Anatolia and Indo-European

[Joel S. Berson]

The article says:

"Linguists believe that the first speakers of the mother tongue,
known as proto-Indo-European, were chariot-driving pastoralists who
burst out of their homeland on the steppes above the Black Sea about
4,000 years ago and conquered Europe and Asia. A rival theory holds
that, to the contrary, the first Indo-European speakers were
peaceable farmers in Anatolia, now Turkey, about 9,000 years ago, who
disseminated their language by the hoe, not the sword."

So the Anatolians "beat their swords into plowshares" (Isaiah 2:4;
see also Micah 4:3 and ... Joel 3:10) and went forth, speaking as they went.

Joel



At 8/24/2012 01:07 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>"Family Tree of [Indo-European] Languages Has Roots in Anatolia,
>Biologists Say", by Nicholas Wade.
>NYTimes, today (Aug. 24), A8 (N.E. Edition).
>http://tinyurl.com/bw59qly
>
>(The illustration's legend begins with an unfortunate sentence: "A
>new study suggests that the sprawling Indo-European family of
>languages originated in Anatolia, or modern-day Turkey."  Surely the
>I-E family did not originate in modern-day Turkey.)
>
>Joel
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org