Various

[iffr762 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu]

On Wed, 27 Jan 1999, Glen Gordon wrote:

> From DLW on IE and Anatolian entrance:

> >	Let's see ... evidence that the Anatolians entered from the
> >west? Like what?  Last I heard there was no clear archeological
> >evidence of any such thing, just the usual muddle and quot homines
> >tot opiniones.

> Well, perhaps not archaelogical but like the very thing Miguel pointed
> to about Parnassos, etc. What is your take on it then? Have I missed
> that comment of yours?

	Unless there some good IE etymology for these, they could be, dare
I say it, substratal in both groups.

> >	Turkic being not IE, which I have known probably longer than
> >Mr. Gordon has been alive, has nothing to do with anything I said.
> >As for waves, the Turks have been moving back and forth in waves
> >across the steppe for some time now, without much separation having
> >occurred.  What is necessary for separation (I am disappointed to
> >have to make such a basic point) is something that stops people from
> >talking to each other.

> Hmm, a little hostile. I can't be blamed for my parent's poor timing in
> copulation. I would have studied Turkic as long as you if I were as
> chronologically advanced as you. Let's work through this calmly before
> things get out of hand. "Turks have been moving back and forth," you
> say. You may notice that you mentioned "back and forth" in the sentence.
> You may also have noticed that I never said that the Anatolian
> population moved "back and forth" around the Black Sea. That would be
> absurd. In your scenario then, of course there would be no seperation
> because no one is going anywhere. The Turkic situation isn't the same at
> all.

	The Turkic peoples moved back and forth (or forth and back)
because there wasn't anything to stop them.  Nor would there have been for
our dearly beloved, the PIEs.  The question is how IE Anatolian got
separated from Greek.  "By crossing the Aegean" is the obvious answer, but
that doesn't necessarily leave enough time, depending on when the movement
is supposed to have occurred.  Note that in later times Greek itself
"crossed" into Anatolia, without that in itself causing much divergence.
MCV's suggestion that perhaps other IE intruded between the pre-Greeks and
pre-Anatolians (IE type) is much more plausible in this regard, but for
Western IE types who seem to have gone through a formative period in
Hungary (I believe it was these he was talking about) to have detoured by
way of the southern Balkans is itself problematic.

> The seperation (I am also disappointed to have to make such a basic
> point) is _time_ like I've said before. The more a person travels
> farther and farther away from someone, the harder it is to communicate
> (unless IndoEuropeans had telephones - "IE phone home?"). Same here, the
> Anatolian contact diminished to nill as the Anatolians moved farther and
> farther away, not back and forth, and mind you, they had a lake to hide
> behind. Why should that idea be resisted? Is there some data I'm
> missing?

	Actually, if you look at what you're saying here, you're really
talking again about space, not time.  And, as I said before, the Aegean
has historically served more as a uniter than divider.  Presumably the
view you are pushing has IEs on the other side of the Aegean at the time
in question.  The Black Sea is of course a true divider, but to think that
the IE Anatolians got into Anatolia without there being other IEs in their
wake closer than the far side of the Black Sea strains credulity.

> >Note the social divisions that have caused some divergence between
> >white and black English in America.  Steppes do not (necessarily) do
> >it.

> Um, any social divisions like these barely involve the clear cut
> linguistic divisions that we're speaking about here.

	I was pointing out that lack of contact (or reduced contact), for
whatever reason, is what causes divergence.  Of course when the barriers
are merely social, no separate languages will result.

> And the Steppes
> don't do anything. The Steppes just sit there like wasted land outside
> of the arena of this debate. Why are you using IE and the Steppes in the
> same sentence? Forget the Steppes (and keep forgetting the mountains
> too).

	Since mountains tend to lead to loss of contact, I will most
certainly not forget them.  You can keep forgetting them if you like,
continuing to imagine, seemingly, that languages diverge because it is
convenient for linguists of the future to posit it, but I for one will
have to be left ouf of this amnesia.

> The Anatolians aren't going across the Steppes to reach Western
> Anatolia from the Pontic-Caspian region if I know my geography at all.
> Are you sure you understood what I'm saying? Perhaps I explained my
> ideas poorly. There _is_ alot of email afterall.\

	What we have here is failure to communicate.

> >	As for what I would mean by the Hittites moving "early" into
> >Anatolia, roughly before 3500 B.C.

> Hopefully I'm not losing track of this debate but why do you think that
> this event should have been before 3500 BCE?

	Again, failure to communicate.  I don't think anything of the
sort.  As I recall, the evidence for the IE Anatolians moving in points to
around 2500-2000, not much time for separation from Greek if the Greeks
moved into Greece around 2000.  But archeology is not my strong point.
(I tend to forget it.  Imagine that.)

> And when you say Hittites do you
> mean Hittites or Anatolians, just to make things absolutely clear.

	I mean IE Anatolians, or their precursors, by all references to
either Hittites or Anatolians.  Sometimes I do not want to use the term
"Anatolians" because it might well be taken to have a geographic rather
than linguistic meaning.

					DLW