From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 18933
Date: 2003-02-20
----- Original Message -----
From: <kalyan97@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, February 20, 2003 2:43 AM
Subject: [tied] Re: "Will the 'real' linguist please stand up?"
> The unresolved problem has been posed to 'real' linguists, by Mallory and is referred to in:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/18897
If the problem is how to sort out the chronology of IIr. loans into FU, "real linguist" have been working on it for a long time with a good deal of success, although in individual instances the borrowed forms may have too few distinctive traits to be easily attributable to a concrete stratum of loans. The following chronological layers are rather easy to identify:
(1) from Proto-Satem
(2) from Proto-Indo-Iranian (still into common FU)
(3) from early Proto-Iranian (into already disintegrating FU)
(4) from late Proto-Iranian
(5) from Old and Middle Iranian ("Scythian/Sarmatian" into individual FU languages)
Then oldest layer should probably be dated to ca. 3000 BC. (pace Harmatta). The FU languages have also borrowed extensively from (Proto-)Baltic and from (Proto-)Germanic (only the Saami-Finnic group).
Since borrowings from sources (1) through (5) form an unbroken historical series, FU is an important witness in the discussion of the IIr homeland. It must have been located close to the FU homeland. So much for your "unresolved problem".
Piotr