the Wheel and Dating PIE

Stanley Friesen sarima at friesen.net
Sun Jan 30 18:14:36 UTC 2000


At 03:57 AM 1/27/00 -0600, Rick Mc Callister wrote:
>	I agree that if there are regular reflexes, then the word would
>have borrowed either during a period of unity OR during a period of
>adjacent dialects in the same sense that Romance is ...

This latter case does NOT generally result in regular reflexes.  Indeed
your recent examples, such as coffee, tobacco, and telephone demonstrate
this.  The French version and the Spanish versions of these words *do*
*not* show the sound correspondences found in inherited words. This
*despite* the current existence of a dialect continuum between French and
Spanish.

>	This begs the question of how long IE languages existed as a chain
>of dialects.

Not at all.  A late borrowing, even while there was still a chain of
dialects, would fail to incorporate the regular sound changes, unless it
happened so very early the dialects were barely divergent.  (And the 2000
or so years from the beginning of the Neolithic to the Late Neolithic
origin of the wheel and wagon is *far* too long for such to be the case).

>	If Romance could have persisted for roughly 2000 years as a chain
>of dialects, how long could IE have remained in that state?

Actually, rather less than 2000.  Latin was not really established in
western Europe until circa 100 or 200 AD, and Latin did not really lose its
unity until sometime around 500 AD or so.

--------------
May the peace of God be with you.         sarima at ix.netcom.com



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