--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham"
<richard.wordingham@...> wrote:> --- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@...>
> wrote:> > At 9:33:16 on Wednesday, 3 December 2003, Daniel J.
Milton> > wrote:> >
> > > As has been pointed out here, language trees based on
> > > vocabulary lists, like the Grey-Atkinson one under
> > > discussion, miss significant relationships like the
> > > satem-kentum split. > > > I presume phonological and
morphological phenomena could > > > be described as discrete
entities amenable to> > > corrresponding computation, although it
would be a lot> > > tougher job than just looking at Swadesh word
lists.
> For non-Anatolian Indo-European, we should also note that the
study > applies a tree model to what was probably a dialect
continuum that > fell apart. The split of Western centum languages
from Balto-> Slavonic is put only 400 years later (6,500 years BP)
than their > joint split from Indo-Iranian and Albanian (6,900 years
BP).
Excellent points, Brian and Richard.
I would add to the list: glyphs.
Glyphs such as those found on Gundestrup cauldron, icons created
during cultural breaks (say from Avestan to Judaism), hieroglyphs
such as those found on Sarasvati epigraphs should also be included.
Because, glyphs are based on an underlying speech (parole) and
glyphs will lock the words with precision, like a cross-word puzzle,
relating the glyphs to homonyms: at least two words of speech -- one
denoting the glyph itself and the other denoting a cognate word
denoting something more substantive such as a possession, say, of
minerals, metals, furnaces. I wonder why Piotr bars discussions of
ancient scripts on this list (Afte all, they are part of parole,
writing systems).
Prakrits (e.g., Ardhama_gadhi, Bhojpuri, Dardic, Nahali,
Burus.a_ski) should also be included on such lists. On Prakrits, let
me note that there is a definitional problem on this Indo- segment.
In my definition, Prakrits include dialects of mleccha such as:
Proto-Gujarati, Proto-Kannada, Proto-Tamil, Proto-Telugu.