Re: [tied] Time depth in comparative linguistics

At 8:11:11 PM on Tuesday, July 4, 2006, mkelkar2003 wrote:

[...]

> "The American linguist Terrence Kaufman, addressing this
> general problem (Kauffman and Golla 2000: 47), has a
> carefully formulated expression in which he suggests the
> chronological limits of the comparative approach:

> "The possibility of establishing a genetic grouping
> requires (a) the availability of relevant data from the
> languages being compared, which in turn usually requires
> (b) that the relationship is no older than 8000-10,000
> years before the earliest date at which the languages are
> documented."

> "Following this rule of thumb, and dating the earliest
> Hittite records to c. 1400 B.C., with the earliest
> Mycenaean Greek only a little later, would give an
> earliest date for *PIE between c. 11, 400 and c. 9, 400
> B.C. (Renfrew 2001, p. 39)."

Which is completely uninteresting unless someone was
actually claiming an even earlier date. The claim that PIE
would be beyond the range of the comparative approach if it
were any older than this certainly doesn't inconvenience
those who think it substantially younger.

Brian