2012/3/1, Brian M. Scott <
bm.brian@...>:
> At 9:01:13 AM on Wednesday, February 29, 2012,
> Bhrihskwobhloukstroy wrote:
>
>> You can't say that IE didn't exist 33,000 years BP; we
>> simply don't know and can make hypotheses
>
> Obviously the IE languages had a common ancestor 33,000
> years ago, but in all likelihood that ancestor differs from
> PIE more than present-day IE languages do. That, I expect,
> was the point of Richard's question about Latin and French:
> identifying PIE with its ancestor of 33,000 BP is like
> referring to Latin as French.
>
> Brian
>
>
Thank You for Your explanation; the formulation of the paradox was
so stretched that it was impossible form me to understand it.
Ok then. My reply is "no" and these are my arguments:
1) we can measure the difference between Latin and French and
compare it with the difference between Latin and its immediate IE
ancestor.
The difference between Latin and French is bigger than between PIE
and Latin.
The difference between Latin and French stretches over
approximately 2,000 years.
Should the rate of linguistic change be constant in time, we would
expect PIE to have been spoken later than 2000 BC, which is false.
Conclusion: it's sure that the rate of linguistic change isn't
constant and it's sure that in Proto-history it was slower than later.
It can be that in Pre-history it was still lower. We can't know
this, but it's nevertheless a good hypothesis (a mere hypothesis).
2) we have at our disposal two language names (Latin and French)
for two stages on the same genetic lineage - one earlier and the other
one later and in an initially more restricted area.
For Pre-history, we don't have anything like that. It's all "PIE".
Now, the differences between the immediate IE ancestors of each
historical language or class are so great that Common (P)IE must have
been very different from each of them (in particular, with no limits
in the possibility of generating words from the union of roots and
suffixes, i.e. roots were words and suffixed or compound words were
almost like phrases).
This development must have taken time. It's probable that the rate
in linguistic change was slower than in history; it's possible that it
was slower than in Proto-history.
So, a language (X) belonging to the genetic lineage of PIE 35,000
years BP was very different (on lexical and morphological level) from
the immediate IE ancestor (Y) of Latin. You can call X "ancestor of
IE" and Y "PIE" or the like.
"Common PIE" (different from Y) can lie in between or coincide
with X (or be even earlier; I don't think so). "Common PIE" is the
latest common ancestor of all IE languages (Y is only the ancestor of
Latin; it has IE phonology and therefore it's different from Latin)
If no other known language comes from X, then we can identify X
with "Common IE". Maybe "Common IE" is a later phase of X, maybe not,
but if no other known language comes from X, X is Common PIE or at
least an archaic variant of the same phase.
A further problem can be:
imagine that some known languages are related with PIE. We would
have two groups of possibilities: a) they come from a common ancestor
different from Common PIE (earlier than Common PIE) or b) their common
ancestor coincides with Common PIE.
Macrocomparison is faced at present with this dilemma: to enlarge
the IE family (as it has happened with Anatolian) or to posit a
superordinate knot ('Nostratic'). Maybe each possibility can be true
(or false) from case to case.
(If You are against Macrocomparison, please ignore these lines.)
I would then so reformulate what I wrote a few lines above:
"if no other known language comes from X (unless it - such known
language - comes from Common PIE), X is Common PIE or at least an
archaic variant of the same phase". 'Nostratic' - if such a thing has
ever existed - must per definitionem be earlier than any variant (no
matter how archaic) of Common PIE. So my sentence has to be
integrated: 'Nostratic' (?) was earlier than X.
Now, back to chronology.My point is simply this: 'Nostratic' (?)
was earlier than 35,000 years BP. Nothing more and nothing less. If
You or we don't believe in Nostratic, we can simply re-state "a parent
language of Common PIE different form this one at least in the same
measure as 'Nostratic' would be was earlier than 35.000 years BP".
We all use "PIE" without distinctions, for lack of better terms,
but we speak of very different prehistoric languages; the only
terminological distinction we are obliged to introduce is in the case
a prehistoric ancestor of PIE differs from PIE like hypothetical
'Nostratic' (or more, of course).
I think that the differences INSIDE various chronological layers
of PIE were of lexical and morphological, much less so of phonological
level; therefore I accept to call X "PIE".
Q.E.D.