Re: Meaning of Aryan: now, "white people"?

At 6:19:47 PM on Friday, February 15, 2008, mkelkar2003
wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski
> <gpiotr@...> wrote:

>> On 2008-02-15 22:44, mkelkar2003 wrote:

>>> The best fit model obtained by Ringe et. al. fits the
>>> above secnerio very well.

>> No, it doesn't. In all their trees the first split is
>> between Anatolian and "non-Anatolian IE", and then
>> non-Anatolian IE splits into Tocharian and "the rest" --
>> the crown group of IE. None of the analyses suggests
>> anything corresponding to Elst's "zone A" or to
>> "Tocharo-Italo-Celtic".

[...]

>>> Elst's (2000) Group A would be far right in Fig 12 and
>>> Group B far left.

>> This reading of the tree proves that you don't even
>> understand what a phylogeny means.

> I am not talking about splitting Fig 12 in the middle! Follow the
> diagram in Fig 12 from right to left

> "Initially, there was a single PIE language.

> That is the highest point where the tree begins.

> 2) The first division of PIE yielded two dialect groups,
> which will be called A and B. Originally they co-existed
> in the same area, and influenced each other, but
> geographical separation put an end to this interaction.

> Group A and B are BEFORE Anatolian splits off.

The tree shows no such split. The very first split shown in
this tree is between Anatolian, on the one hand, and
everything else, on the other.

> Group A is HI, LU, LY, TB, TA, OI, WE, LA, OS, UM

> Group B is the remainder

The tree does not show a split between HI, LU, LY, TB, TA,
OI, WE, LA, OS, and UM, on the one hand, and everything
else, on the other.

> 3) In zone A, one dialect split off, probably by
> geographical separation (whether it was its own speakers
> or those of the other dialects who emigrated from the
> Urheimat, is not yet at issue), and went on to develop
> separately and become Anatolian.

> That is the first separation corrosponding to the first
> branch HI, LU, LY.

> 4) The remainder of the A group acquired the distinctive
> characteristics of the Tocharo-Italo-Celtic subgroup.

What the tree shows is Anatolian splitting from everything
else. It does not show your A and B groups at all. It also
does not show a Tocharo-Italo-Celtic group: the only group
that it shows that contains all of OS, UM, LA, OI, WE, TB,
and TA is the group that contains *all* of the non-Anatolian
dialects.

There's no point bothering with the rest. Piotr's right:
you clearly don't understand what you're looking at here.

[...]

Brian