Re: Divergence vs. convergence (was: Witzel and Sautsutras)

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhiemeier@...>
wrote:

>
> The burden of proof that the tree model was inadequate rests on
> you, and I doubt that you are well-equipped to carry it. And
> what regards "attributing things you never said", it is true
> that you put it differently, but you *do* claim that handbook
> knowledge was wrong.
> >
> > I'd say "partially right". This is the difference between seeing a
> > bottle half-full or half-emtpy.
>
> OK. The standard model does not account for *everything* in the
> attested IE languages, as those languages *do* have loanwords
> from other, mostly unknown languages, and may have been
> influenced by them in their grammatical structures. This is
> certainly true. And what regards the unknown languages, there
> remains much to be found out about them.
>
> But the *larger* part of the IE languages' lexicons and grammars
> are inherited from a single (though not perfectly homogenic)
> source, namely PIE. What you prefer to call "Kurganic".
>

The problem is the "PIE" reconstructed by IE-ists isn't the same thing
than the *real* PIE, i.e. "Kurganic", because a very significant portion
of it comes from pre-Kurganic languages, i.e. "Paleo-IE".

> Nobody denies that Ibero-Romance languages contain loanwords from

Basque.

>
> > Not exactly. Direct loanwords from Basque are few and rather modern.

I'm

> > talking about pre-Latin substrate lexicon, part of which is shared

by

> > Basque, where it suffered phonetic changes which made it almost
> > irrecognizable. This is why Vascologists like Trask consider Basque

to

> > be an isolate.
>
> What Trask and others mean when say that Basque was a isolate
> is that it is not known to which languages Basque is related.
> It is very likely that relatives of Basque have existed in the
> past, and that there are living languages that are related to
> Basque, but at a time depth so great that the resemblance has
> withered away.
>

The so-called "Mediterranean substrate" (which IMHO is mostly
Vasco-Caucasian) has been studied by scholars such as Johannes
Hubschmidt, and loanwords from this source can be found in Basque,
although Trask and others consider them to be "Romance" loanwords,
because they don't conform to native Basque phonetics.

Aprox. in the 1st millenium BC, the native core of Basque underwent
phonetic changes such as loss of initial stops which made their
relationships almost unrecognizable.

> Indeed, Vasco-Caucasian is not really that nonsensical - those
> languages may all descend straight from the language of the
> Cro-Magnon people (the first Homo sapiens in Europe). But that
> means a time depth of about 40,000 years, and it is uncertain
> whether anything can be recovered over such a range of time
> with the currently available methods.
>

I don't think Vasco-Caucasian is that old, but possibly "Eurasiatic"
might approach this time depth.

> > > What regards the pre-Roman languages of the
> > > Iberian peninsula, they are so poorly known that one cannot
> > > say much about them (at least, we can say that Celtiberian
> > > is Celtic and Lusitanian is IE, but that's about all of it).
> >
> > This "we know very little/cannot say much about them" of yours

sounds

> > like a mantra.
>
> Then I apologize. We indeed do not know much about them *now*,
> but that may change in the future. There are linguists - people
> better equipped to do the job than either you or me - working on
> them.
>

Really? I don't think substrate languages are very attractive to most
historical linguists. Add to this the fact the most brilliant brains of
the world work in other areas than historical linguistics.

> That does not mean that everything you say about them was wrong,

though.

>
> If you think that I sit back and tell myself "You will never know
> anything about those languages", you are *wrong*. I am interested
> in finding out more about them. But I have only limited time and
> energy to invest in these matters.
> What tells us that this etymology is valid and not sheer
> fantasy? What tells us that NEC did not borrow it from a
> language related to PIE?
>
> > I'd call this "IE-centrism". As a matter of fact, Kurganic (i.e.

"PIE")

> > has quite a few Vasco-Caucasian loanwords, some of which were

studied by

> > Starostin in an old Russian article:
> > http://starling.rinet.ru/Texts/iecauc.pdf
> > <http://starling.rinet.ru/Texts/iecauc.pdf>
>
> This would be interesting to read, but unfortunately, I cannot
> understand Russian. Do you?
>

I'm afraid I don't.

> I am pretty certain that some
> people on this list can read Russian. (Though given the fact
> that it consists mostly of a list of words, much can certainly
> be found out with a dictionary alone. At least, I can read
> Cyrillic script.)
>

A very interesting thing I've gathered from Starostin is the
correspondence between NEC sibilant affricates and IE palatalized
velars, which are a feature of Kurganic alone. In Paleo-IE these
consonants merged with dental stops, as you and Bomhard already know.

> [Villar's latest book]
>
> I *don't* refuse to look at it! But I simply lack the means
> and dedication to buy every book that may perhaps be relevant
> but may just as well be a waste of time and money.
>
> > Well, I think it's *very* relevant to the matter.
>
> I'll see. I am certainly interested in reading it. But don't
> hold the breath for that.
>

I'm sure Google Books' view might have given you a sample of its
content.

> > What Villar and his team show is there was a very ancient dialectal
> > fragmentation in paleo-IE before "Kurganic" (i.e. the language(s)
> > of the Kurgan people) swept in.
>
> Certainly, there was a high diversity of languages in the area
> where IE moved in later. You are battering an open door here.
> The notion of a single pre-IE (or "paleo-IE", if you insist on
> calling it that) language in all of western Europe is nonsense,
> and I never made such a claim.
>
> > In my own view, the IE lexicon is full of paleo-IE loanwords.
>
> Certainly, PIE borrowed from other languages, and its daughter
> languages also did so too, in substantial amounts, and sometimes
> from sources related to those found in other IE languages.
>

One thing is the "reconstructed PIE" and another one is the *real* PIE,
which is only a subset of the former.