The Neolithic Hypothesis

[Miguel Carrasquer Vidal]

"Glen Gordon" <glengordon01 at hotmail.com> wrote:

[me:]
>>The only firm datum is the numeral <aika> "1" (Skt. e:ka- vs. Av.
>>aeva-).  For all we know, it may have been a fourth branch of
>>Indo-Iranian, which happened to have *aika- for "1", just like
>>Indo-Aryan.

>You're rejecting evidence in favor of a hypothesis again.

No I don't.  I'm giving an alternative hypothesis that also fits
the evidence.

In fact, given the contortions that e.g. Mallory must go through
("In Search of the Indo-Europeans", pp. 35-44) to explain the
presence of Indo-Aryans in the Near East (instead of Iranians, or
some other Indo-Iranian group), and still doesn't succeed in
making much sense of it, I don't see how it can hurt to think
about alternative hypotheses.

The facts are simply:

PIE (non-II) has *oi-no-
Indo-Aryan and "Mitanni" have *oi-ko- (e:ka-, aika-)
Iranian and Nuristani (I think) have *oi-wo- (ae:va-)

We also have e:va (*oi-wo-) "only" in Indo-Aryan.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam