Re: [cybalist] Digest Number 32

>[john]
>Now this would mean that prior to 3,300 BCE we are talking of
>Proto-Semitic languages. And we are suggesting that the Urheimat of
>Semitic is somewhere netween the Northern Central and the Southern
>Central Zone.
>
>[moi]
>I don't agree with this. 3300 BC seems to me much too early a date for
> >proto-semitic.

Erh, I assume you mean "late", Guillaume, as in too recent. I thought I lost
track for a moment but it would seem that we agree here.

>The same goes for IE. I think proto-IE should also be dated back to
> >5000-6000 BC on the very least unless we supose the languages evolved
> >xceptionnaly quickly.

Disagree. I've come around to accepting 4500 BCE as the approximate date of
IndoAnatolian split but 6000 BCE is pushing it.

>I also think there are many loanword from Semitic to IE and >conversely,
>although it is difficult to say how early it was.

... frankly, I'm shocked that someone agrees with me on this. Not sure
whether *gwo:us (<- is that the correct reconstruction?) is inherited or
loaned. That's a tough one. How about *gheido- "goat" (Semitic *gadyu)?

- gLeN

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