Piotr Gasiorowski wrote:
> If PIE resulted from a split-and-diverge process that had begun,
say, in Anatolia before 7000 BC, then the root of the IE family tree
would be a node in a larger phylogeny, and if we knew any non-IE
outgroup belonging to the same extended family, we could attempt to
reconstruct pre-PIE stages of the process on a comparative
basis. "Tyrrhenian" may or may not represent such an outgroup; its
tiny size, the poor documentation of Etruscan (not to
mention "Lemnian" and Rhaetic) and the immense time depth between the
putative "Proto-Indo-Tyrrhenian" node and historical Etruscan
militate against a reliable comparative reconstruction.
>
> If, on the other hand, PIE emerged from a rapid "punctuation" in a
local linguistic area, terminating a long-lasting state of
equilibrium (such an area may have originally covered the Balkans
together with Anatolia and the entire Near East), the comparative
method would be of little use in reconstructing its remoter ancestry,
but comparison within the area would nevertheless reveal a
regional "prototype" (consisting of shared diffusional traits) -- the
sort of typological convergence that can be observed in Australia,
South Africa or North America. This, rather than shared ancestry, may
be what links PIE with Etruscan, and further with Semitic or
Kartvelian.
These two theories need not be mutually incompatible.
Personally I see a phylogenic linkage between Semitic, Kartvellian,
Proto-Tyrrhenian, PIE in operation (Nostratic). There is evidence, I
believe, for a "prototype" with shared diffusional traits extending
with this group to cover Khattic, Hurro-Urartuean, Proto-Euphratean,
some of the Caucasian languages and possibly Elamo-Dravidian. This
is linked with the original discovery of farming, which I believe on
the basis of the evidence to have been a breakthrough achieved by
Caucasian speakers. It is, I believe, what explains some of the
Semitish trend Glen sees in PIE (for eg. "wine" in the various
languages from Semitic, to Kartvellian, Hurrian, Tyrrhenian to PIE).
The other evidence for Semitish I see as being their common Nostratic
inhertance.
I see evidence of a second "prototype with shared diffusional
traits" existing between Uralic, Altaic and various "Paleo-Arctic"
(including Innuit) languages, but with phylogenic connections between
Uralic and Yukaghir. This is what seems to give a "best fit"
explanation of the genetic and archaeological evidence, and seems, I
understand, even to be accepted by the bulk of the Altaicists.
Whether this is true or not at this stage is not clear (the time
lines we are talking about are so far back that it becomes difficult
at this orizon to separate between your hypothesis 1 and 2 there
Piotr.
Regards
John