IE and Substrates

[Larry Trask]

JoatSimeon writes:

>I think we should keep in mind that the European linguistic situation in
>historical times is probably much simpler than it was in the Mesolithic or
>early Neolithic.

>Reasoning by analogy from the situation in New Guinea or eastern pre-Columbian
>North America, there were probably _many_ more languages and language-families
>in Europe before the Indo-European expansion.  Not just one or a few non-IE
>families which were then replaced by Indo-European.  The IE expansion would
>then represent a massive linguistic simplification, a "reformatting" of a
>previously crowded scene.

I endorse this absolutely.  I think it's probably right, and I think the modest
amount of evidence we have supports it.

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk