Re: a discussion on OIT

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Andrew Jarrette" <anjarrette@...>
wrote:

>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "jsjonesmiami" <jsjonesmiami@>

wrote:

> >
> > I don't think there's any automatic positive correlation between
> > linguistic conservatism and geographic continuity. In fact, some
> > linguists have suggested that the opposite occurs, based on
> > dialect distribution of colonial languages (and maybe some other
> > things).
> >
> > >
> > I don't think (A) is very tenable, regardless of the homeland's
> > location, but it would cause problems for the Indian homeland
> > hypothesis, in that the centum languages would have to all leave
> > in a single group, while Germanic has much in common with
> > Balto-Slavic and Greek with Indo_Iranian.
> >
> > For (B) and (C), I don't see anything relevent to the question,
> > although I'll mention that I don't see the earmarks of
> > unidirectional expansion either.
>
> I concede that my reasoning may have been erroneous. I'm not as
> knowledgeable as most of the other regular contributors and

Thanks for the reply. First, I'd better first point out that I'm not
as knowledgeable as many of the contributors here either and most of
my linguistics has been learned informally. Most of the time I have
nothing to say, except maybe ask for clarification.

> therefore may tend to put forth knee-jerk reactive statements based
> on limited knowledge and limited consideration, whose logic,
> substantiability, or relevance may be questionable.

My reply to your post wasn't completely relevent to it, as I noted.
As for substantiability ... I fear I'd have to do a lot of googling
since I'm bad at taking notes.

> I will try to censor such responses as I'm aware that it doesn't
> really belong at this level of discussion.
>
> Andrew

I think there's a need for multiple levels of discussion. Even those
who are prominent scholars in their area of study aren't experts in
everything and the rest of us often need some discussion of the
basics to bring us up to speed. Also, bringing hidden assumptions out
into the open can reduce confusion.

Jeff

P.S. I really hope your reply wasn't ironic!