I'm meditating on the implications for IE origins
which might be drawn from the peculiar position of the
Anatolian languages in the vaster family. Right now
I'm focusing on three variables, which were recently
discussed in our forum. After repeatedly "sniffing"
around them, I find that there is little here that can
be seen as definitive proof for any of the main
versions. (1) The apparent absence in AIE of terms for
"wheel" and "wheeled vehicle" is not certain, since
Piotr has indicated that there is in fact a possible
common word in Hittite and Tokharian as to these
realities. Which seems to leave open the possibility
that the separation of AIE and then Tokharian from the
rest of IE occurred after ca. 3500/3400 BC (when
wheeled vehicles begin to appear in Europe). (2) The
fact (in Luwian) and possibility (in other Anatolian
IE languages) that the term for "horse" was borrowed
from a "satemized" IE language does not prove that an
earlier word closer to the centum version did not
exist in AIE. Possibly the substitution was due to the
far more noticeable "horsiness" of new IE groups with
which the AIEuropeans came in contact after ca. 2500
BC. And so we cannot prove on this basis that AIE
separated from the rest of IE at some point prior to
the domestication of the horse. (3) The lack of a
clearcut separation of the masculine and feminine
genders in AIE, if it is an original trait and not a
loss (I tend to favour Piotr here although Mallory
does mention that some linguists do not agree), would
be helpful if we had a better idea of the
socio-economic and historical circumstances which
prompted the "innovation". I confess that at the
moment I do not. But if (1) and (2) can be as stated
above, then there seems nothing to prevent this
innovation from having occurred after wheeled vehicle
arrival and horse domestication. Which (in the Pontic
perspective)might place the separation of AIE early on
in that very obscure time frame [ ca. 3400-3100 BC
]where Trypilia becomes transmogrified, where Serednyj
Stih yields to proto-Yamna, and where the interplay of
these cultures with the Globular Amphorae begins to
yield the earliest evidence of the Corded Ware
horizons in the north and west.=== Are there any other
linguistic aspects of AIE which should be taken into
account in these combinations?
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