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

From: Jörg Rhiemeier
Message: 70309
Date: 2012-10-27

Hallo Indo-Europeanists!

On Friday 26 October 2012 23:37:06 Tavi wrote:

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhiemeier@...>
> wrote:
> [...]
> > There is no "Paleo-IE" in the sense of a second, unrelated
> > protolanguage (or language family) that underlies *all*
> > branches of IE. In fact, there must have been many different
> > substratum languages, some related to each other, others not.
> > It is IMHO ridiculously unlikely that the substratum the
> > Indo-Aryans met in India had anything to do with the
> > substratum the Insular Celts met in the British Isles, for
> > instance.
>
> The label "Paleo-IE" is meant to include all the languages which
> contributed to the IE lexicon other than Kurganic (i.e. "PIE").

That are, as Brian has pointed out, *many different* languages,
and a label such as "Paleo-IE" is meaningless and misleading.

> > What I consider plausible is a pre-IE substratum family that
> > covered most of Central and Western Europe - it has left traces
> > in the Old European Hydronymy. This family (which I have named
> > "Aquan") would have exerted an influence on most European IE
> > languages - Italic, Celtic, Germanic, Baltic, Slavic. That
> > means that many words that are found only in these branches but
> > not in Greek or Indo-Iranian probably come from there.
>
> Not only in OEH but also in the lexicon.

Of course. It did. There are numerous words common only to
the five "northwestern" branches of IE, or even subsets
thereof. Many of them are probably Aquan loanwords.

> > > 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.
> >
> > Can you point me to useful references? That matter sounds interesting.
>
> Trask's view can be found in his book "The history of Basque". As you
> might know, he strongly advocates against any proposed relationships
> with Basque, even Iberian.

I know.

> > Indo-Uralic 10,000 years
> > IU + Eskimo-Aleut etc. 12,000 years
> > Altaic 10,000 years
> > Eurasiatic 15,000 years
> >
> > Vasco-Caucasian 40,000 years
> >
> > But that are just more or less educated guesses.
>
> Most Vasco-Caucasian lexicon is from *Neolithic*, but older layers are
> shared with Eurasiatic, so these chronologies should be reversed.

How do you know that the Neolithic terms in Vasco-Caucasian
languages aren't Wanderwörter, comparing not languages but
dictionaries? And why do insist that Neolithic terms in IE
languages are, despite the regularity of the sound
correspondences? It is *you* who has it upside down.

> > > 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.
>
> > I know about Bomhard's correspondences, but I am not convinced
> > of them in all points. Bomhard's work, like so much work on
> > Nostratic, is centered on the IE-Afrasian axis, which may turn
> > out to be illusionary.
>
> This just one a Neolithic Paleo-IE from Neolithic, also including
> Wanderwörter from Middle East languages.

I agree with you that the agricultural terms that seem to be
shared between IE and Afrasian probably are Neolithic
Wanderwörter, and thus no valid evidence of a common ancestor.

> > Also, Bomhard says *nothing* about your "Paleo-IE" because he
> > does not work with such a hypothesis.
>
> I'm speaking about his "Nostratic" correspondences. See above.

And those correspondences do not include your "Paleo-IE"
- of course not, because "Paleo-IE" exists only in your
imagination, and Bomhard thus cannot know about it.

> > Likewise, he says nothing
> > about sound correspondences between NEC and IE, because he does
> > not consider NEC to be a member of Nostratic.
>
> This is Starostin's, not Bomhard's.

You were talking about Bomhard! Don't say "Bomhard" when you
mean "Starostin".

> > Please do not misrepresent other scholars this way!
>
> Actualy, it's you who got it wrong.

I mean, you attribute things to scholars who have *never* said
anything like that! That is what I mean by "misrepresenting
other scholars". This is not the first time you have done
that. Remember when you cited Rodriguez Adrados as supporting
your ideas on IE, until it turned out that he never did?

That many of those scholars may be misguided is no excuse for
attributing all sorts of stuff to the *wrong* scholars. What
would you say if someone wrote "As Alexandre has shown, all
languages descend from Basque" or similar nonsense?

> [...]
> > You are repeating this like a mantra ;) As I have said above,
> > I *am* aware of the difference between reconstructed PIE and
> > the real PIE. But it is the *reconstruction* that is a subset
> > of the real thing, because it misses many details that are hard
> > to recover.
>
> Not exactly. The reconstructed PIE is the sum of Kurganic (i.e. the real
> "PIE") as well as several Paleo-IE layers.

Indeed, some Indo-Europeanists over-reconstruct and attribute
words to PIE that really were borrowed from some other source
(such as Aquan) into several branches of IE after the breakup
of PIE, or even words that resemble each other only by chance.
Pokorny, for instance, is a notorious case of that. This
indeed needs to be sorted out.

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