Steve:
>My point of course was that neither Glen nor I can possibly know what was
>going on linguistically in Anatolia in 7500BC:
Arrrrghh!! If you repeat that one more time, I'm going to go crazy. We
all _know_ that we "don't know" in an absolute kind of way!!! **My** point
is that, in the lack of absolute knowledge (based on 100% true
or 0% true), we use probabilistic knowledge (based on a probability of
truth from between 0% & 100%). We must prioritize ideas from outright
stupid to brilliant. We do this by basing our theories on the _facts_ that
exist. In other words, probabilistic knowledge is based on absolute
knowledge, always. Any other method is chaos.
The Out-of-Anatolia scenario isn't brilliant. It's more on the outright
stupid side because the premise contradicts everything that is absolutely
known about Anatolia and its languages as is recorded in historical times,
therefore the probability of its truth is very low in comparison to an
eastern European IE. You're right to say that there can be a lot of things
that have happened between 7500 BCE and the first instance of writing but
we use the most economic theory based on what facts we do know to fill in
the gap.
We don't need reasons why IE appears to have disappeared in Anatolia only
to reappear again because in the European scenario, IE enters only once.
Economy of theory is logical. Your Anatolian scenario causes as many
problems as it serves to explain away. You would have us assume a list of
things but I'm too lazy to assume anything :)
What's more, you keep on siding with the Anatolia camp yet WHAT ARE YOUR
REASONS? If you have no reasons except for some subconscious "feeling",
you're going to have to surrender. I don't put up with wishy-washy. I
want reasons. What is your justification for the Out-Of-Anatolia theory?
Spit it out in jotform, please.
- gLeN
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