Re: [tied] Re: On Non-Linguistic IE Languages

--- x99lynx@... wrote:

> ****GK: Thank you for your helpful comment Steve. As
> usual it contributes a
> lot to a solution of these issues. It would be even
> more helpful if you
> demonstrated on purely linguistic grounds how it was
> possible for so many IE
> families to arise in the first let's say 2500 years
> of the saga, and why we
> haven't seen anything similar occur in the last 2500
> years.
>
>(Steve) George,

>
> As I mentioned, the distance between *PIE (at
> 5500BC) and most written IE
> languages would be about 6000 years.

*****GK: In my view the problem stands in connection
with the distance between PIE (at 4200 BC) and
Hittite, Greek, and Indo-Aryan (meager this last
admittedly) in the mid-second millennium BC. Hence not
6000 years but less than 3000.*****

(Steve) If the difference between Spanish, French,
Italian

> and Romanian is not large
> enough for you, given 1500 years, then give it some
> time. French already has
> started its own "family". Haitian Creole,
> considered a French dialect by
> many orthodox linguists, is barely comprehensible in
> modern French, using
> many 17th C. constructions lost in modern French.
> If it is not yet a
> daughter language, it may become one. The same may
> be true for Koumansman
> and the dialects spoken in Morocco, Burundi,
> R�union, Caledonia, Mauritius.

*****GK: All this misses the point. The fact remains
that Romance (in which I include Latin, still spoken
BTW) is a "family" quite distinct from Celtic or
Slavic.And what MAY happen but has NOT happened is
irrelevant. Logic, Steve.*****

>(Steve) If you really think about what I wrote in my

last

> post, you'll see that what
> you think is a stumper of a question is really not
> even relevant. The idea
> of IE would not exist without linguistics.

****GK: We have travelled some distance in cultural
ands ethnic history since old Jones made his initial
comments. We're still grateful to him of course.******

>
> <<*GK: Well of course if you put it that way, if you
> forbid any other
> interpretation of "Indo-Europeanism" except a
> strictly linguistic one then
> you really are living in a vacuum.>>
>
> George, I don't live in a vacuum. Trust me on this
> one.
> And I don't forbid anything. Logic does however.

*****GK: I don't see anything "logical" in restricting
the Indo-European dimensions to a purely linguistic
category. What was originally a linguistic label has
evolved considerably beyond this. I have told you what
I understand by it. If it displeases you I can't help
that. Old Marx once objected to having the
"retrogressio in infinitum" question put to him. It
was put anyway (:=)).*****

>
>(George) <<To me "Indo-Europeans" are all those

populations

> which HISTORICALLY have
> spoken languages basically classifiable as
> Indo-European.>>
>
> Same point. "Historically", of course, in ordinary
> academic terms and in the
> dictionary means "recorded" time. Remember that
> Yamnaya for example is NOT
> historic. It is pre-historic. There is no written
> record of what those
> people spoke. So they're not included in your
> definition?

*****GK: I don't know what dictionaries you have
consulted but my good old Webster's includes
"something that belongs to the past" among the
meanings of "history". Being "recorded" is not
essential here. A piece of advice since you frequently
seem to think you make devastating points where you
only demonstrate prejudice (hurried pre-judgement).
When you're faced with what seems to you an ambiguous
statement or word, give it the "interpretatio
benignior". Works wonders.******

> <<)(George)And just in passing, let me say,

belatedly, that

> PIE became extinct a long
> long time ago. No one except highly trained
> specialists would be able to
> understand something written in that reconstructed
> language. To say that it
> evolved and is still around today is shall we term
> it "somewhat
> disingenuous"?>>
>
> (Steve)Oh come on. I never said it did. But, hey,

when

> they promoted Jurassic Park,
> they said that the dinosaur lives on in birds. So
> who complained? What's
> the point, anyway?

*****GK: "Interpretatio benignior" Steve... I didn't
say you did. Someone else did, and you should know who
if you read cybalist posts as carefully as you
should.******


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