Re: [tied] GLEN AND ANATOLIA IN 7500BC

From: John
Message: 20120
Date: 2003-03-20

Steve Long wrote

> Anatolia is larger in size than New Guinea where over 30,000
> languages were spoken by different hunter-gatherers group (which is
> what Hattic and Hurro-Urartian would have been in 7500BC). Hattic
> and Hurro-Urartian does NOT eliminate the presence of IE.

Steve, you are wrong on two counts. New Guinea first of all did not
have 30,000 languages. Instead, on last count it had something like
736 different languages in Papua New Guinea, and a smaller number on
the Irian Jaya side of the border, so you can conclude that there may
have been 1,100-1,300 languages, maximum.

Secondly while there were some cultures that had hunting as a part of
their life style, 90% of Papua New Guineans were subsistence
gardeners, growing sago, taro, bananas, or sweat poptato, or a mixed
stable of 2 or more of these crops.

To try to draw linguistic lessons for other parts of the world, given
the diversity selecting and rate of linguistic evolution found in New
Guinea, is not a valid approach.

> Only a single Spanish dialectic group is centered in Spain. The
> remainder of Spanish is found elsewhere. That should tell you that
> Spanish must have come to Spain from somewhere else, possibly
> Argentina.

Steve, I know you are being facetious here, but there is more than
one Romance language in Spain. Catalan shows a close fraternal
affinity to Castilian Spanish, as does Galician - with three related
languages in Spain and one in Latin America - one could conclude that
Spainish evolved in Iberia and spread to Argentina. The same applies
to Anatolia and PIE.

Regards

John