[Glen]
> 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, this happens but under rather specifical conditions. I know examples of
this kind _only_ for situations when the contrast between neighbouring
populations is enormously high - like between societies on the level of the
Iron Age technology and hunter-gatherers, or between a mighty empire and
barbarians (only in some cases). However these processes hardly can be
explained as travelling of languages between different "independent" folks.
Actually it is a part of the assimilation process and as its result the
group accepting a foreign language becomes an ethnographic group (a
subethnos) of the folk whose language was accepted.
Do you know examples when languages travelled between populations of
approximately equal economical level? Like it normally happens with cultural
lexic (single words - not the "whole language"!).
> 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.
[G]
> 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.
[A]
I'm afraid, there is terminological misunderstanding here (it's my fault).
What is the difference between ethnography and ethnology in English?
Is there a special term for studying ethnogenesis?
[G]
> 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.
[A]
I'm at the drawing board now. My variant of the solution is under
construction.
Is yours completed?
[G]
> There has to be some basis for your ideas, otherwise
> your thinking is groundless, merely a personal religious belief.
[A]
Glen, one could say the same to you (I mean travelling of languages without
human bodies, ignoring archaeology, voluntaristic dating etc.).
But I will not. Because it's _your_ approach. Only you can judge whether it
corresponds to all fundamental regularities you _believe_ in.
Accepting a postulate is a kind belief isn't it? All the sciences are built
on postulates.
[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).
[G]
> Grouping languages on the basis of archaeology is irrational.
[A]
Indeed.
But what do we have here?
The Nostratic superfamily is a linguistic idea, not an archaeological one,
right?
Not so much archaeology, but rather ethnography and history suggest regions
which can be considered as places of forming every Nostratic family, are not
they?
Now comes archaeology and says: in every region of forming a Nostratic
family one finds a microlithic sickles-using cultures of the appropriate
age.
Is it "Grouping languages on the basis of archaeology"?
[G]
> 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.
[A]
I'm not sure that _all_ the comparativists think so. Yet.
[A]
> >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.
[G]
> You read from where? What name?
[A]
I met these claims in different places, but they were not scientific
articles, rather popular reviews (I'm not sure that all of them are worth
trusting). That's why I used the form "I read" instead of "historians say".
Some quotes:
http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/nation01.htm "The descendants of Tubal
first come to our notice in the inscriptions of Tiglath-pileser I, King of
Assyria c.1100 BC. He refers to them as the Tabali, whose original area of
settlement (that is, Tabal) was adjacent to that of Tegarama (that is,
Togarmah, see 5). Suhsequently, Josephus was to record the name of Tubal's
descendants as the Thobelites, who later became the Iberes. Their land, in
Josephus' day, was known to the Romans as Iberia, and covered what is today
the state of Georgia in the USSR."
http://www.prewrath-rapture.org/enddays/tb_gog.html "Tubal is the fifth son
of Japheth, and brother of Magog and Meshech (Gen. 10:22). Like Meshech, the
ancient nation of Tubal was known by several different, but similar, names,
including Thobel and Tabal, and the people were known variously as the
Thobelites and the Tiberani. Josephus claimed that Tubal "founded the
Thobelites, who are now called the Iberes." Most students of geography today
would note that the Iberian Peninsula is located in Spain, and might
conclude that the nation Tubal is therefore Spain. However, historians have
noted that an Iberian people habituated the area east of the Black Sea. (The
connection with Spain is an interesting one, and one we shall explore
further later.) In Ezekiel's time, Tubal was also known as Tabal, and was
located west of the land occupied by Meshech, in eastern Turkey."
http://www.ldolphin.org/cooper/ch3.html (Comparison Tabal/Tubal - Tbilisi
and Tabal - Pyrinean Iberia): "For example, and as we shall note in Appendix
3, Tubal (4) was the father of a people known to the Assyrians as the
Tabali, whose land, Tabal, (present-day Georgia in what used to be the USSR,
whose modern capital Tblisi perpetuates the name of Tubal), lay adjacent to
that of the biblical Togarmah, (Assyr. Tegarama). From Nennius, however,
comes the added detail that from Tubal came the Iberian, the Spanish and the
Italian races. And this receives at least partial support from Josephus, who
wrote some seven hundred years before Nennius, that Tubal was the father of
the Thobelites, known. as Iberians in his own day."
Alexander