----- Original Message -----
From: "Glen Gordon" <glengordon01@...>
To: <nostratic@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2002 8:32 PM
Subject: Re: [nostratic] Re: AA and IE


[Alexander about the Glen's approach]
> >- The reason of human migrations are not cognizable principally.
[Glen]
> I'm not sure what this means.

[A]
I meant that speaking about migrations you (almost) never try to find
reasons of them, mechanisms behind them. It seems to me that you believe
that as a rule we never can learn them and need not really to know them:
"Languages just migrate sometimes. Why - doesn't matter."
(I must apologize again for some exaggeration)


[G]
> I know exactly what the problem is here. Please reread the snipped
> quote above. What are you talking about? Are you talking about
> linguistics? It doesn't seem so. What are you talking about? You're
> talking about ethnology.

[A]
Yes, Glen! You succeed to formulate it using far less words than I needed.
I'm talking about ethnology indeed. Linguistic phenomena are just a
by-product of ethnological processes, from my point of view.
For you linguistics is self-sufficient, you find all the causes and effects
inside it.

Let me make such a geometric metaphor.
For me an ethnological process is a multidimensional body. It has as many
dimensions as many disciplines are involved (linguistics, archaeology,
ecology, mythology, economy, geography etc.). The linguistic component is
just a projection of the body on a plane - the linguistic plane in this
case. There are also archaeological projection, ecological projection etc.
Every projection (picture) is not absolutely clear, unfortunately.
My task is to reconstruct the multidimensional form of the body with minimal
discrepancies with the pictures on _all_ projection planes.
For you the only important thing is this plane linguistic picture. You don't
believe that the form of the whole body can help us to understand better
what we see here.
Am I right?

[G]
> What list is this? This forum is the
> Nostratic list. Nostratic is a linguistic study, not an ethnological
> study.
[A]
Should I stop posting here? :-(


[G]
> So... What is your main linguistic point about Nostratic? I think
> I said earlier that I don't see any strongly reconstructed
> terminology demonstrating early agriculture amongst Nostratic
> speaking peoples.
[A]
Yes, *kori 'sheep' is much less than I'd like to have here.
However, may I hope that philology hasn't finished its development yet and
something can be found ?
Or we have to give the final decision this afternoon?

[G]
> I'm sure the archaeological evidence on this
> matter must also be equally sparse.
[A]
Here my hypothesis feels much better. Microlithic (sickles-using) cultures
are found enough early (10000-6000 BC) everywhere where forming each of 6
"classical" Nostratic families can be expected (Ural, NW China, Pakistan,
Zagros, Palestine, N Pontic).

Frankly, the only thing, I'm really afraid of, is if belonging of
EskimoAleut to Nostratic were proved reliably and finally. Neither they nor
their
ancestors seem never to deal with farming in any form. It would be a mighty
strike for my hypothesis.


[G]
> I feel NWC has linguistic connections with other SinoDene
> languages and can be traced back to a proto-SinoDene c.10,000 BCE.
[A]
If I'm not mistaken earlier you suggested 25,000 BCE for this unity. And I
find the latter figure much more likely.


[G]
> In my view, SinoDene is ancestral to SinoTibetan, NWC and NaDene.
> Now, if this is so, NWC _must_ have travelled from C.Asia to the
> Volga, eventually settling in the Caucasus area. There are
> similarities in pronominal systems (*se "I"), numerals
> (*baryet "eight") and some vocabulary I've reconstructed
> playfully at various coffee shops
[A]
Was it in Holland? Then I shouldn't be surprised by anything :-)


[G]
> If I recall there is some archaeological basis for
> a movement of people into the Caucasus at around 5000 BCE.
[A]
Do you mean the Shulaveri-Shomutepe culture? I'm not sure that it was a
marked migration.
Later, about 3000 BC there were clear migrations of bronze-making people
from the South to the North Caucasus (the Maikop culture) and the South
Caucasus (the Kura-Arax culture). However there are good reasons to believe
that they were NEC-speaking.
As to Kartvelians, I read that the name of one important Georgian regions
"Iberia" origins from "Tabal" in the region of Cilicia which existed there
about 1000 BC.


Alexander