After examining John's three linguistic maps, I've identified three
fundamental flaws and several lesser ones. First the basic errors:
1) The maps are not confined to a _single_ year
and temporal juxtaposition has lead to severe
and complete inaccuracies that make the maps
almost useless.
2) The maps are, in almost every respect, counter
to the mainstream views of all the respective
language groups present in the map.
3) Some languages of importance are either
completely unidentified...
NEC
NWC
IE
Kartvelian
...completely made-up despite there being
credible solutions using known languages or
language groups...
Macro-Pelasgian (aka Tyrrhenian)
Azilian-Tardenoisian (aka Vasconic)
Asianic (aka Semitish)
TransOxus (aka residual Eurasiatic dialects)
...or completely absent altogether from the map!
Urartean
some Tyrrhenian lgs (Etruscan, Lemnian)
Please John. Humour me and the rest of the list by redoing the maps
properly. First, identify a _single_ year such as "6000 BCE" or "2500 BCE"
and run with it. Second, despite your wonderful knowledge of archaeology
you've already admitted to knowing didley squat about linguistics. In
contrast, there are many sources including the Encyclopaedia Brittanica,
right in front of your face, from which you can get reasonable information,
written by people who know a little more about linguistics than your didley
squat. Don't you think it's best to accept most of the given dates and work
from there until you are better acquainted with linguistics?
The next time, please acknowledge the more appropriate space-time
coordinates of these languages:
Elamo-Dravidian (8000 BCE, according to David McAlpin)
Dravidian (5000-4000 BCE, Pakistan/NW India)
Uralic-Yukaghir (5000 BCE or earlier, Urals)
Uralic (4000 BCE, west of the Urals)
Finno-Ugric (3000 BCE, Volga)
Altaic (4000 BCE, Altai Mts)
Your last map, for instance, is dated at 4000 to 2500 BCE and you place
Uralic on the map. Unfortunately, Uralic and the later FinnoUgric are BOTH
native to this time period. FinnoUgric and IndoIranian should be next to
each other in the latter part of this period while we may place Tocharian
below the lower extremes of an expanding Uralic in the earlier stage of this
era. We can't draw both stages at the same time and so you're going to have
to decide which year you wish to represent to make a sensible picture.
Ignoring the fact that the Black Sea is very incorrectly drawn in the first
two maps, your very first one, dated from 8000 BCE to 5800 BCE, shows
correctly the extent of agriculture as it was at 6000 BCE but certainly not
how it was at 8000 BCE. Again, pick a year and stick with it, John.
As for the positions of the languages, again, you're completely off on your
own religious tangent. Who proposes AfroAsiatic spread across the Sahara
save you? Or that Semitic originated in Egypt?! Sumerian so far down south
well into historic times?? Berber spread so far south overtaking Bantu
country??? Hurrian spreading over most of the Sumerian Kingdom as well as
Urartu???!! Where's NEC or NWC for god's sake? Are you aware that Egyptian
is very, very different from Semitic grammatically and that this fact is
mentioned quite clearly in the EncBritt to justify some linguists' views
that Egyptian is a seperate branch of AA altogether?
I banish you. Tut, tut. Be gone now. :P
- gLeN
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