the Wheel and Dating PIE

[X99Lynx at aol.com]

In a message dated 1/22/00 12:12:34 AM, JoatSimeon at aol.com wrote:

<<If it was borrowed into PIE while PIE is still united, that dates the era of
PIE unity.  And if it was borrowed later, it wouldn't show the characteristic
sound-shifts of the daughter languages... and it does. Therefore if it was
borrowed, it was borrowed into unified PIE.>>

Excuse me, but what are the dates on those specific sound changes you are
talking about?  And what makes you think they occurred immediately after PIE
was disunited?

This has been brought up before a long time ago.  The identifiable sound
changes in the *kwelos group are prehistoric.  The amount of time that lapsed
between the end of PIE unity and the time those sound changes took effect is
undetermined, except that they all occured before attested records.   There
is a huge gap of time potentially there.  And if this particular word for
wheel entered after PIE dispersed but before those sound changes, then we'd
should have exactly the same outcome.

(And BTW how drastic are the sound changes do we see in one of the other
wheel words:
 Latin, rota; Lith, ratas; OHG, rod; Ir, roth - cf. Skt, ratha?)

Steve Long