Joao:
>http://www.geocities.com/dienekesp2/indoeuropean/index.html
>
>An interesting different point of view. We don~t need to agree, but it's
>very healthy to take a look.
Nifty. I guess it's cool that we don't all agree... but why do so many
people
have to be so stubborn! >:)
The circle of the Danubian proposal in Fig 1, in my mind, is just a teensy
bit
too southern for my liking. I don't think that IE speaking peoples had
direct
access to the Near East, although it is clear that a Semitic(-like) language
had altered IE. Rather, I think that the IndoEuropeans were in contact with
their linguistic sister Tyrrhenian and it is _Tyrrhenian_ that is more in
line with
this circle. Coincidently, there appears to be Semitic substrate in
Tyrrhenian too
(eg: Etruscan /sempH/ "seven") so this idea works. Further, we don't see
any Hattic or Hurrian loans in Proto-IE, which is odd if IE were truely
there.
I never heard of the proposal by Wiik before. That was interesting, thanks!
I agree with the general premise of it -- that is, that IE spread into
non-IE
speaking territorities which added to the dialectal flavours that we now
observe in IE languages. However, I don't know if I can swallow such a large
area of IE at 5500 BCE. Take out the southern Balkans and central Europe
and we might have a deal. As far as I understand, IE would have really
started spreading only by 4500 BCE, a millenium later.
Actually... I have a cool alternative proposal that could be in line with
Wiik
but would still satisfy my skeptical mind. Perhaps, a) the languages of the
southern edge of Wiik's area were Tyrrhenian (related to IE) and b)
those of the westernmost part of this area were "para-IE" (almost IE
but no cigar). In that way, this entire region is infiltrated with IE-esque
languages, making it all the easier for later IE languages to later fill in
the
area. If this is true, it would be next to impossible to find "non-IE"
substrate
in later European IE languages, as all of it would be heavily diluted by
IE-related languages that would have already absorbed most of that
substrate.
= gLeN
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