GLEN ORIGINALLY WROTE:
<<The fact is that Indo-European is a linguistic construct... it's mostly
the burden of linguists to determine whether any language was in Anatolia in
7500 BCE.>>
I WROTE:
<<Oh really? Is Anatolia a linguistic construct? Is 7500BC a linguistic
construct?>>
GLEN REPLIED:
<<You're confused. This has nothing to do with proving that a language
existed in Anatolia in 7500 BCE.>>
I MUST THEREFORE WRITE:
Who's confused?
GLEN ALSO WROTE:
<<I certainly never said or thought the opposite but the absence of evidence
isn't evidence, my dear. None of what you say shows that some pre-IE was in
Anatolia at this time.>>
I MUST THEREFORE WRITE:
And, conversely, none of it says that it wasn't there.
GLEN ALSO WROTE:
<<Given the earliest historical testimony of the linguistic state of the
area, it rather points to the opposite scenario that PIE was an interloper in
the region with other language groups being once more widespread, language
groups such as Hattic and Hurro-Urartian.>>
But IE is CLEARLY present in the "earliest historical testimony of the
linguistic state" of Anatolia.
AND, for all you know, Hattic and Hurro-Urartian were the interlopers.
Spanish is more "widespread" in Latin America, and it is an "interloper" --
so being widespread counts for nothing in terms of who got there first.
(Though I'd like to know how you know they were more widespread. Please
don't say toponyms.)
There's plenty of room in Anatolia for a lot more than just two languages and
there always has been.
The fact is that what languages were present in 2000BC can tell you little or
nothing about what was present or not present in Anatolia in 7500BC. You
have no way of knowing how many times the situation changed in 5000 years.
In a mere 2000 years, dozens of completely different languages entered and
left "Anatolia" in every direction of the compass. The situation in 2000BC
could easily bare absolutely no resemblence to 7500BC. You really have no
way of knowing one way or the other.
GLEN GORDON ALSO WRITES:
<<It's rather likely that Anatolian IE was present in Anatolia by 3000 BCE,
as well as Hattic and Hurro-Urartian.>>
TO WHICH I MUST REPLY:
And what exactly prevents IE from being present in Anatolia before that?
GLEN GORDON ALSO WRITES:
<<Archaelogy only tells that people moved about. It doesn't tell us what
words fell from their tongues and never will.>>
TO WHICH I MUST REPLY:
Of course, neither will linguistics -- unless archaeologists uncover earlier
written records.
GLEN GORDON ALSO WRITES:
<<From logical conclusions about 3000 BCE, we may project further back to
4000 BCE and so on.... [... followed by pointless, memory-intensive iteration
that only serves to fill up one's mailbox with extra Kbs ...]>>
GLEN GORDON ALSO WRITES:
<<Last time I checked, language has no measurable Carbon-14 signature. Was
there a recent breakthrough at the Steve Long Laboratories that I wasn't
aware of? :)>>
TO WHICH I MUST REPLY:
Right now, we're working on the with Official Glen Gordon Language Dating
Crystal Ball. :)
S. Long