Steve:
>Let me ask some questions about how you are placing these languages at
>about 7500BC.
I have offered the following dating scheme to track the development
of Pre-IE:
Old IE 7000-6000
Mid IE 6000-5000
Late IE 5000-4000
At 7500 BCE, I don't even consider IE to be "IE". I call it
IndoTyrrhenian, the ancestor of both IE and of Tyrrhenian languages
like Etruscan. I would say IndoTyrrhenian was somewhere near the
Volga at the time. It was coming from Central Asia after ProtoSteppe
had fragmented between 9000 and 8500 BCE. ProtoSteppe is the
ancestor of IE, Uralic-Yukaghir, Eskimo-Aleut, Chukchi-Kamchatkan,
Altaic and Gilyak.
I also think that IndoT was being affected by a language I call
"Abadha" which would be the ancestor to AbkhazAdyghe (aka NorthWest
Caucasian) and Hattic. There's one word I find interesting in
IE: *ekwo- "horse". If the word is old, it would be *�kw� in
Old IE. I notice that AA seems to have *c^W� as the word for
horse. I propose that it was originally *k^w� in Abadha and that
palatal *k^ became AA *c^. I suspect other words to have
been borrowed into IndoTyrrhenian such as *p�nkW� "five"
(Abadha *p�Nw�).
>Presumably there was a center or origin point. And presumably
>they starting spreading at some point.
The start of their spread? I would say that IndoTyrrhenian's center
would be an area north of the Black Sea c.7000 BCE. IE's center
would be somewhere around the Ukraine area c.4000 BCE.
>My understanding of the first spread of Uralic is that it
>identified with the spread of Pit Comb ware culture in north
>eastern Europe. Do you think that is correct?
I can't say for sure since I'm admittedly bad with archaeology.
All I know is that Uralic is dated to c.4000 BCE and contemporary
with IndoEuropean (since FinnoUgric is contemporary with
IndoIranian). If I understand correctly, it's placed in the region
west of the Urals and probably was quite distant from IE at this
time.
>Is there a similar correlation between Altaic and some early
>material culture?
I don't recall hearing about any obvious point of fragmentation
of Altaic, or a strong connection with material culture, but then
again I'm not an archaeologist and haven't delved enough into that
aspect of Altaic studies to be confident enough to answer that
question. Altaic speakers would have always been fairly
mobile peoples though, so I doubt there would be much in way
of any physical hint of that language at all.
>Well, placing *PIE on the Danube doesn't put it in the center of >neolithic
>action.
Exactly, but putting it in Anatolia does and this flies against all
reasoning. The only reason to do the latter is to give IE some
glorious past that simply couldn't have been.
>My idea is that some progenitor of PIE could have been in or near
>western Anatolia when the neolithic started moving northwest from
>the direction of the Near East and became the language of neolithic
>change in that direction.
Yes, I've heard this idea elsewhere but it ignores IE's connection
with Uralic and other like languages, as I said before.
>Being around the Danube however would certainly put early IE in
>the main European center of neolithic action, although it was a
>more local and later event than what was going on in the Near East.
I agree.
>By the time of Yamna, all we see are events of limited, local impact
>and with none of the "consumer revolution" or economic impact we see
>in the European neolithic.
Interesting.
>But getting back to Anatolia in 7500BC. I'm wondering what
>languages were spoken there then.
This is my personal view. First of all, Hattic was not there.
It was in Eastern Europe at the time, spreading away from
AbkhazAdyghe to the area northwest of the Black Sea. The major
languages in Anatolia c.7500 would be HurroUrartian (east),
Kartvelian (central) and Semitish (west).
>And if any place names there could stay the same for 6000
>years. If they did, then might they have been the same in 10,000BC
>and then we are talking ice age?
Good luck. I don't think you'll find much.
>Or do we assume that "Asia Minor" was always changing languages
>and toponyms, just like it did in recorded history.
I think that's a good assumption.
>This is called an Indo-European Languages forum. So, I'm sure
>you can understand why there's some temporary focus on IE languages
>here. Even if, at another center of the universe, the garbage does
>need to be taken out. Coming, dear!
You'd be surprised how much quantum mechanics can be of benefit
to linguistics. Without gluons, we wouldn't have enough cohesive
force to keep our wonderful Forum together and it would spread
out in all directions, just like IndoEuropean :)
- love gLeN
_________________________________________________________________
MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos:
http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx