--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Juha Savolainen <juhavs@...> wrote:
> Here are Mallory´s criteria> once again:
>
> (1) Temporal-spatial plausibility
> (2) Exclusion principle (it is unlikely that the IE
> homeland lay in a territory already occupied by a
> non-IE language)
> (3) Relationship principle (the IE homeland solution
> must accommodate the inter-group relationships of the
> IE family)
> (4) Total distribution principle (the solution to the
> IE home problem must explain all the languages
> belonging to the IE family)
> (5) Archaeological plausibility
>
> Needless to say, but Mallory finds OIT unacceptable in> the light
of his criteria.
Thanks a lot, Juha.
Let me also try to Piotr's suggestion of a short numbered list of
points that haven't been addressed exhaustively.
On the Sumerian substrate, I forgot to mention about an Akkadian
cylinder seal which showed a Meluhhan with a translator; doesn't
this show that Meluhhan did not speak Akkadian? Maybe, there were at
least bilingual speakers who could facilitate trade between
Mesopotamia and IVC (Meluhha). Hence, the search for the Meluhhan
language(s).
Hock adds another principle of simplicity. I don't know why language
movements should be simple one-way traffic. Couldn't there be
borrowings and re-borrowings and acquisition of morphological
characteristics as languages interact? Every relationship doesn't
just have to be either genetic or pecuniary (borrowing, I mean).
How is item 2 exclusion principle justified? Why is it considered
unlikely that IE homeland was in a territory not occupied by any
other language? Doesn't this principle assume that there has to be a
vacuum space -- say, with simple languages with a vocabulary of only
300 words -- which has to be filled by language speakers?
On item 5 archaeological plausibility; if it is possible to find a
gundestrup cauldron so far away from a place which had an IVC seal
with strikingly comparable glyphs, one can only surmise on how
people moved around in search of mineral resources. I read from
Witzel that there is an Ehret-like elite acculturation of new areas
possible with languages moving without people moving.