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

--- mkelkar2003 <swatimkelkar@...> wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Richard
> Wordingham"
> <richard.wordingham@...> wrote:
> >
>
> >
> > 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,
>
> Yes, yes, exactly! The connection among IIr and Gk,
> Ar is MUCH closer
> than that among IIr and BS. See Dyen Kruskal Black
> 1992 chart_0001.pdf
> and McMahon and McMahon.pdf Dyen et al even give
> the name Mesoeuropic--
>
> "there is evidence that Romance, Germanic, and
> Baltoslavic are most
> closely interrelated among the distinct branches of
> Indoeuropean, thus
> suggesting, though the evidence is far from
> conclusive, that these
> three divisions form a single separate branch, for
> which the term
> Mesoeuropeic is introduced (Dyen, Kruskal, Black
> 1992, 5-6)."
>
> But sadly the satam/kentum east/west dichotomy is so
> entrenched in
> Indo-Euroepan linguistics. Therefore, it is
> important to use computers
> to do this.
>
> M. Kelkar
>

You're going to have to develop a computer model that
takes into account areal influences, common
spontaneous sound shifts, substrate of related
languages, etc.
I agree with those who say Centum/Satem is overrated
but I don't discard the possibility that such a
dichotomy existed early on among IE dialects.
Regarding Armenian-Greek-IIr, perhaps the group
(providing it is a valid clade) started off centum and
only Greek maintained Centum, and then perhaps
Balto-Slavic acquired satem independently, or perhaps
as a result of Iranian influence or from substrate of
some other Satem language. We were told of Tenematic
substrate in Slavic. Thracian likely influenced
Slavic.
Slavic has Iranian influence --both god and dog in
Russian are from Iranian. But I don't know to what
extent Iranian affected Baltic.
Any computer program is going to have to address
Germanic and its relationships.