Re: [tied] Re: Renfrew's theory renamed as Vasco-Caucasian

At 12:39:05 PM on Saturday, September 29, 2007, tgpedersen
wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Rick McCallister
> <gabaroo6958@...> wrote:

[...]

>> Germanic began to split up sometime around 500 BC, right?

> No. Runic has been characterized as almost pure
> Proto-Germanic,

It has also been suggested that runic, like ogam, was more
conservative than the spoken language.

> and Grimm hasn't yet happened in some locales in Western
> Germania in Caesar's time, so much later, eg. 50 BCE.

Geographic spread alone is a good indication that
noticeable dialect differentiation must have begun earlier
than that.

Brian