Re: Reaching Down (was: Comparative Notes on Hurro-Urartian, Norther

NB :
I have redirected the mail to Cybalist
as this can be of common interest.

----- Original Message -----
From: "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...>
To: <cybalist_admin@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2008 12:16 AM
Subject: [cybalist_admin] Re: Reaching Down (was: Comparative Notes on
Hurro-Urartian, Northern Caucasian

> I think I see your point
> It's like saying that words that pass every methodological test for
> cognacy status may ultimately not be cognates.
> But then what is a real cognate ?
>
> Then why should we consider PIE reconstruction is acceptable ?
> Your reasoning is like saying everything is wrong or dubious.
> Why should we consider IE more acceptable than Nostratic ?
> If both apply the same methods, why should they not be equally
> acceptable ?

This is why I think Nostratic is dubious:

I think the Peter Bellwood theory is basically correct, that the large
language families are the result of small hunter-gatherer groups
learning the (Wörter und) Sachen of agriculture, then going on to fill
out the landscape around them.
Torsten
=========
I guess I saw M. Bellwood last saturday,
They had organized conferences in PAris about Neolithization of Europe.
He was there.
The major pb of his theory is that it's based on the example of Autronesian,
which expanded in a human vacuum in the Pacific.
IE languages expanded partly on other IE languages
and languages that may have been close to PIE
so the case is different.
Arnaud
============

That means the languages of those
families began to diverge < 10 k years ago, which is the max. age of
agriculture.
T
========
No,
PAA is clearly older than agriculture
and I can prove it with Berber,
which was already separated from the rest
then a new layer of words reached it.
Arnaud
===========

The extra-African language families themselves, however,
must have split up approx 80 k years ago, for that was the time when
the present extra-African population colonized the world. The only way
for that split-up to have been younger is if some of the founder
population had changed language at some time in the past. In other
words, the reconstruction of Nostratic should be ca. 8 times harder
than reconstruction of any of the component families, not to mention
the fact that the reconstruction by necessity will be based on
derived, not primary data.
Torsten

================
The factor 8 is probably exagerated.
Maybe 2 or 3 is better.

I don't understand :
the reconstruction by necessity will be based on
derived, not primary data.

Arnaud