Beautiful summary. Thanks a lot.
Some questions (not too silly I hope?):
Must AA & IE derive from a common ancestor only 15 BC? IMO it's clear that
some what you call a Semitoid language had an enormous influence on PIE (4
BC or so?). Isn't that enough to explain the AA-IE resemblances?
....
>IndoEuropean and Boreal languages (Uralic, InuktitutAleut,
>ChukchiKamchatkan),
Some (Andreyev) include in Boreal: IE, Uralic & Altaic.
What's the difference between this & your Boreal & your Steppe?
A note regarding the rest of your discussion:
In some instances, archeology & linguistics fall well together.
Archeologically the beaker cultures spread west from Ukrain to the Rhine
delta (Corded ware 3000-2800 BC), then north to Brittain & south to the
Rhone delta (Bell beakers 2800-2500 BC), Iberia & Italy. Now, Dutch "touw" &
"tooi" have the same etymology, but a very different meaning: touw=cord,
tooi=ornament, tooien=embellish, voltooien=finish, Gothic taujan=finish,
runic "ek horna tawido" = "I decorated this horn" = Dutch "ik tooide [deze]
hoorn". Probably the verb was derived from the noun, to denote the
cording/decorating/finishing of the beakers, later the connection with a
cord got lost (runic). IOW, the beaker cultures seem to have spoken IE
languages: perhaps Balto-Slavic (Ukrain, N-Eur.plains?), Germanic
(S-Scandinavia) & Italo-Celtic (mid+W-Europe+Italy)? (or some of these, but
including Germanic; the Balto-Slavic RUKI rule could perhaps be explained by
continuing contact with the homeland). IMO it's difficult to find better
explanations for cord=decorate, and it confirms Gimbutas' ideas of the
Ukrainian homeland ca.3000BC. Transitions of meanings like this (eg, Latin
"domus" = English "timber" suggest houses were made of wood) could be
important for reconstructing the PIE lifestyle.
Marc Verhaegen
http://www.onelist.com/community/AAT
http://allserv.rug.ac.be/~mvaneech/Verhaegen.html