Eddie R:
>Can you explain why you believe Kartvelian to be a
>Nostratic language, and how, when and where you think it
>became detached from the rest of Nostratic?
I'm certainly not the only believer. Kartvelian seems to go
together with Nostratic like ouija boards and the occult. However,
I am dissatisfied with Bomhard on one thing, concerning his
bountiful reconstructions of pronouns. One may note that there
are a myriad of pronouns, sometimes of the same person, and one
is left wondering exactly what their functions are since they
can't possibly be loosely interchangeable! They must surely
have clear functions.
Upon surveying the language groups in my mind on sunny afternoon
at a favourite coffee shop (ah, coffee is my personal crack
coccaine), I had come to the conclusion that Nostratic has a
suppletive pronominal system that distinguishes between ergative
and absolutive pronouns. Some of Bomhard's pronouns might be badly
reconstructed but in all it hints at this. Kartvelian shows the two
sets of pronouns in its verbal system distinguishing between subject
and object. There also appear to be some reasonable reconstructions
with Kartvelian cognates. However, I don't think that people
fully understand pre-Kartvelian enough to understand how Kartvelian
connects with the rest of Nostratic.
Upon some light delving on my part, I notice that Kartvelian
might've evolved in a similar way as I propose for IndoTyrrhenian.
I notice that in IndoT., vowels are contorted towards a centralized
vowel system and neighbouring consonants adopt any lost
labialisation off of the vowels. As a result, in general, Steppe
*i becomes *� (schwa) (> IE *e) and *u becomes *a (> IE *o) with
labial colouring of neighbouring consonants (eg: *ku > *kWa). I
think something similar happened in Kartvelian, particularly
the labial colouring phenomenon.
Lastly, exactly when Kartvelian would have diverged from Nostratic
is a blur but I notice particular similarities with the Eurasiatic
languages. I feel there was some special tie between them that
seperates these languages from AfroAsiatic. Whether this tie is due
to long-lasting areal influence or due to the fact that Kartvelian
and Eurasiatic form a grouping on a par with AA sharing special
linguistic innovations, I can't firmly decide yet.
More elaboration on my wacky views of Nostratic are here:
http://glen_gordon.tripod.com/LANGUAGE/NOSTRATIC/nostratic.html
>This sounds way too early to me. HU isn't enormously
>more different from Nakh or Daghestanian than the two of
>them are from each other in some respects. All other
>things being equal, we'd be talking about a time depth
>comparable with broad IE.
Hmm. I'm going to be characteristically stubborn and contrary
on this one. If we played with this idea that HU and ND were
undifferentiated until, say, 4000 BCE, that would place the
parent language in Eastern Anatolia at this time with a very
late spread of ND northward... But this wreaks havoc on my
tightly woven web of prehistorical linguistic interactions.
I find that AbAd (Abkhaz-Adyghe) and ND have as many similarities
as they do differences and I would say that this is caused by
a long-standing areal influence between two barely related
languages. With this above scheme, there isn't enough time for
AbAd and ND to interact enough to gain the similarities that they
have.
Further, there does appear to be cultural influence spreading
from the South Caspian northwards, stretching to the North Pontic,
at least up to 7000 BCE. It's mentioned in Mallory's "In Search of
the Indo-Europeans". There is also mention of certain alien
ovicaprids from the South Caspian as well. So what's all that about?
I understand this to be not only a cultural or economic connection
with the north but a linguistic one as well.
Again, it's all woven into my conceptual tapestry such that this
economic, cultural and linguistic transcaucasian nexus was very
gradually demolished in the millenia to come as the
new IndoEuropean speaking population moved in and culturally
assimilated themselves with the natives. At this point, a new
economic connection was being forged on the other side of the
Black Sea with the Balkan peoples. The Caucasus was thereafter
forgotten like a piece of day-old muffin. {sniffle, tear from eye,
sob}
>As you know, I don't think Nakh's relationship with
>Daghestanian is one of uncomplicated sisterhood,
Yes, I remember the online fistfights we had. Don't worry I'm
medicated now :) In your mind, what in particular linguistically
speaking is problematic with the relationship between Nakh and Daghestinian?
>We've already accounted for more than 3000 years'
>difference between HU and ND, so even if nothing funny
>is going on and there's a lot of continued contact
>between the branches, another 8000 years still seems
>a bit much.
Wait a minute, I'm no mathematician but something is awry with
those figures. I didn't say that HU and ND are seperated by 8000
years. I simply mentioned a date of 8000 BCE for the parent
language. If Proto-HU can be dated to 3000 BCE, let's say, and ND
to the same or earlier, we have at most a 5000-year seperation.
This is the same degree of seperation I propose between
IndoEuropean and Uralic. Despite this, these latter languages are
still observably related to each other despite some important
differences and time spans.
>I liked most of the rest of your story, though.
Thanks, it's a novel in progress. :)
- love gLeN
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