[tied] Re: Genetic Studies and Aryan Migrations

> > Well, back to basics! Anyone here in a mood to prove the IE
> > family?

> Existence of a language family does not necessitate the existence
> of a proto langauge.
>
> ""It is usually supposed that, at one time, there was a single
> Indo-European language, the so-called Indo-European protolanguage,
> from which all historically attested Indo-European languages are
> presumed to descend. This supposition is contradicted by the fact
> that, no matter how far we peer back into history, we always find a
> multitude of Indo-European-speaking peoples.

This is what is documented:
At 1500 BC we find several Anatolian languages and an early version
of Greek. At 1000 BC(?) we might suppose the Sanskrit we know was
codified. Centuries after that we find the other members of the
Indo-European language family. These are facts. Whatever we ascribe
to earlier times is reconstruction. At 3000 BC, approx, we find
archaeologically similar finds at the rivers of the Ukraine. For
these, we can assume one of two options: 1) they spoke languages
that were sufficiently similar for them to understand each other, or
2) the languages they spoke were mutually incomprehensible. Given
that the cultures are similar, option 1) should be preferred over 2).
Trubetzkoy's statement, as it stands, is clearly wrong, we find no
multitude of Indo-European-speaking peoples at the time of the
dinosaurs, no matter what the Flintstones would have us believe.

> The idea of an Indo-European protolanguage is not absurd, but it
> is not necessary, and we can do very well without it (Trubetskoy
> 2001, p. 87)."

I have no idea why Trubetzkoy said that. He doesn't provide any
line of reasoning for this statement, nor do you. Therefore I
can't comment on it.

> "Thus a language family can be the product of divergence,
> convergence or a combination of the two (with emphasis on
> either). There are virtually no criteria that would indicate
> unambiguously to which of the two modes of development a family
> owes its existence. When we are dealing with languages so
> closely related that almost all the elements of vocabulary
> and morphology of each are present in all or most of the
> other members (allowing for sound correspondences), it is
> more natural to assume convergence than divergence (Trubetskoy
> 2001, p. 89)."

Why is it 'more natural'? Not to mention the fact that the
question of the mode of genesis of a language is independent of
and irrelevant to the question of its existence.

> ""The only scientifically admissible question is, How and where
> (Trubetskoy does not say when) did the Indo-European linguistic
> structure arise? And this question should and can be answered by
> purely linguistic methods. The answer depends on what we mean by
> the INDO-EUROPEAN LINGUSITIC STRUCTURE (Trubetskoy 2001, p. 91,
> emphasis in the original, parenthesis added).""

Aha. And what does he mean by INDO-EUROPEAN LINGUSITIC STRUCTURE?

> ""In specific, reconstructing a "protolanguage" is an exercise that
> invites one to imagine speakers of that protolanguage, a
> community of such people, then a place for that community, a
> time in history, distinguishing characteristics, and a set of
> contrastive relations with other protocommunities where other
> protolanguages were spoken.

That is certainly true.

> FOR ALL THIS, NEED IT BE SAID, THERE IS NO SOUND EVIDENTIARY
> WARRANT (Lincoln 1999, p. 95, emphasis added)"

Because?

> It is at best an impossible task to locate a proto language in time
> and space based on *four* reconstructed words (Melchert, 2001)
> three of them irrelevant to the problem.

Who proposed that?

> If such proto language must be reconstructed, then IEL H. H. Hock
> has already said that it could very well have been spoken in South
> Asia (Elst, circa 2000).
>

That means OIT.

> "For now, I (Elst) must confess that after reading Prof. Hock's
> presentation, the linguistic problem which I have always considered
> the most damaging to an Indocentric hypothesis, doesn't look all
> that threatening anymore. I do not believe that the isoglosses
> discussed by him necessitate the near-identity of the geographical
> distribution of the PIE dialects with the geographical
> distribution of their present-day daughter languages, which
> near-identity would indeed be hard to reconcile with an
> out-of-India hypothesis."

As far as I know, Elst is considering OIT. Do you realize that?


Torsten