Alexander:

>I meant that speaking about migrations you (almost) never try to
>find reasons of them, mechanisms behind them.

Not at all. Languages do have reasons for expansion. However,
it doesn't always involve movement of a population. It could be
caused by heavy cultural or economic exchange.


Alexander:

>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.

Erh. I don't agree. You're thinking too narrowly. Linguistics is
one study and ethnology is another. They are on an even keel
and neither should be seen as subservient to the other. However,
being that this is a linguistic forum and the topic being
linguistics and linguistic origins, in order to discuss things
fruitfully, the focus must be primarily placed on linguistics.
Again, it doesn't mean that ethnology is unimportant. Hardly!
It just means that the basis for any linguistic origins theory must
be primarily _linguistic_.

On that note, you admit, among other things, that a single etymon
like *kori is a weak leg to stand on. I agree. So I guess you might
either go back to the drawing board and find stronger evidence to
support your views, or adopt a better view.

>For you linguistics is self-sufficient, you find all the causes
>and effects inside it.

You've totally misunderstood me. Granted, I personally discover
a lot of fun things with linguistics, but I definitely do not
consider the study self-sufficient. I _have_ taken ethnology in
university before. I didn't fall off the turnip truck yesterday >:)

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

No <:) It's just that it would be nice if you had a linguistic
point to make on a linguistic forum. If you had a linguistic
point backed up by both linguistics and archaeology or ethnology
somehow, that would be nice too.

>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?

No, of course not. However "lack of evidence" is just that. You
can't pull rabbits out of thin air and expect to convert
the masses. There has to be some basis for your ideas, otherwise
your thinking is groundless, merely a personal religious belief.

>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).

Grouping languages on the basis of archaeology is irrational.

>Frankly, the only thing, I'm really afraid of, is if belonging of
>EskimoAleut to Nostratic were proved reliably and finally.

Well, if you accept that Uralic-Yukaghir is a Nostratic language,
then you must accept that EskimoAleut is a Nostratic language
because they are closely entwined and share special grammatical
features such as subject-object conjugation and more subtle features
that can't have arisen by coincidence.

>If I'm not mistaken earlier you suggested 25,000 BCE for this unity. And I
>find the latter figure much more likely.

Maybe you were thinking of "Dene-Caucasian" which I consider
to be the ancestor of SinoDene, BuruYen, Nostratic and
VascoCaucasic.

>>There are similarities in pronominal systems (*se "I"), numerals
>>(*baryet "eight") and some vocabulary I've reconstructed
>>playfully at various coffee shops
>
>Was it in Holland? Then I shouldn't be surprised by anything :-)

Close... in Canada.

>>If I recall there is some archaeological basis for
>>a movement of people into the Caucasus at around 5000 BCE.
>
>Do you mean the Shulaveri-Shomutepe culture? I'm not sure that it
>was a marked migration.

How "marked" does it have to be before it's considered a 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.

Why? Because of your view that demic movement correlates a hundred
percent of the time with linguistic movement?

>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.

You read from where? What name?


- love gLeN





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