the Wheel and Dating PIE

Dr. John E. McLaughlin mclasutt at brigham.net
Sat Jan 29 17:28:33 UTC 2000


I think I finally get what you're really trying to ask here, Steve.  You
want to know how we can be sure that the actual DATE of the wheel's adoption
into Indo-European culture preceded the breakup of PIE as defined by the
sound changes that we use to describe the different families.  Is that a
fair summary?

What you're looking for, however, can't really be answered linguistically.
Let's look at some scenarios.

1)  A small community (about the size of Liechtenstein) of people discovers
that this round thing solves their transportation problems (that's worded so
that it could have either been borrowed or invented).  They name it *kwelos.
The community grows and spreads and divides into different speech areas.
Over time, the sounds change and words come and go.  Modern linguistic
evidence consists of words for 'wheel' in most, if not all, of the
subfamilies descended from that small community and the modern reflexes show
the effects of the sound changes.  We can't date the adoption of the wheel
with linguistic evidence alone other than using the general date assumed for
the proto-language since the linguistic evidence points to an adoption while
the language was unified.

2)  A large group of people live in several communities over an area (about
the size of Estonia), but still speak the same language with only minor
dialect differences.  One of those communities discovers that this round
thing solves their transportation problems.  They name it *kwelos.  The
other communities see this marvelous thing during visits for weddings and
festivals and take it home with them along with *kwelos as its name.  Now we
have the same history and evidence as above, but note that the date of
adoption is later than in Scenario 1.  Linguistically, however, the two are
indistinguishable.

3)  A very large group of people live in a widespread area (about the size
of Poland) speaking languages that are borderline between separate languages
and very disparate dialects.  There is some mutual intelligibility in the
central regions, but speakers from opposite ends of the area cannot
understand one another.  One of the communities discovers that this round
thing solves their transportation problems.  They name it *kwelos.  The
immediately surrounding communities see this thing relatively soon (as in
Scenario 2) and since their speech is similar adopt *kwelos as the name for
it.  It takes a while for it to spread across the entire area, however.
Some of the other groups adopt *kwelos without changing the phonetics to
match their own dialect; some of the other groups use their own word for it.
In this case, the modern linguistic evidence will show that the borrowing
occurred after the sound changes that define the modern subgroups had
already been changing the dialects into separate languages.  Once again,
however, linguistic evidence alone cannot supply any date other than a
relative one.

Note that while Scenarios 1 and 2 are different in terms of their relative
dating for the adoption of the wheel, linguistic evidence alone cannot
distinguish between them, and the language in Scenario 2 would, in general
linguistic terms, be considered the same language as that in Scenario 1.
Both would be considered Proto-Indo-European and linguists would refer to
both situations as "linguistic unity" since modern evidence cannot
distinguish between them.  Scenario 3, however, is quite different and
modern linguistic evidence would be able to identify the relative date of
wheel adoption in relation to the development of the family.

Now, if I understand you correctly, you are trying to find out:  1) How can
linguists distinguish between Scenario 1 and Scenario 2; and 2) What are the
actual dates that distinguish Scenario 2 and Scenario 3.  I've already
answered the first question--we can't.  The answer to your second question
is also--we can't.  We can determine relative dating and make fair estimates
of dating, but we can never give you a specific date without other evidence
(such as written records before and after a change or unequivocal
archeological evidence [usually just more written records]).  We can also
sometimes supply very circuitous dating such as, "Since Language A borrowed
Word B from Language C, and since Word B shows the effects of Sound Change D
in Language A, then Sound Change D must have occurred after Language A was
in contact with Language B."

Linguistics cannot give you dates other than relative ones in the absence of
written records.  Only in concert with specific types of archeological and
historical evidence can linguistics give you absolute dates (I consider
"within the 2nd century BCE" to be as absolute a date as linguistics can
provide for any changes before about the 19th century CE).

John E. McLaughlin, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
mclasutt at brigham.net

Program Director
Utah State University On-Line Linguistics
http://english.usu.edu/lingnet

English Department
3200 Old Main Hill
Utah State University
Logan, UT  84322-3200

(435) 797-2738 (voice)
(435) 797-3797 (fax)



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