Glen wrote
> As for the genes debate, I'm just so tired of people intertwining
> genetics with linguistics as if the two must somehow completely
> correlate. You people still don't get it, do you? I'm just not
> getting through to you people, am I?
No Glen, you are not getting through for the following reason.
1. The number of languages spoken today largely belong to one of a
dozen or so different major language families (with about as many
isolates thrown in for good measure). This is only a very small
number of the 10,000 or so langauges that existed 10,000 years ago.
2. A language family spreads because the number of speakers of that
proto-language increases. The number of speakers of other languages
declines.
3. The numbers of speakers of any language increase because
(a) It becomes temporarily fashionable to speak a particular language
(i.e. it confers social standing upon the speakers)
(b) Because the population of speakers of a particular language
increases (reduced deaths, increased births).
4. People of higher social standing are generally able to command
access to more diverse and better resources than those of low
standing. They are therefore likely to leave more surviving
offspring (all else being equal).
Glen, whilst in 3(a) linguistics and genetics are totally independent
(as you keep asserting), in 3(b) there is a correlation between the
spread of a language and the spread of particular genes. And as
point 4 shows, even in the case of a shift in fashion, those who can
bargain social status into command over resources, even that one will
have a genetic effect (as a result of lower death rates amongst their
offspring).
This is the reason why languages like Latin has, whilst languages
like Iberian or Thracian have dissappeared. One would find that
whilst Latin tended to spread faster than did Italian genes through
the subject people, there was an intertwining of the two. Glen, to
keep arguing, as you do, that genetics and languages dobn't correlate
at all is specious in the extreme. Thus to find examples in history
in which one population grew fast, at the expense of a collapse in
populations in neighbouring peoples can be an indication of an
expansion in the numbers of speakers of that language too.
Lets have a little reality in the discussion.
Regards
John