reality of PIE

[JoatSimeon at aol.com]

>petegray at btinternet.com writes:

>but I am challenging the assumption that all daughter languages must - by
>definition - come from a single undifferentiated original. >>

-- that's only if you insist there's a meaningful difference between
"tolerably undifferentiated" and "absolutely undifferentiated".  There isn't
really.

What we can say with some confidence is that, at the time our reconstructions
cease, PIE exists as a set of highly mutually intelligible dialects -- no
more distinct than the contemporary dialects of English or German, say.

That's close enough to a single, undifferentiated language for government
work.  This isn't organic chemistry, after all.