Dating PIE

[Larry Trask]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
While I do not wish to deny that our estimated dates for
proto-languages are often tenuous, I want to take issue with
suggestions that the commonly accepted date of 6000 BP for PIE is no
more than a wild guess.
 
To begin with, the attested IE languages of the second and first
millennia BC do give us a *terminus ante quem* for PIE, and the
degree of divergence among the attested early languages is such that
few people seem to be happy with putting PIE only a few centuries
earlier than this.
 
The linguistic evidence alone is not sufficient to give us a
*terminus post quem*, but recall that there exists a standard
argument for estimating this.  Many specialists are satisfed that we
can reconstruct PIE words pertaining to technology, and most
particularly to wheeled vehicles, including `wheel', `axle' and
`nave'.  Now, if this is true, then it follows that the PIE-speakers
must have known wheeled vehicles.  But the archeologists can find no
evidence for wheeled vehicles before about 6000 BP.  Therefore, the
arguments runs, 6000 BP is a *terminus post quem* for PIE.
 
Now, of course, you are under no obligation to accept this argument.
You are at liberty to question the reconstructions, or the meanings
assigned to them, and you are even at liberty to query the
conclusions of the archeologists.  But you cannot dismiss the date of
6000 BC as a mere wild guess: that date is based upon evidence and
argument.
 
Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
England
 
larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk