From: Glen Gordon
Message: 10258
Date: 2001-10-16
>7600 BP --- PIEIn Canada, we use metres, celsius and BCE/AD :P So if I convert,
>6500 BP --- non-Anatolian IE
>5000 BP --- Proto-Satem
>4600 BP --- Proto-Indo-Iranian
>4000 BC --- Proto-Indo-Aryan
>3700-3200 BP --- Rigvedic Indo-Aryan
>3200-2500 BP --- late Old Indo-Aryan
>2500-900 BP --- Middle Indo-Aryan
>_________________________________________________________________
>Piotr
>
>--- In cybalist@..., "S.Kalyanaraman" <kalyan97@...> wrote:
> > From Dixon, R.M.W., 1997, The rise and fall of languages,
>Cambridge,
> > Cambridge University Press, pp. 47-49:
> >
> > "What has always filled me with wonder is the assurance with which
> > many historical linguists assign a date to their reconstructed
>proto-
> > language...We are told that proto-Indo-European was spoken about
> > 6,000 years ago. What is known with a fair degree of certainty is
>the
> > time between proto-Indo-Aryan and the modern Indo-Aryan languages --
>
> > something in the order of 1,000 years. But how can anyone tell that
> > the development from proto-Indo-European to proto-Indo-Aryan took
> > another 3,000 years?...Languages are known to change at different
> > rates. There is no way of knowing how long it took to go from the
> > presumed homogeneity of proto-Indo-European to the linguistic
> > diversity of proto-Indo-Iranian, proto-Celtic, proto-Germanic, etc.
> > The changes could have been spoken rapid to slow. We simply don't
> > know...Why couldn't proto-Indo-European have been spoken about
>10,500
> > year ago?...The received opinion of a date of around 6000 BP for
> > proto-Indo-European...is an ingrained one. I have found this a
> > difficult matter to get specialists to even discuss. Yet it does
>seem
> > to be a house of cards."
> >
> > Would members like to discuss this and to guess on the time between
> > PIE and R.gveda or Sanskrit?
>