Re: Hercynian (again)

From: Tavi
Message: 68636
Date: 2012-02-29

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Bhrihskwobhloukstroy
<bhrihstlobhrouzghdhroy@...> wrote:
>
> It was several yeras ago (my alias was bhrghowidhon@...)
> I have no difficulty in believing that all of Pokorny's and
> Mallory-Adams' (and LIV's) roots can belong to a single protolanguage
> and I think that the Germanic words for 'bear' and 'horse' are neither
> younger nor older of the ones found in other IE classes: they are all
> ultimately "common IE".
> I too consider the tradition PIE model as inadequate. I'd like to
> replace it with a model without language replacements and with just
> one tree, but with a couple of dozens of branch-crossings. So, a very
> strongly genealogical - but in noway binaristic - model, where there
> must have existed at least 500 diatopically differents branches of PIE
> still in PIE phonology from Atlantic to China along 40 millennia. This
> is an external linguistic model, it doesn't affect the etymologies,
> where the only principle is: 2140 PIE roots, 100 suffixes and five
> ablaut grades regularly generate 11,449,000 BILLIONS of perfect
> formations, where one can always find the best etymology for every
> historically attested word or noun
>
I'm afraid your model not only is unrealistic but also a RACIST one,
because language replacement processes have existed all throught the
history of mankind, although History is always written (and often also
rewritten) by the winners. This is why the languages of the losers are
forgotten and the memories of their existence erased.

To put an example I know of, in towns were Spanish is spoken since a few
centuries ago such as Pamplona, many people would say no other language
was ever spoken there, when historical records tell us the contrary.