Re: [tied] Anatolian

The thread is a little covered with dust now but interesting I think.

----- Original Message -----
From: "glen gordon" <glengordon01@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, October 07, 2005 8:46 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] Anatolian [was: PIE Ablaut [was] Re: Gypsies again]


> Grzegorz:
>> Some Anatolian languages preserved the distinction
>> PIE *k^ : *k, and some had not. Some Anatolian
>> languages preserved *a : *o, and some did not.
>> Maybe we should ponder on whether the Anatolian
>> group (or: subfamily) existed at all?
>
> Well, actually...
>
> I think the issues you're having with all of this
> is that you are subconsciously imagining IE dialect
> areas with strict, immalleable boundaries.

My imagination has little to do with strict boundaries, the tree and the
wave models, and other suspections, but more with known facts. And the facts
are as follows.

1. All the Romance languages come from one dialect which is the Latin of
Rome. So called "Vulgar Latin" was never a language - but when you took all
Romance languages, you could not find too many common features. And even if
it had been one language with a number of dialects, all the dialects would
have developed from one dialect that was Latin of Rome. Agreed? It is worth
to be emphasized that that dialect was in use in ONE town, and surrounded by
other Italic, "rural" dialects. I even imagine that Rome Latin was different
from other varieties of Latin (= language of the Latins, the people of
Latium), and I even imagine that the surrounding dialects played a very
small role in the process of forming the later Romance dialects (of course,
except possible borrowings - not necessarily from Italic languages by the
way).

2. In the history of the Greek language there were two (or more) periods of
"koineization". It means that once there was a number of Greek dialects and
next only one of them survived while the others generally fell into disuse
(except some vocabulary, local idioms etc.). For example, the Hellenic Koine
continues the Attic dialect with only addition of some non-Attic elements
taken from other dialects the ancient Greece. "The final answer that is
academically accepted today was given by the Greek linguist G. N.
Hatzidakis, who proved that, despite the "composition of the Four", the
"stable nucleus" of Koine Greek is Attic" (quotation from Wikipedia,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellenistic_Greek).

3. Most (all?) Indic languages are descendants of Vedic. We cannot say that
Vedic was complete uniform but its dialects must have been very similar to
one another.

4. All the Slavic languages show numerous features which make us believe
that they all are descendants of one Proto-Slavic language. If it was
divided into dialects, the differences between them must not have been very
large, contrary to differences between that Proto-Slavic and
Proto-Lithuanian, Proto-Prussian etc.

These are observations, not hypotheses.

And now an answer: do you know ONE example that would contradict this model
of one mother language with no clear dialectal differences "in the
beginning"?

> In reality, dialects in any language modern or ancient
> are nothing more than "bundles of idiosyncratic
> features" in a particular region. If you think about
> dialects in this way,

I cannot think this way for the reason above. I see _similarities_ within
language groups (= subfamilies, like Romance, Slavic or Indic) and
differences between these groups. So, I imagine that what we call the
Proto-Indo-Europaean was ONE language once, with some closely related
dialects (or even so uniform as Latin must have been once), used within a
small area.

> then we can understand both how
> dialects can each have their own boundaries while
> also recognizing that *some* of the features of one
> dialect may overlap into other neighbouring dialect
> regions (or even other language groups) by way of
> simple areal influence.

The model according to which that one, relatively uniform PIE language split
into many many dialects, equally related with each other, and which finally
formed nothing but historic attested languages, is incorrect. We know with
absolute certainty that e.g. Spanish and Portuguese do not come from two
different IE dialects but from one homogenous language which was Latin of
Rome. We also know that modern Greek dialects (as some people want,
languages) do not continue the ancient Greek dialects but only one of them.
So, I must believe that the same model was in the differentiation of PIE.
One mother dialect split into several daughter dialects, next only some of
them survived (just like Greek dialects) and each of them formed a distinct
language (they were Proto-Germanic, Proto-Balto-Slavic, Proto-Indo-Iranian
etc.). [I even believe that there were more ancient proto-languages like
Proto-Satem and Proto-Western] And in the beginning, just shortly after the
separation, dialectal differences within these protolanguages were minimal
if any, and anyway considerably less than between two such groups.

> Try this: Instead of drawing out a dialect map of
> IE for yourself, try drawing out an isogloss map.

The wave theory suggest that some linguistic features may expand through
language boundaries (or: despite of limits of mutual incomprehensilility of
areally neighbouring dialects). So, the isogloss map need not be a map of
original IE dialects.

> You'll start to understand that the word "dialect"
> is a vague term because there are as many dialects as
> there are isoglosses that you wish to pay attention
> to.

Not exactly. Languages and dialects are not just a sum of idiolects with
fluid boundaries. They are discrete - differences between them are, as a
rule, more than differences within each of them. L-complexes are not so
universal as you suggest.

> If you want to split IE into five notable
> features, then you have five dialects. Ten isoglosses?
> Then you have ten dialects, och så vidare, und so
> weite, and so on, et cetera, yadayada.

> So, in respect to the topic of Anatolian, you're
> correct. There wasn't any "Anatolian" dialect area
> in the strictest sense. Only a region from which
> sprang the later Anatolian languages we now call
> Hittite, Palaic, Luwian, Lycian, Lydian, etc. For
> simplicity, we refer to that region and general
> dialect area as Proto-Anatolian.
>
> This same reasoning goes for all IE dialects.

Do not try to tell me that Romance languages come from many IE dialects. Do
not try to tell me that Indic languages come from many such dialects. Your
view cannot be accepted because facts contradict it. And I am right noticing
that so called "Anatolian group" is not typical among other IE groups. We
can reconstruct Proto-Indo-Iranian, Proto-Slavic (and even
Proto-Balto-Slavic), Proto-Germanic - but not Proto-Anatolian.

>> Can we really reconstruct, say, Lycian or Luwian
>> inflexion so much satisfactorily to maintain the
>> hypothesis that Proto-Anatolian ever existed?
>
> We can legimately reconstruct Proto-Anatolian in
> the same way that we can Proto-IE, as long as we
> recognize that language is fluid.

But you have no evidence. Instead, there is evidence that languages (or, at
least L-complexes) are, as a rule, clearly separated from one another.

> In other words,
> when we reconstruct a language, we are merely
> reconstruct the *general* features of the family
> as a whole, or rather of the region from which the
> language family originated.

Once again: we can reconstruct Proto-Germanic and Proto-Slavic but not
Proto-Anatolian. Even considering the most general features. So, if the IE
homeland was steppes north from the Black Sea, maybe Anatolia was IE-ized in
two or more waves? (Of course, I mean only the "original" colonization.) If
only one IE tribe had populated Anatolia, we would have expected an easily
reconstructable Proto-Anatolian language.

> How precise one wishes to be with the reconstruction
> depends on how small a region you want to focus on,
> whether it be Proto-IE as a whole or specifically the
> region where Proto-Anatolian dialects were first
> spoken.
>
> To get a more precise picture of Proto-IE, you have
> to realize that there was *always* dialectal
> differences from region to region. This doesn't
> negate the efforts of Proto-IE. It only makes things
> less Hollywood than most people are used to on TV :)
>
>
> = gLeN

I do not think that you were right. But OK, I respect every opinion unless
it is contrary to facts. Then show me facts which give a support to your
model. Show me examples of such multi-dialectal development. Examples, not
hypotheses. I have given you some that contradicts your fluid model.

Grzegorz J.



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