From: ikpeylough
Message: 25047
Date: 2003-08-13
> 13-08-03 06:37, Philippe Fauni-Tanos wrote:Don't be too hard on Philippe, Piotr. I get the impression that he's
>
> > I was wondering, what did the first European H. sapiens sapiens
> > speak?
> > Well, I would guess they spoke a Sino-Caucasian language --
> > probably related to NW and NE Caucasian, Vinca and Hattic. I call
> > it Paleo-European, which includes Iberian, Pictish, Ligurian,
> > "Balko-Danubian" etc. But I would guess Sino-Caucasic could have
> > entered Europe c.25-20 kya BCE. Then what did the "Cro-Magnons"
> > speak 35kya BCE? I can't guess anything but an early form of
> > "Amerindo-Nostratic-Caucasic" (when they weren't distinguished
> > from each other yet). I don't know really ... what do you think?
>
> Dear Phil,
>
> This list is devoted to discussing Indo-European linguistics and
> _related_ problems. As the timeline of reconstructible PIE only
> extends back into the Neolithic, questions like "What did the
> Cro-Magnon people speak?" are regarded as OT here. Anyway, in my
> opinion, this particular question is as unaswerable as "What song
> did the Sirens sing?". For all I know, they may have spoken a
> language that has left no descendants.
> You "guess" three times in one short paragraph. I wouldn't like
> Cybalist discussions to turn into naive guessing games.
>
> By the way: Vinca is a complex of archaeological cultures, not a
> language. How on earth can you know what languages the carriers of
> that culture spoke? Pictish, according to current research, was a
> variety of Brittonic Celtic. Dumping together all little-known and
> poorly documented languages into a single superfamily just because
> they're equally mysterious is not an acceptable linguistic method.
>
> Piotr