The Neolithic Hypothesis (Latin et al.)

[JoatSimeon at aol.com]

>X99Lynx at aol.com writes:

>I've been looking for the historical source for that idea for awhile,
>specifically with regard to the northwestern Slavs (the Wends), Czechs and
>Poles, etc.  But I haven't found it.

-- there isn't enough difference between the Slavic languages even now for
there to have been any significant distinction at that time.  Also, the
extreme archaism of OCS (and of the Slavic languages generally) argues
powerfully that they were quite uniform then.

Except where they are separated by other languages (such as Magyar or
Rumanian) the Slavic tongues all have bridge-dialects; they melt into each
other rather seamlessly.  Analysis also indicates that before the intrusion of
the Magyars, this was true of Czech and Slovene.

This is a classic case of rapid language spread from a relatively small
nuclear area promoting relative linguistic uniformity.

>The teaching of Polish was banned for example for a time under the Tsarist
>occupation and Polish speakers

-- sigh.  We have written records of Polish and Russian from the 11th century
on.  Take a look.  They were extremely similar back then, too.  Much more so
than now, in fact.