Re: Unity of Satem (was: a discussion on OIT)

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "mkelkar2003" <swatimkelkar@...> wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham"
> <richard.wordingham@> wrote:

> > Now, if Satem dialects had simply spread out from India, obliterating
> > most intervening IE dialects as far as Central Europe, I would expect
> > to see stronger evidence that the Satem dialects formed a genetic
> > group. An Eastward Indo-Iranian expansion is just so much simpler.

> See Nichols 1997 model.pdf in the files section. The expansion could
> have happened in two waves. A later Iranian expansion may have severed
> the continuity between Germanic and Balto Slavic.

Bryant's account of Nichols' theory is bizarre - no migration?

Germanic and Balto-Slavic are quite close enough to cause problems
with an East to West expansion of Satem. Language families do not
normally expand by one language pushing another one ahead of it - the
20th century Westward move of Polish and the 19th century move of the
Five Civilised Tribes to Oklahoma are exceptional.

If I could swallow the idea of the satem shift taking place over an
enormous area, and persuade myself that Indo-Iranian had no strong
connection with any Central European language, then I would find an
Indo-Iranian expansion from the East plausible.

Richard.