No Proto-Celtic?

[Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen]

On Mon, 30 Apr 2001, Larry Trask wrote:

> [...] The null hypothesis is this:

> The IE languages are not descended by divergence from a single common
> ancestor.

> This null hypothesis is spectacularly falsified by the data, by the
> extensive and elaborate systematic patterns linking all of the IE
> languages.  A convergence scenario predicts nothing more than shared
> elements and resemblances.  This is not what we find, and so the
> convergence scenario is falsified.
[..]

Hear, hear! A bit annoying that truths like this one have to be repeated
over and over again whenever some uninformed know-it-all comes riding in
and tries to shoot up the results of two centuries of steady scholarly
progress. All the nicer to see it done so soberly.

Jens