From: Trond Engen
Message: 68750
Date: 2012-03-04
> At 6:35:55 AM on Friday, March 2, 2012, Tavi wrote:He isn't that different from Mallory before him. The spread to the
>
>> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott"
>> <bm.brian@...> wrote:
>
>>>> There's a strong tendence to forget about minority
>>>> languages in atlases and text books. Too often the
>>>> winners make active efforts to erase the traces of
>>>> "loser" language, for example, by translating
>>>> alloglottic toponyms to their own language and even
>>>> people names.
>
>>> This can happen, yes. The degree to which it happens
>>> varies greatly, however, and the winning language isn't
>>> always that of the winning people.
>
>> But you can't ignore IE languages have been and are still
>> (see e.g. Anthony's book subtitle: "How Bronze-Age riders
>> from the Eurasian Steppes shaped the Modern World") too
>> often represented as being spoken by warfare aristocracies
>> who imposed their language to non-IE speaking people by
>> military conquest.
>
> I frankly don't much care: I'm interested in the linguistics
> first and the archaeology second. Moreover, not having read
> Anthony's book, I have no idea whether it actually presents
> the early spread of IE languages in the way that you suggest
> on the basis of the subtitle; I certainly don't trust your
> judgement on that score after what you've written here.