seems to work but I can't see how one can explain
this if IE comes through the Caucasus from the south.
>>I love these questions but I don't think the rising of the Black
>>affected IE's development or the breakup of "IndoUralic" at all (which
>>would be circa 9000 BCE if Bomhard is correct).
>
>Such an early date definitely places the breakup in the mesolithic
>period.
Yes, mesolithic. "IndoUralic", "UralAltaic", Bomhard's special use of the
Greenbergian term "Eurasiatic" and my own term "Steppe" are synonymous and
very much mesolithic. The sad part is that words like those for "cow" as we
find in IE may be borrowed (gulp!) since agriculture was certainly not
something done in the steppes at that time. And it looks like such a pretty
word too, tsk, tsk.
>Glen, here we must agree to disagree. There is no evidence that the
>neolithic cultures of Gambutas's Old Europe (the cultures to the
>west) were Semitic. The nearest Semitic speakers would have been in
>Northern Syria. We have crossed paths on this before....
>[...]
>The Semitic languages would not have been expanding from Anatolia,
You seem to mention archaeology involving the Balkans, Middle East, Anatolia
and the Caucasus but you mention nothing about the area north of the Black
and Caspian Seas. Why is that? How can you deny what you don't know? Or do
you?
How can you keep boasting the assertion that Semitic was never in the area
but then in self-contradiction, claim a similar expansion for Uralic through
the Balkans with all the same unanswered arguements you present to me and
then some?!
It doesn't take much to find a book on Uralic to learn about its actual
spread and connection with Yukaghir. I don't know how to be more blunt -
Please read books, lots of them, concerning linguistics. I can accept
opposing theories but this one makes no sense at all because it defies all
the linguistics AND archaeology. Uralic-Yukaghir is in the Urals at 5000
BCE.
You ignore Semitic loans and the languages that were influenced
by Semitic, examining all the interconnections
You ignore the fact that language areas and cultural areas don't
match one-for-one.
You ignore Uralic-Yukaghir.
You ignore Chuckchi-Kamchatkan.
You ignore Eskimo-Aleut.
You ignore Gilyak.
You ignore the complete absence of any trace of IE or
even IT languages spoken (or words loaned) in Anatolia before
the IE Anatolian lgs arrived. This is common knowledge and
one reason why the ideas of IE homeland of Ivanosomethin' and
Gamrelidzewhatchamacallit aren't widely embraced.
You ignore the pattern of spread of agriculture
which cannot serve to explain the eventual position of
Uralic (way to the east??).
You ignore the reversal of cultural influence of the Caucasus link.
You even ignore Dravidian in all of this since it would have
had to have travelled with Altaic despite Al;thaving nothing more in
common between Altaic and Dravidian as opposed to the rest of Steppe
and Dravidian.
In the end, you ignore anything involving the better formed Nostratic
hypotheses for something far more bizarre and dysfunctional that is
unsupported by any group of people at all.
>You know my explanation here.... Why would a language retreat, except
>as a result of a demic demographic expanse of a technically more
>technologically developed culture, who would have carried their
>language with them.
Not necessarily. Not everything is about population movement. If the
Tyrrhenian and IE languages were where I said they were, they would serve as
a kind of plug. They would prevent or hinder Semitic from spreading further
(as a language at least). In Anatolia, there are many languages besides
Semitic. It may not be that the language literally "retreated" so much as it
"died out" in that area being replaced by other existant languages because
of changes in cultural/political/economic links. Semitic loans exist in many
of these ancient languages and its clear that it held a large influence on
this part of the world. The Semitic language would continue to the south,
away from the linguistic melting-pot of Anatolia.
>(possibly a relative of Hattic-Hurrian, possibly a language group that >had
>an amalgam of Hattic-Hurrian and I-T character associated with the
John, there is no Hattic-Hurrian language family. You either mean Hattic or
HurroUrartian. I suspect you mean HurroUrartian if you're talking about Lake
Van.
>[Lake Van to Catal Huyuk] is a region too far to the north to have
>had Semitic speakers.
Really? Well, if even Lake Van was too far north, how far south was
Kartvelian?? How do Semitic words end up in this reconstructed language?
You're assuming that the state of affairs during 3000 BCE is what we had
from early on. It's doubtful the case and you ignore the linguistic links
time after time. At least get the names straight next time. Can you explain
the Kartvelian loans for me?
>Certainly the flooding of Azov I see as having a cultural impact upon
>PIE. It may have had memories in the later Greek Deucalion mythos,
>and in Indo-Aryan Manu and the flood stories.
Hmm... I wish I knew more about IE mythology. Manu had a twin. That's all I
know. How do the twins relate to a flood?
>I have a powerpoint presentation that traces these movements from the
>Upper Paleolithic onwards, [...] These three could be stored on the >Files
>section of cybalist if people want. What do the cybalist people >think?
This is an excellent idea. Anything that helps to visualize the discussion
would be very helpful. It's sometimes hard to get a picture of the geography
from one's head and it would also help to consolidate a general and informed
consensus on the topic. I created some linguistic maps of my own but I'm so
lazy to put things up :(
- gLeN
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