> (1) The terminology you used was Schleicher's (1870), even if you
took it from Gamkrelidze and Ivanov. The fact that they stick to an
outdated classificatory scheme is not your fault, of course, but you
should be warned that it _is_ outdated.
>
So the new terminology is better?
> (2) I agree with Beekes that Balto-Slavic and Germanic are not
close cousins. I said there was a rather close and demonstrable
_areal_ connection (not a _genetic_ one) between them, like that
between the various languages of the Balkans or the various language
families found in India.
>
OK. And the model I proposed had them head off towards a part of the
world where they were close to each other.
So I don't think we seriously disagreed on the above.
> Now to the point. Any homeland theory has to account for the
distribution of _all_ the branches of IE, without sweeping any
embarrassing evidence under the carpet. Now look at what you are
saying:
I didn't feel that I was sweeping anything under the carpet. If I
gave that impression, I miscommunicated something. It's just that
there are certain issues that:
1) Are very important for a general PIE theory but not so important
for the specific time frame of the Out of India scenario. Therefore
they can be ignored, not because they are inconvenient, but because
their issues can be resolved using the mainstream IE discussions and
so are beyond the limited scope of the OIT model. This is because the
OIT model proposed is only concerned with getting pre-PIE to a place
where the standard theories can operate. Anatolian is a good example
of this: if it is prior to the others -- fine, add one more exodus
before pre-PIE. If Beekes is right, then lump it into pre-PIE. Since
it is so nebulous and contributes nothing to the main thrust of the
OIT model, it was left out.
2) Some languages are of such uncertain provenance that the above
specifically applies to them. They are not central to the theory (in
my opinion -- feel free to challenge this) and any of the multitude
of standard theories handle them fine. Albanian is an example of
this: it is so mixed, that is hard to say where to put it and since
it not central the theory, unlike Greek, Balto-Slavic, etc. it was
skipped for simplicity.
>
> "Anatolian is irrelevant to this since it is such an aberration." --
Would you ignore it if its presence in Anatolia in the second
millennium BC supported your theory? If not, don't ignore it if it
doesn't, and don't reject out of hand the (majority) view that
Anatolian represents the earliest split in the IE family tree.
>
I don't reject it out of hand. I quote the author of the most popular
book on this subject. He knows more about this than I probably ever
will, so I can use his opinion. This is common practice in academia.
> (Old Armenian is contemporaneous with Wulfila's Gotic, but more
copiously attested). Would you consider Germanic irrelevant as well?
>
Note that I did not refer to either Armenian OR Germanic as
irrelevant.
> "Slavic is not attested until the 9th century and was unified
before then. Baltic, i.e. Lithuanian (plus Latvian [plus Old
Prussian]) is only known since the 16th century but is considered
ancient." -- So what? Should they also be ignored?
>
I didn't ignore them either. A late attested language is going to be
harder to pin down (at least in archaeologically tracing it from PIE)
than an early one since it has more opportunities to change and mix.
> You must understand that early attestation is not all that
important provided that you have enough data to reconstruct the
developments connecting PIE with the modern languages. All the modern
IE languages have equally long histories even if the documented part
of any such history is not impressively long. Their existence and
distribution must be fully accounted for, not explained away. For
example, we can reconstruct Proto-Slavic and the more remote
historical stages, including Proto-Balto-Slavic, all the way back to
PIE. This is why you have no right to ignore _any_ branch as
(allegedly) aberrant, or minor, or not ancient enough (Tocharian
would be all three, with this logic). That would mean ignoring a lot
of potentially relevant material. Which is convenient, perhaps, but
your critics would be delighted.
>
OK, good point. But remember I'm not trying to rewrite the entire PIE
theory here just the first part.
> It's easy to say glib things like, "It is possible that Armenian's
satem terminology is due to Iranian influence". But is it really
possible? Did you analyse the evidence? Did you think about it before
you wrote that? First, Armenian shows no "satem terminology" but a
completely regular satem shift. Secondly, Armenian developments are
different from those in Iranian. For example, PIE *g^ and *g^H merge
in Iranian, yielding *z' (> Av. z, OPer. ð), while in Armenian *g^
>
c [ts] and *g^H > j [dz]. These developments of satemised stops are
uniquely Armenian; they are independent of anything that can be found
in Iranian and cannot be ascribed to Iranian influence. The actual
impact of Iranian is of a different nature (cultural loans, etc.) and
doesn't account for the Satem character of Armenian in the least.
>
OK, I'm chastened. What are the main influences on Armenian then? I
guess we'll just add another emigration wave. :-) As I mentioned, the
number is less important than the orientation.
> Here is another unjustified conclusion drawn from a half-
truth: "Albanian is also mixed with Latin, Greek, Slavic and Turkic
so it is hard to tell how it might be related to PIE times and so it
is not considered." How do we know that Albanian has been influenced
by all those languages?<
>
That first part is a quote from Beekes. The rest I explained above.
> the processes that transformed PIE into Albanian, you will know
where Albanian fits in the IE family.
>
Can you elaborate?
> Now it's time for the real question: Why India? Needless to say,
the answer "Why not?" is not satisfactory. In order to be worth
considering, a homeland hypothesis should offer something
constructive.
>
OK, just a short summary here since I'm running out of town. I'm sure
I've forgotten some main points.
There is a signficant body of data that points to India being Indo-
Aryan so early in its history that it has to either be PIE or it
pushes the date of PIE way back.
1) First of all, as I've mentioned before, the vast majority of South
Asian archaeologists now reject migrations in favor of indigenous
origins. I believe it was Renfrew who said: It's hard to see what's
not Vedic about the Indus Valley Civilization. There is a huge
amount of evidence that points to continuity in Vedic and Hindu
practices beginning from 5000 BC until today. Most of the evidence to
show a migation into India can just as easily show a migration out.
2) The Rig Veda refers to the Saraswati river as flowing to the sea
which is something they could not have known about if they migrated
in around 1200 BC (or even 1900 BC).
3) The texts also refer to astronomical and other events dated much
earlier.
4) With the exception of Meadows, there are a large numbers of
qualified excavators who have located horse bones in India during
Harappan times.
5) All of the 'negative evidence' can be refuted.
These are all contested but what isn't contested in this area? My
friend is dealing with all of these, and much more, in detail. He
says that there is no conclusive evidence but the evidence is very
very strong -- at least enough to consider it a valid alternative.
The only problem is linguistics. No western linguists have seriously
tried to investigate this. Misra is the only qualified Indian but his
work is flawed. There is a growing awareness of this problem and
eventually someone will look into it even though it involves
rethinking the foundations of 130 years of linguistics.
Let me ask you to answer this just as a hypothesis: assume that
tomorrow the Indus Script was found to be IndoAryan, incontrovertible
proof of horse bones were found in the Mature Harappan, and
geologists determined without question that the Saraswati river
flowed during a very early Vedic time.
How would you rewrite linguistics to deal with this? This is not an
improbable scenario. Just as a hypothesis, I'd like to hear your
thinking on this.