From: Arnaud Fournet
Message: 61075
Date: 2008-10-26
----- Original Message -----
From: "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...>
>
> 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
> =========
>Bellwood :
>However, like all good
>historical hypotheses which attempt to integrate data from
>archaeology, linguistics and genetics, this one is not and probably
>never will be subject to positive proof or disproof.
===========
Well, it's interesting to discuss Bellwood's agricultural spread theory,
because it has consequences of the possible dispersal of PIE
and also DGK's approach to (macro-)PIE family.
The statement that this theory cannot be refuted is optimistic.
I now have the 99,9% certainty that a work I have done on Berber reflexes of
Chamito-Semitic gutturals will be published, most probably next january or
february.
Originally, I have not written this in order to refute Bellwood's theory,
but one of the consequences is that It does refute this theory.
Berber is poorly studied and conspicuously absent of Ehret's work.
Basically, I have found that gutturals (other than glottal stop) do not
disappear in Berber but are palatalized into s z and sh zh.
This discovery clearly is a breakthru on Berber historical phonology.
I have about 40 basic words attested throughout twenty dialects from east to
west and north to south that support that discovery.
The consequence of this is that we are now capable of making a clearcut
distinction between cognates (with palatalized gutturals) and loanwords
(with muted or retained gutturals).
The examination of the vocabulary of Berber is very simple :
- cognates like eat and drink display the expected palatalization,
- words with neolithic content (little sheep, goats, camels, and
plant-growing) do not.
And many words related to plant-growing are obvious Semitic LWs in the first
place like zre from zara&.
For that matter, Chamito-Semitic was already split _before_ any neolithic
activity started.
And Bellwood's theory is refuted.
And all the theories that talk about a very late split-off of CS are
refuted.
Maybe I'll write something else to make it public and clear.
Arnaud
=============
Bellwood,
It is possible, for instance, that both Niger-Congo
and Afro-Asiatic had already undergone some dispersal prior to the
development of agriculture, although in both these cases the evidence
is by no means clear since it is difficult to reconstruct with
absolute certainty the economic basis of the period represented by the
basal proto-language (e.g. Ehret 2003 vs Militarev 2003 for
Proto-Afro-Asiatic).
=======
It's now possible to state with certainty that CS (or PAA) had not undergone
*some* dispersal,
but was completely split off from Atlantic to the Persian Golf
before neolithization started.
Arnaud
=========
> IE languages expanded partly on other IE languages
> and languages that may have been close to PIE
> so the case is different.
> Arnaud
> ============
Torsten
As you can see from Bellwood's paper, it makes no difference to the
basic scenario.
========
It does
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.
Please present an argument for that claim. We are not in a bargaining
situation.
===========
CS is older that 15 ky
probably much older than that,
as it coincides with the first human settlement in north sahara.
And the hardships encountered in its reconstruction are clearly related to
the fact the family is much older than PIE,
which actually is a branch of CS (and younger for that obvious matter).
Arnaud
===========
And that is why you reach down, as Brian calls it, and are not aware
of the pitfalls of that method. Watch me in Arnaud mode:
[arnaud]
Fr. téléphone, Grm. Telephon, Da. telefon, Est. telefon. I reconstruct
Nostratic *telepon which was spoken 80,000 years ago.
[/arnaud]
Do you see the problem?
Torsten
====
This is irrelevant BS
and you know that.
Arnaud
====