Re: House and City

--- In cybalist@..., "Glen Gordon" <glengordon01@...> wrote:

>
> Torsten:
> >With respect to the *b/p-l/r- lump/dump I put it out on two

separate

> >occassions for two separate reasons:
> >
> >1) To establish a connection between Austric and IE/AA. [...]
> >2) Someone was arguing for a link between some of the particular
> >glosses that were also listed in my *b/p-l/r- lump/dump.
>
> As anyone knows, I'm big time "long-range" so I don't reject a

connection

> between Austric and IE outright, but let's not expect a close or

even a

> "slightly remote" one, 'kay? It's brutally clear to most that any
> connection, as disjointed in time as these two stages are to each

other to

> begin with, would be on the order of tens of thousands of years

which makes

> it extremely improbable that similarities are due more to
> inheritance/borrowing rather than the abundant, garden variety

coincidence.

> There's just nothing one can do to convincingly argue against this.
>

I might begin with this:
You put up a very good temporal argument that the similarities can't
be caused by inheritance. You then replace "inheritance" with
"inheritance/borrowing". You have now proved that the similarities
can't be caused by borrowing and therefore any similarity must a
coincidence, since tertium non datur. Or was it quartum non datur?

> What you're doing is mass comparison but without the firm

conclusions. It's

> a technique that doesn't produce meaningful data, no matter how

extensive

> (as has been said a nauseating amount of times to no avail),

especially when

> using languages so clearly unconnected both temporally and

geographically.

> Whether you claim anything from your listings or whether you're
> dispassionately objective about what similarities you catalog, the
> information is unlikely to do much for yourself or anyone else in

the end

> because a logical foundation just isn't there. It seems like so

much work

> for so little reward. If any benefit at all, it's more likely to

illuminate

> the existence of wanderwords, aiding to discount further any

convictions you

> have about close connections between IE and Austric.
>

A Wanderwort is a (several times over) loan word. What you are
saying, although you don't seem to realize it, is that I have proved
my theory.

> In re of Oppenheimer and AA-IE-Austric connections I refuse to read

anything

> that involves the resurrection of quaint and very dead theories of

the 19th

> century, just like I refuse to entertain anti-evolutionists when

they come

> knocking on my door... like my parents... They're Jehovah's

Witnesses

> afterall. But hey, you don't get to pick and choose your parents

(but

> there's nothing wrong with ignoring the doorbell and turning off

all the

> lights when they come).
>

But at least you share with them the conviction of the all-importance
of a long-term diffusion of ideas from the Eastern Mediterranean area
(I'm pretty sure it's spelled this way, because I've just been to the
library). Don't you think that could form a basis for a dialogue?

> Back to Oppenheimer. This guy feels the need to take just about any

world

> folklore that suits his personal needs, to combine it with amazing,
> dyschronistic catastrophes of biblical proportions, and to use

questionable

> anthropological, linguistic & genetic data to support his moving

fantasies.

That guy Oppenheimer sounds like a horrible person. I'm glad he
doesn't post his long-range ravings in this list.

> Now, the less romantic idea of a long-term diffusion of cultural

elements

> from the Eastern Meditteranean area, beginning in the neolithic,

won't sell

> as many books I suppose but it remains far more logically

satisfying a

> solution for linguists, archaeologists, geneticists and

anthropologists.

That's not true. The Bible has sold a lot of copies.

Of

> course, I'm silly - I should try and rely more on today's

sensationalistic

> marketing to get my point across. Rather than spending my time in a

library

> researching the validity of my ideas, I should be spending my time

on my

> laptop whipping up the next best-seller like Oppenheimer. Thanx,

Tor, You've

> helped me make an important career move.

A small linguistic note: Danish, like Norwegian and German, but
unlike Swedish, English and Dutch, does not form nicknames by
dropping the last part of the compound name.

>
> What else can you say about that? Not much. So I'll shutup now.

("Hooray!"

> the crowd cheers, "We thought that arrogant blabbermouth would

never shut

> his trap!")
>
> - gLeN
>
>

No, no, please continue!

Torsten