Alexander:

>I still think that any of us is not able to prove that the opponent
>is wrong (conceptually, not in particular facts).
>But we are able to crystallize our disagreements and better understand
>ourselves. So it is worth continuing.

Yes, I concur. Although, there is a weakness on your part since if
you can admit that neither one of us is "able to prove that the
opponent is wrong", then you admit to not having substantiation to
prove your case. Now granted, that would make our arguements equal
in weight if it weren't for the fact that in addition to this lack,
you are further weighed down by the burden of flying against usual
thinking on these matters of the dates of the Neolithic and that
of Nostratic.

In other words, you feel that you need to oppose more mainstream
thinking but don't have a firm basis to do so. Have I followed so
far?


Beyond the vague attempts at bringing agriculture closer to the
Ice Age, Alexander writes:

>But what makes us say that Nostratic existed only before 9000 BCE
>(or other precise date)? Glottochronology? Who calibrated this
>technique at this part of the time scale?

It's just a matter of deduction. A date of 9000 BCE only gives
us 5000 years of seperation between IE and AfroAsiatic. It may
not seem bad to you but if the UralicYukaghir grouping is thought
to date to 5000 BCE as it is, that leaves us with only a 4000-year
window just to unite IE and Uralic-Yukaghir which are considerably
closer linguistically than IE and AA by far.

By further study, we notice closer similarities between IE,
Uralic-Yukaghir, EskimoAleut, ChukchiKam. and Altaic. So within
this 4000-year window we must also unite all of these languages
first before uniting IE and AA. So, this means that we have LESS
than 4000 years to unite this subgrouping, say, 3000 years.
(Bomhard refers to this subgrouping as "Eurasiatic" and I refer to
it as "Steppe".)

Unfortunately, within Steppe, some language groups are still
closer to each other than others. For instance, new research is
showing that EskimoAleut and UralicYukaghir have particularly close
affinities with each other. So... somewhere within, say 3000 years,
we have to unite EskimoAleut and UralicYukaghir. So, we might
SQUEEEEEEZE them into a 2000-year time frame to allow them
to diverge as they have.

But oh wait! We've forgotten about all the other languages like
Sumerian, Elamite, Dravidian and Kartvelian that are so vastly
unique in their own respects that suggesting 9000 BCE or earlier
for the date of Proto-Nostratic is as trite in thought as that
of a modern-day Creationist. (No offense to those on this List
who think that the universe was created in seven days...)

>The differences are immense...
>The differences between manatees and elephants are immense too, >however
>they needed a lesser time to diverge from a common ancestor,
>than looking much more alike hares and squirrels needed for the
>analogous divergence from a their common ancestor.

Yes, but there's certainly a limit to how little time is needed
for languages like this to diverge as they have. Unfortunately,
there is no precise way to measure these differences without
first understanding the language groups that we are talking about.
Knowing the grammars, the vocabularies, phonologies and the
sometimes subtle internal connections between various Nostratic
language groups are highly important factors in assessing the date
of Nostratic properly. Are you aware of the linguistics end of
Nostratic studies?

>How could we convert "immenseness" of linguistic differences into
>time?
>[...]
>Was the difference between PROTO-Indo-European and PROTO-Dravidian
>as big as between English and Armenian?
>In other words is Proto-Indo-European in a half way from Common
>Nostratic to modern English? Why not?

Yes, what you're concluding is that it must have taken _at least_
6000 years for these differences to develop. Of course, you know
as well as I do that Armenian is a particularly unique case of
divergeance that is still a fascination in IE studies. Plus,
my assessment leads me to believe that IndoEuropean and Dravidian
are indeed seperated by approximately 6000 to 7000 years.

>I'd better compare this process on the first stages with spreading
>of bacteria on the substrate with different nutritious properties
>[...], taking into account competing bacteria of other species (i.e.
>Non-Nostratic farmers, because hunter-gatherers can't compete
>- their density was 50-100 times less).

Well, our views about Post-Ice-Age linguistics are entirely
different indeed. From what I understand, non-Nostratic languages
seem to have thrived well into the European Neolithic until the
spread of IndoEuropean.

>Yes, there were secondary multiple movements, no doubt. But the
>reason of the victory in the competition always was the same - a better
>adaptation of the economy to the current conditions.

True, a bacterial model might be helpful to understanding population
movements but I fail to see how this connects Nostratic with
the spread of agriculture. I'm sorry but it just doesn't work.
There are many, many reasons for the success of a group, even
if they don't have agriculture to depend on. Sometimes it simply
involves networking. God, don't _I_ know as I'm "hunting" for
employment as we speak and "gathering" nothing in the process :)
What I mean by networking in this case is the networking of
surrounding cultures, by way of trade or some sort of mutual
cooperation that ensures better survival. Also, as I've said,
certain regions are simply a source of abundance more than others
and better advantage a population centred in such a region over
those in less bountiful locations.

We don't need agriculture to explain everything nor is there even
a shred of basis for reconstructing agricultural terms in Nostratic
anyway!


- love gLeN


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