Alexander and I:

>>I can't help but notice, Alexander, that your demands are bizarre
>>and completely dyslogical.
>
>Thanks.

Sorry, I'm brutally honest at times. I have to work on being more
facetious or, how do they say?... "diplomatic"?

>Glen, this is not a question of a particular science, [...]

There's your problem. This _IS_ a question of science because we
don't deal with metaphysics on this list. It's about true, false,
and prioritization of probability according to least and most
likely. Nostratic has nothing to do with the spread of agriculture
because it, without a shadow of a doubt, occured before 9000 BCE.
You can't possibly argue this point. The later adoption of
agriculture is just the spread of an innovation, something that
can easily occur after the spread of Nostratic without any logical
problems. I really don't know what you're fighting against, so I
assume that you haven't read enough yet to understand why your
idea doesn't fly.

>1. Nostratic languages pressed out all the languages of hunter-gatherers
>from Europe, North Africa and West+North+South
>Asia (excluding only areas not suitable for farming)
>AND
>Nostratic languages spread from the region where goats+sheep and
>wheat+barley has been domesticated (Near East)

Hmm. First, the exact location of Nostratic is still under
debate and I don't recall there being a secure location provided
as of yet. So, your conviction that Nostratic absolutely came from
the Middle-East is merely convenient for your hypothesizing. In
some parts of the world, they would accuse your ideas of being
"biased". Second, the domestication of these things occured much
LATER than is possible for the date of Nostratic. If you don't
agree, I suspect that you aren't well caught up on the Nostratic
languages and their immense differences. We require an appropriate
amount of time for these differences to occur and for the
respective peoples speaking these languages to have spread into
the regions that they have, as demonstrated by both archaeology and
linguistics. The Nostratic languages certainly didn't just radiate
out from the Middle-East in a simplistic pattern like spokes on a
wheel. There were multiple movements going on over different periods
of time for different reasons.

>1a. There are Non-Nostratic languages (NEC, NWC, Basque, old
>"Mediterranean") on the same areal
>HOWEVER
>The picture of development of farming at Near East shows presence
>at least 2 different traditions (for example PPNA and PPNB)

And, so what? Again, you're dealing with dates that are too
absurdly recent to account for these languages. Even amongst
this group of NWC, NEC and Basque, there are IMMENSE differences
to be accounted for between these language groups with these short
spans of time that you give them to evolve and spread. It just
sounds too ridiculous to believe.


And lastly, Alexander goes off on a non-Nostratic tangent:

>2. Austric languages (Austroasiatic+Austronesian+Tai) pressed out
>all the languages of hunter-gatherers from SouthEast Asia (excluding only
>areas not suitable for farming)
>AND
>Austric languages spread from the region where dog (for meat)+pig
>and taro+yams and some later rice has been domesticated [...]
>- There is no superfamilies which would not be connected with one
>of the centers of neolithisation
>- There is no centers of neolithisation which would not produce a
>superfamily

Perhaps you haven't thought of the possibility that some regions
of the world have always been more plentiful than others and that
with this abundance, there is bound to be many population
explosions and innovations spreading outward from them. All I
can say is that you're confusing the remote past with the recent
past and the results you come up with are outright extraterrestrial
in thinking.

I offer you a message from my statistics professor:
"Correlation does not equal causation."


- love gLeN


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