On 2006-05-09 18:21, Daniel J. Milton wrote:
> Are others as persuaded as Mssrs. Melkar and Ryan by Ballester's
> paper:
> http://www.continuitas.com/ballester_equilibrium.pdf
> that linguistic change was slower in the Paleolithic than since (or
> elsewhere)?
> It seems the sort of speculation that can't be proved or refuted.
> My reaction is just a shrug.
May I join you? [Shrug, shrug.] The argument is specious. First, there
are some straw men there: few mainstream linguists, including students
of IE, would subscribe to the view that the rate of language change is
even roughly constant (many have said so openly, and Ballester himself
quotes them); the estimated age of PIE is _not_ based on any assumed
rate of change. Secondly, Dixon's theory (interesting but not
unanimously accepted, btw) describes a _dynamic_ equilibrium: extensive
areal convergence obliterates divisions between genetic units and makes
it difficult or impossible to identify clear-cut "family trees", but it
does not hinder language change, which takes place no matter if a
language expands at the expense of others or just maintains its position
in a Dixonian dialect network. Nor does a state of equilibrium make a
linguistic area homogeneous: Australia had been home to hundreds of
diverse languages with at least some taxonomic organisation before the
Europeans "punctured" the equilibrium and introduced just one dominant
language across the continent. Pre-colonial California, much smaller
than Europe and inhabited mostly by coastal hunter-gatherers, was
linguistically the most diverse part on North America, with about a
hundred languages, divided into about a dozen tiny families and
including a number of isolates. Equilibrium or no equilibrium, most of
those languages were as different from one another as Swedish is from
Swahili.
> By the way, I've read the late Grover Krantz's book on development
> of European languages, which Ballester quotes with approval.
I read the book some years ago. It contains a lot of amusing nonsense
(e.g., it locates the Uralic homeland in Hungary, which should endear
him to Hungarian indigenists) and demonstrates the author's embarassing
lack of familiarity with the principles of historical linguistics, but
note that it does not advocate anything like palaeolithic continuity.
The expansion scenario is similar to that proposed by Renfrew (out of
Anatolia) but based on absurdly mechanical calculations based on
speculatively reasoned-out rates of advance.
> I've
> also read his book on Sasquatch, the Abominable Snowman's cousin in
> the NW USA. Let's say Krantz was never one to let flimsy evidence
> stand in the way of a good story.
Ah, but it pays. I'm afraid the late Dr. Grover Krantz will be
remembered chiefly for his involvement in the Gigantopithecus/Sasquatch
hunt, but as long as there are people who share his idée fixe (and it's
likely to be forever), his fame is secure.
Piotr