Rate of Change

[JoatSimeon at aol.com]

>steve long says

> ----"In many of these cases, certain languages had undergone radical sound
> changes while close relatives remained unchanged. Thus the proto-forms for a
> subgroup often turn out to be identical to forms surviving intact in other

-- ah... you _are_ aware that this is a commonplace of linguistics and has
been for a very long time?

In fact, it's one of the basic features of linguistic development which
underlies the comparative method.

Eg., the Germanic languages change PIE initial *p ==>f, (*phater ==> fadir)
and the Celtic languages drop initial *p altogether (*phater ==> athair),
while most other IE languages preserve the *p.  (*phater ==> pater, patros,
pitar, pacer, etc.)

That's precisely how we know that there _was_ a PIE *p, by observing "the
proto-forms for a subgroup often turn out to be identical to forms surviving
intact in other
languages of the subgroup."

By this we determine consistent patterns of change.  As 'enry 'iggins found
out when looking at Cockney.

Try looking at Latvian and Lithuanian, for instance; Lithuanian serves rather
well as a "proto-language" for Latvian.

Again, your argument requires a terminus ad quem for PIE of around 7000 BCE;
and that simply isn't compatible with the observable data and the basic
assumption of uniform causation.

>>Baltic and Slavic

-- Proto-Slavic is one of the better-established reconstructions, since the
Slavic languages are so similar, and the process of their dispersal and
differentiation is so recent and so well-attested historically.

It seems you have a problem not with my arguments, but with the comparative
method itself.

I'm simply repeating the commonplace, consensus positions.