The Neolithic Hypothesis

[Miguel Carrasquer Vidal]

Steve Long (X99Lynx at aol.com) wrote:

>The point was that the difference between Greek and Vedic Sanskrit and their
>common ancestor could be explained geographically.

Not "geographically".  The main factor is time.

>I was saying was that when speakers of a common language go to different
>geographical locations, their languages will predictably lose commonality.

>This is rather obvious and I'm sure you are making some other point, but I'll
>address it just to be clear.  Distance in terms of geography will predictably
>have an effect on the way two languages diverge from a common ancestor.

It's not a function of distance.  If we compare Greek and
Sanskrit the actual distance does not matter one bit.  What
matters is contact, and no contact is no contact, no matter if
there's 100, 1,000 or 10,000 km in between.  Conversely, English
borrowings are entering almost all languages of the world at this
time, without there being _geographical_ contact with any English
speaking region.

>In an old post re "the Danube Homeland" dated 3/6/99, you wrote: <<Most
>importantly, the "Kurgan" model cannot adequately explain the linguistic
>facts.  The gap between Anatolian and the rest of IE is too large to be fitted
>into the limited time allowed by the Kurgan movements into SE Europe.  The
>unique features of Western languages like Germanic,... also remain largely
>unexplained.>>  Aren't you suggesting that the "Kurgan" model - in terms of
>time and distance -needs to "explain the linguistics facts" here?  Isn't "the
>limited time allowed by the Kurgan movements" a function of distance?

>And what about "peripheral conservatism?"  Isn't that really a matter of
>distance or what is peripheral about?

It's about location.  There are indeed cases where location
(geography) matters.  We expect "archaisms" to turn up in
peripheral, or mountainous areas, where isogloss waves do not
travel so fast or so often.  But that doesn't mean that
"peripheral" languages don't change: they do, and the changes
often look very striking (odd, bizarre), precisely because they
are shared by no-one else.  And it doesn't mean that archaisms
cannot survive in central areas.  They do.

><<I don't think you need external causes at all to account for
>language change.  It just happens.>>

>And this is so obviously untrue that I can only think that I've misunderstood
>you here, once again.

>[ Moderator's comment:
>  Modern Icelandic has, until very recently, been unaffected by linguistic
>  externals, yet it has changed radically in pronunciation from Old Norse.
>  You have obviously misunderstood MCV's point:  Languages change, and they
>  do so without external cause.  The existence of external forces in some
>  kinds of linguistic change do not necessitate their existence in all forms
>  of change.
>  --rma ]

Precisely.  There are all kinds of external factors: borrowings,
sub-, super- and adstrates, Sprachbunde, etc.  There are also
geographical factors: peripheralisms, innovative cores, etc.
But change itself just happens (for one thing it's an inevitable
result of the language learning process).  If there's something
external that can be used as a trigger or source, it may well be
utilized, but then again it may not and instead some new and
completely random change will take place.  Or no change takes
place, for no reason.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam