Re: [TIED] Re: IE, AA, Nostratic etc.

----- Original Message -----

From: John Croft

To: cybalist@egroups.com

Sent: Saturday, July 08, 2000 6:49 AM

Subject: [TIED] Re: IE, AA, Nostratic etc.

Thanks for the clarification. Indeed, we seem to be in general agreement. Note that even though nearly all of the genetic lineages of early humans inevitably expired, that doesn't necessarily mean that all the languages originally spoken by people belonging to those lineages died out.

 

My definition of "language family" is more restrictive than yours, and in my view bona fide families are more numerous and smaller than in your list. Consequently, I think you seriously underestimate the degree of diversity that still exists. For example, I wouldn't accept Amerind as a genetic unit. You mention Australian, but I have doubts even about the status of Pama-Nyungan: Robert Dixon (_The Rise and Fall of Languages_, 1997) argues that it's not a family at all, but the result of tens of millennia of areal diffusion in Australia's "tangled bush". The African "phyla" are likewise highly controversial. Very well, you prefer to lump and I prefer to split. But the "weeding-out" process you describe is something I could certainly subscribe to. The way I see it, it was mainly the recent "great expansions" of the major modern families that obliterated the original diversity of some of the continents. In the Pre-Neolithic world natural equilibrium favoured the existence of tiny families (as in New Guinea, which has about sixty of them), with a lot of lateral diffusion and creolisation to make sure that the bush was really tangled. But even those small-sized units were the "lucky drawers" in the evolutionary lottery -- most of their cousins had been weeded out. The more recently acquired technological and cultural advantages had the effect of increasing the size of the winners -- they enabled some of the successful families to become middle-sized (by our standards) or even huge.

 

 

John writes:

I suspect that you missed my point.

The human genome suggests that one lineage of Homo saps finished up
by
chance being those that contributed genetic material to modern
humans,
That does not mean that this was the only lineage alive at the time. 
In fact that is extremely unlikely.  What happens with such things is
that time and chance slowly whittles away at the number of
independent
lineages until only one survives (a similar thing happens with royal
families - the Medieval lords were slowly whittled down untill the
line that holds the Crown finishes up as the chief landholder (it
happened in both Britain and France).

Thus there was prbably a good deal more linguistic differentiation
than a lineage of a few thousand divided into hunter gatherer bands
of
50 each would suggest.  And there was also probably a vast number of
almost modern proto-languages around at the same time, from which
linguistic concepts were robably flowing into and out of as well. 
Hence me finding your tangled bush metaphor very meaningful.

Nevertheless, just as time and chance weeds out genetic lineages, it
would seem to do the same for languages.  I have seen figures that
suggest that human linguistic diversity reached a maximum about 8,500
BCE (just prior to the origins of grain farming, and the spread of
standardised languages across large areas.)  At that time human
populations may have stood somewhere between 15-30 million people,
and
there may have been some 15,000 different languages.  This would mean
that the average language had about 1,000-2,000 speakers.  (as hunter
gatherer bands were about 30-50 each this would mean about 30-60
bands
per language.  The fact that there are so few big language families
today (eg. AA, NK, Kh, NS, in Africa, UrY, Al, IE, AA, Dr, Au, ST in
Eurasia, In, De, Am in the Americas, IP and Aus in Australia-New
Guinea) with the rest being isolates or small groups, to me suggests
just the luck of the draw, historical accident and being at the right
place and time.  Our tangled bush has become weeded until all the
leaves stem from only a few shoots further back.  Most of their
contemporaries have long gone.

Hope this helps clarify the fact that I really do think we
substancially agree