From: tgpedersen
Message: 64509
Date: 2009-07-31
>First attempt to make a written language for Germanic by HarjaGist- on his hat, second attempt in the Marobodus empire(?), kept secret on three staves until stolen and divulged by a commoner several centuries later (you might as well use all the information you can get when reconstructing wie es eigentlich gewesen).
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> Regardless of their supposed higher intelligence (which would make Ukraine an IQ hotspot?) the conquests of the IE-speakers are no more remarkable than those of the Huns, the Mongols or Napoleon which had no lasting linguistic consequences. What is remarkable are the conquests of the IE language, the only plausible parallel to which I see in the conquest of the Chinese language over all those of the invading peoples. The property of the Chinese language which made it fittest for survival was that it was a written language, which makes it the language of choice when some important fact must be remembered. I think IE had something similar, but less: extensive mnemotechnic rules for learning laws and rites by heart, based on a codification of the language in its oral form; that's why several of the IE languages had native grammatical traditions
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> ***R I'd add Latin, Turkic/sh, Arabic and Runa to that