Dating PIE

[manaster at umich.edu]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Larry Trask writes:
 
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.
 
(end of quote)
 
I entirely agree, BUT the only reason we started talking
about this is that Vovin, Delancey, and I pointed out that
Johanna Nichols and her allies canNOT make an argument for
6000 years as the ceiling on the comparative method UNLESS
they recognize SOME "objective" method of dating protolanguages,
which is precisely what Johanna refused to do.
 
In the context of the discussion, the age of PIE is of
no moment at all.  What is at issue is how Johanna
Nichols justifies her belief that we can never in
principle reconstruct any protolg older than PIE or
recover any relationship older than Afro-Asiatic.
 
AMR